The Language of Protest: Ideological Framing in Indonesian’s Demonstration News Headlines

Abstract

This study examines the ideological representations constructed by Indonesian online news media in their coverage of the August 2025 parliamentary demonstrations, with particular emphasis on the linguistic strategies embedded in the headlines. The study highlights the lack of attention paid to a comprehensive ideological analysis of news headlines pertaining to Indonesian demonstrations. Using a descriptive qualitative design with a netnographic approach, thirty-seven headlines from several national media outlets were examined through Fairclough’s three-dimensional CDA model, supported by van Dijk’s socio-cognitive perspective. The analysis focused on transitivity patterns, thematic structures, nominalization, and representational strategies to identify underlying ideological meanings. The findings reveal that police-centered headlines frequently employ bald reporting, euphemism, and justification-of-action structures that can obscure agency or soften negative impressions of state actors. In contrast, demonstrator-centered headlines tend to use either direct (bald) constructions or condemnation-of-action patterns that establish causality and portray the protestors as sources of disruption. The analysis also reveals instances where victims are foregrounded in headline themes, creating a humanizing effect and drawing emotional attention to specific individuals involved in the events. Overall, the study concludes that the language used in these headlines is not neutral but strategically constructed to promote particular interpretations of the demonstrations. The identified patterns show how linguistic choices in headline formulation contribute to ideological framing that influences public perceptions of protest and social conflict.