Australian Media Representation of Indonesia in 'The Death of Soeharto' as Seen Through Appraisal Analysis

摘要

This study analyzes the representation of Indonesia by two Australian broadsheet newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. The framework used in the analysis is the attitude sub-system of the appraisal system (Martin and Rose, 2003, 2007; Martin and White, 2005). The data are two news articles from each newspaper about the death of the former Indonesian president, Soeharto. In each set, one article is of the report type and the other is of the comment-debate type. From the analysis, it is seen that the general representation of Indonesia in these Australian newspapers tends to be negative. While there is a balance of positive and negative representations in the news reports, the representation in the comment-debate type articles shows a contrast in representation. This study concludes that Martin's appraisal system is a powerful framework for analyzing media representation.