SEMINAR: Asian Studies Seminar

This study aims to analyse the media coverage of disaster in Indonesia by looking at how two daily print newspapers (Kedaulatan Rakyat and Kompas) reported on two different types of disasters: the Mt. Merapi eruption of 2010 and forest fires in 2015. It will focus on the images used in the reporting of those two disasters because images are powerfully effective modes of communication that can be manipulated to exploit sentiment (Sontag 1979). This study will analyse how particular aspects of reality are selected by the media and the factors that determine each selection. Understanding the way the media select disaster images is important because dramatized or sensationalized photos may commodify suffering in order to drive traffic and increase circulation but this also misrepresents the nature of the disasters. This misrepresentation has implications for disaster management, how people respond to the disaster, and how assistance can be provided. Currently the Indonesian media have no guidelines for the publication of photos and studies by Masduki (2007) have expressed concerns at the way disasters have been portrayed by the media and what this means for official responses. Through the analysis of the images in the two newspapers and interviews with photojournalists, editors, broadcast media editors, and the Indonesian Journalist Association, it is possible to identify the influences behind the framing of the two disaster events and to consider how the exposure of these influences may lead to the development of best practice reportage of disaster events in Indonesia.