Condemning without confronting: Indexing within Australian news media framing of former Indonesian president Joko Widodo amid his endorsement of Prabowo Subianto for the 2024 election
Published in School of the Arts and Media, UNSW Sydney, 2025
Abstract
There are growing concerns over democratic backsliding in Indonesia, which could carry implications for regional trade, geopolitics, security, and stability. Amid this concern, a pressing question arises over whether journalism in Australia – a key neighbouring country with established liberal-democratic engagement – can present coverage that independently scrutinises politics beyond its borders. This study aims to address the question by testing the hypothesis of indexing theory, which states that media tend to align foreign affairs reporting with the perspectives of elites, by analysing how Australian news media framed former Indonesian president Joko Widodo (Jokowi)’s political endorsement of a former military general of Suharto’s era, Prabowo Subianto (Prabowo), as his preferred successor. The corpus comprises news stories, editorials, and commentaries on the 2024 Indonesian presidential election published by The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News Online, and The Guardian Australia between October 2023 and October 2024 (n = 111). A deductive content analysis using generic and policy issues typologies shows that, although articles that predominantly use morality and responsibility frames often employ negative tone and unofficial sources to condemn Jokowi’s action, Australian news media coverage of the endorsement is insufficient to overturn the indexing hypothesis. The prevalence of neutral tone in articles with other emerging frames, including economic consequences and public opinion, suggests that the criticism is not comprehensive and systematic enough to confront the pragmatist stance of Australian elites towards Jokowi. The findings presented here have implications for scholars and practitioners interested in media-state relations, news coverage of foreign leaders, and cross-border political journalism.
Recommended citation: Fauzan, HA. (2025). Condemning without confronting: Indexing within Australian news media framing of former Indonesian president Joko Widodo amid his endorsement of Prabowo Subianto for the 2024 election [Master's thesis, The University of New South Wales]. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.15807.06568
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