The Framing of Women Figure in Indonesian Political Stage

Abstract

The involvement of women candidates in Indonesia regional elections 2015 and the news construction by online media related to that phenomenon are being the core of this research. The curiosity of feminine issues struggle in a patriarchal political culture is served as the background for this study. By using qualitative analysis through framing approach, it aims to explore comprehensive understanding of how online media in Indonesia depicts women candidates throughout one week before and after the D-day of elections. The framing analysis model developed by Robert N. Entman has considered as the one which could support a hypothesis for exploring the context surrounding the text. The result shows that the domination of patriarchal culture in politics is gradually shifting to more equal ones which also proving that political culture is dynamic. Rather than confronting women leaders in term of gender, media actually aiming for public attention by looking at marketable news. Simply said, there is no need for women in politics to adopt masculine values instead of focus on her own empowerment since women and men can be defined only correlatively not comparatively. Keywords: women candidates, regional elections, framing analysis