CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1 Discussions
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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1. Discussions
As stated in the theory, domestic public diplomacy has to be understood as “a part of nation’s overall public diplomacy effort” (Melissen, 2011, p. 19) and the success of the conduct of public diplomacy will never be apart from the success of the government in enacting interactions with multiple stakeholders at home, primarily the citizens (Bátora, 2005). In this case study of Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang, the Indonesian government realizes that the communication to their domestic public is just as important as their communication to the international world that they also manage to keep updating the citizens about the developing of this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang issue.
Using their official news websites, namely antaranews.com, Indonesia is one of the countries that started to perform “digital diplomacy”, which focuses on the usage of internet and digital media to communicate with the public. In the realm of new public diplomacy in the 21st century, the use of this news websites to communicate with the public has a stronger meaning to Indonesia more than the trend and benefits. A research done by Indonesian Digital Association (IDA) showed that news media has a huge role in shaping public opinion as the percentage of Indonesian people consuming online news is up to 96% (Afrianto, 2016), thus the use of this news websites as the government’s communication tool with the public is extremely important and strongly affect the success of the public diplomacy.
As the main goal of public diplomacy is “to shape positive attitudes toward the
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this goal, the use of media framing mentioned as one of the ways to achieve the goal in a more effective way (Gilboa, 2006). As every issue can be presented in many ways that may influence how people think about an issue, Gilboa (2008, p. 64) stated that framing is “media selection, exclusion of, and emphasis on certain issues and approaches to promote a particular definition, interpretation, moral evaluation, or a solution”. In terms of public diplomacy, Entman (2004) suggested that “Presidents and their chief foreign policy advisers, elites, and the media, are engaged in a battle to shape frames that reach the public through the media and greatly influence the formation of public opinion” (Gilboa, 2008, 64).
In this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang case, the Indonesian government as the actor performs media framing to shape the frames that influence the formation of the public opinion expected by selecting what is important to put into their news coverage. To understand more about this media framing that the Indonesian government performs in this domestic public diplomacy process, this leads to the research questions that this study tries to answer, which will be further discussed in the next sections.
5.1.1. News Tone Analysis
To answer the first research question (RQ1), which is “To what extent the news tone of Indonesian government media was correlated to the news tone of friendly private media in the case of Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang?”, this study employs quantitative content analysis method to analyze both the news tone of antaranews.com and detik.com. The goal is to understand to what extent the news tone of antaranews.com is correlated to the news tone of detik.com. As the main goal of public diplomacy is “to shape positive attitudes toward the country”
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to try to shape the news tone into the positive tone and detik.com as the private media that is government-friendly here is expected to be in the same direction with the government media as later it will help to shape the public opinion desired.
Figure 12 below shows the result of the news tone analysis for both antaranews.com and detik.com. In some periods, both of them pretty polarized and antaranews.com always tried to be more positive than detik.com in their news coverage regarding this issue. Looking at the correlation number, both of them show a pretty low correlation with the number 0.14 (range from -1 to +1), meaning that they are not strongly correlated to each other.
Figure 12. News Tone Analysis Comparison (November 2018 – June 2019)
As seen in figure 8, in some period, for example from article number 13-21 and 23-35, both news tone is actually going to the similar direction with
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at the same time, it is quite balanced in their news coverage as detik.com also showed a similar effort. However, in some periods, for example from article number 35-41, when antaranews.com tried to be more positive, detik.com showed a total contradictory to that. Also, the same thing happened at some points around article number 9-11. When antaranews.com tried to cover the news more positively, detik.com showed a totally different point of view in their news coverage, thus showing the negative tone instead. It becomes slightly better at the end of detik.com’s coverage (article number 47-52) as the news tone is going to the similar direction again with antaranews.com.
Looking at the points where both of the news tone is contradictory to each other, those are actually two major periods where the problems happened and those are the time when the domestic public diplomacy is needed. First, in article 9-11, they mostly cover about the protest that first happened in December 2018 and antaranews.com tried to emphasize on how Indonesian government was still waiting for further information from the diplomat about the real situation in Xinjiang and how China stated that they protect the religious freedom of their citizens. While detik.com, they tried to emphasize on numerous disagreements to the government’s idea to wait and urge them to quickly take a stand and speak up about this issue on behalf of the Muslim countries. Second, on article 35-41, antaranews.com tried to emphasize on how China Embassy came to visit Muhammadiyah (a major Islamic non-governmental organization in Indonesia) and discuss with them about this issue, while detik.com mostly covered about numerous protests that happened again in other regions, such as in China and New York.
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Looking at the results of the news tone analysis and these two major periods when the news tone of both media is in total contradictory, the answer to the first research question (RQ1), which is “To what extent the news tone of Indonesian government media was correlated to the news tone of friendly private media in the case of Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang?”, clearly both antaranews.com and detik.com is not strongly correlated to each other in the case of this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang issue. This is quite surprising as detik.com as the government-friendly media that is expected to be in the same direction with the government media turns out shows a minimum correlation to the government media’s interest. The fact that detik.com is somehow ‘behind’ the President’s side and supposed to support the government’s idea is not helping in this Muslim Uighurs case.
Yes, at some points, the news tone of both media also goes to the same direction with each other, but it cannot deny the fact that in those two major periods, even detik.com as one of the biggest private media that is government-friendly did not really support the government’s idea. It is actually so important to have the private media in line with the government media as Kepplinger et al. (1989, p. 338) suggests that “The trend in press reporting preceded trends in public opinion. Thus, the trend in press reporting can be viewed as paving the way for subsequent trends in public opinion”. Especially, in this case, this could be an issue as with its huge readership and the fact that it is now the most accessed news media in Indonesia, detik.com has a huge role in shaping the public opinion that can affect the domestic public diplomacy process of Indonesian government in this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang case.
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5.1.2. News Frames Analysis
To answer the second research question (RQ2), which is “To what extent the news frames of Indonesian government media was correlated to the news frames of friendly private media in the case of Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang?”, this study employs a content analysis method to analyze both the news frames of antaranews.com and detik.com. This is based on the idea that “several actors, including presidents and their chief foreign policy advisers, elites, and the media, are engaged in a battle to shape frames that reach the public through the media and greatly influence the formation of public opinion” (Gilboa, 2008, p. 64).
The goal is to contrast the news frames used by both antaranews.com and detik.com as the news frames used by the media have an important role in influencing public opinion. Figure 13 below shows the result of news frames analysis for both antaranews.com and detik.com to make it clearer.
Figure 13. News Frames Analysis Comparison
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Figure 13 shows that although they have similarities on some news frames, both antaranews.com and detik.com put their emphasis on different news frames as the dominant ones. For example, both of them did not really put much focus on economic consequences as it is not the main issue in this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang case and both of them seem to agree with each other on that point. However, the most dominant news frames used in antaranews.com is the human interest frame and in detik.com is the conflict frame. Looking back at the news tone where antaranews.com always tried to be more positive than detik.com, this news frames analysis result seems to have a valid connection with the news tone shaped.
The domestic public diplomacy done by the Indonesian government through antaranews.com is expected to shape a positive news tone, thus it is reasonable for antaranews.com that human interest frame came up as the most dominant one as the use of particular ways in that frame potentially develop positive feelings and response, compared to other news frames. Human interest frame “refers to an effort to personalize the news, dramatize or “emotionalize”
the news, to capture and retain audience interest” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000) and based on the news frames analysis, the most dominant element of this frame that antaranews.com used is Visual Content. It means that by using visual content, antaranews.com tried to “generate feelings of outrage, empathy caring, sympathy, or compassion” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000).
Looking back at the result, 45 articles from all 68 articles of antaranews.com included pictures in their news coverage to support the
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government choose to “not intervene” China in handling this issue, antaranews.com tries to generate a positive feeling and put focus on the emotional angle to somehow shows to the public that the situation in Xinjiang is under control, the Uighurs people are fine, and we (Indonesia) do not have to intervene China in handling this issue so far. By showing pictures that support the idea, it is expected to capture audience interest and generate a stronger positive feeling.
While for detik.com, that seems to not really in line with antaranews.com and shows a more negative tone in general, it is also reasonable that conflict frame came up as the most dominant one as conflict frame
“emphasizes conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). They tried to capture audience interest by putting more focus on the conflict, especially on the Involved Parties and Disagreement elements, where it emphasizes the parties involved and the disagreement between them, thus it potentially associated with more negative news tone rather than the positive one. 46 articles from all 52 articles put focus on the parties involved and 21 of 52 articles put focus on the disagreement between them. The news articles emphasize the issue and somehow wants to show to the public on how big or serious or complicated this Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang case is.
So, the answer to the second research question (RQ2), which is “To what extent the news frames of Indonesian government media was correlated to the news frames of friendly private media in the case of Muslim Uighurs Xinjiang?”, is clear enough that antaranews.com preferably used human interest frame and
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issue in a quite different way with antaranews.com, so it clearly received a different result too. Again, detik.com, which is a government-friendly media that is expected to be in the same direction as the government media, turns out shows a contradictory result. Where antaranews.com tried to frame it more positively, detik.com framed it in a contradictory way. The news frames used in the media is so essential to the public diplomacy process as stated in the theory,
“Presidents and their chief foreign policy advisers, elites, and the media, are engaged in a battle to shape frames that reach the public through the media and greatly influence the formation of public opinion” (Gilboa, 2008, 64). This result of the news frames analysis thus shows a connection with the news tone analysis result as the domestic public diplomacy done by the Indonesian government through the government media is not strongly correlated to the friendly private media.