The Case of Sukabumi’s Teenage Rape in Online News Text: Sara Mills’ Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstrak

The news or issues about women often position them as marginalized and underrepresented in mass media. This study aims at investigating the news about the rape of a finalist in the Sukabumi’s Putri Nelayan contest reported by Detikcom, Tuesday, July 16, 2024 edition. The approach used in this study was Sara Mills’ critical discourse analysis theory and the paradigm applied was descriptive qualitative. The data were collected by applying content analysis with read-and-record technique. They were analyzed by employing Sara Mills’ CDA theory comprising the subject-object position and the writer-reader position. The results showed that Detikcom presented the news about the rape of a finalist of the Sukabumi’s Putri Nelayan contest in Palabuhanratu, Sukabumi. The news focused on revealing the chronology of incidents by the victim's father based on his daughter's confession. The portrayal of women in this news was highlighted by the actors who played roles as subject and as object in the report. The subject was the narrator and the object was the one being narrated. These portrayals illustrated how women were represented in news text. It could be concluded that Detikcom demonstrated its bias towards the victim by prioritizing the victim as the primary subject.