Representation Of The Police In tempo Article Entitled "Exposing Manipulation": A text Analysis.

ABSTRACT

Dalam Tugas Akhir ini, saya mengambil sebuah artikel mengenai kasus
Bibit-Chandra dari majalah Tempo tanggal 3-9 November 2009 yang berjudul
“Exposing Manipulation” sebagai sumber data untuk dianalisis. Metode penelitian
yang digunakan adalah penelitian kepustakaan dengan buku-buku teks dan
internet sebagai bahan rujukan. Adapun tujuan dilakukannya penelitian yang
dituangkan dalam Tugas Akhir ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana polisi
direpresentasikan dalam majalah Tempo.
Dalam menganalisis artikel ini, saya menggunakan beberapa teori dari Van
Dijk mengenai teks, representasi, dan menghadirkan orang lain atau kelompok
lain secara negatif yang tergantung pada aspek semantik, leksikon, sintaksis,
pengutipan, dan elemen-elemen grafologis. Dengan menggunakan teori-teori
tersebut, saya dapat menunjukkan bagaimana representasi polisi dalam artikel ini.
Dari hasil analisis dapat disimpulkan bahwa Tempo merepresentasikan
polisi secara negatif. Hal ini dapat dilihat dari pemilihan kata atau lexicon,
penggunaan nominalization dan passive construction, polisi yang dihadirkan
secara tersirat, adanya bukti yang tidak kuat pada artikel, dan dari polisi yang
digambarkan secara rinci.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................... i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................ iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ........................................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem ....................................................................... 4
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................... 4
Method of Research ................................................................................ 4
Organization of the Thesis...................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1. Text and Representation .................................................................. 6
2.2. Negative Other-Presentation and Positive Self-Presentation .......... 6
2.3. Strategies to Create Representation ................................................. 7
CHAPTER THREE: REPRESENTATION OF THE
POLICE IN TEMPO ARTICLE

ENTITLED “EXPOSING MANIPULATION” ................................ 13
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ................................................................. 26
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 30
APPENDIX .......................................................................................................... 33

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
It is widely known that Indonesia has a bad reputation as the most corrupt
country in the world. It is confirmed by the statement that Indonesia is in the first
rank in corruption cases in Asia (Famega Syavira). It is caused by many cases of
bribery and corruption which are practised in Indonesia today. Bibit Samad Rianto
and Chandra M. Hamzah’s case is one of the cases of bribery and corruption
which happened in Indonesia recently. Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M.

Hamzah are the chairmen of Corruption Eradication Commission. They are
accused of having repealed the ban toward Anggoro Widjojo, the director of PT
Masaro Radikom, a corruption suspect in the procurement of the Integrated Radio
Communication System at the Forestry Department.
Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah’s case is widely discussed
in the media. The National Police Chief General, Bambang Hendarso Danuri, and
Attorney General, Hendarman Supandji, have repeatedly tried to convince the
public that there is no falsification by Anggodo Widjojo towards the two leaders
of the Corruption Eradication Commission, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M.
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Hamzah. However, in other media, the journalists report that the case
against Bibit and Chandra is clearly engineered by Anggoro Widjojo’s younger
brother, Anggodo Widjojo, who has been sent by Anggoro to bribe Bibit and
Chandra through Ari Muladi. Anggodo does it in order to help his brother
in solving the illegal procurement of the Integrated Radio Communication
system at the


Forestry Department, the police, and the Attorney General

(Sandro)
Bibit and Chandra are considered to have repealed the ban toward
Anggoro Widjojo. Therefore, the police investigators conduct an investigation
into Bibit and Chandra’s case. The investigators, however, think that Bibit and
Chandra are trying to complicate the investigation by leading the public opinion
through their statements in the media and discussion forums, whereas through
their statement in the media and discussion forums, Bibit and Chandra want to
reveal the truth that they do not take bribe from Anggoro. It can be proved from a
recording which contains a conversation between Anggodo Widjojo, several highranking attorney generals, and several officials from the police department who
falsify Bibit and Chandra’s case to make Bibit and Chandra the suspects of the
bribery case. The police do not collect the proofs before finding out who is
responsible for this bribery case, but they arrest the people before looking for the
proofs. It can be proved from how the police investigation has been inverted (Arry
Anggadha).
As mentioned before, different media has reported the case differently.
However, in my opinion, Bibit and Chandra suffer from injustice which is done
by the police or the government. In this thesis, I take an article from Tempo


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magazine, one of the media whose opinion is in accordance with mine, as my
data. The article is entitled “Exposing Manipulation”. It was published in Tempo
magazine dated November 3-9, 2009. I choose the article because I want to know
how Tempo represents the police in this cover story, and I can find enough data
that I can analyse by using Van Dijk’s theory in this article. In this article, it
seems that Bibit and Chandra, in a way, are the good figures and the police are the
bad one. Tempo seems to side with Bibit and Chandra in reporting the conflicts
between KPK, in this case Bibit and Chandra, and the police. Thus, I would like
to analyse how Tempo presents the representation of the police in one of the
articles in Tempo English, the edition of which is entitled Special Report Survival
of the Fittest. By doing the study, I hope to find out how a text which appears in
mass media represents a powerful institution.
In my thesis, text analysis will be applied as the major approach of my
analysis. I choose text analysis in order to show the representation of the police in
the case of Bibit and Chandra. Since the practice of representation uses language
as its medium (Eriyanto 116), I choose to analyze the language use in a written

text, which is a semantic unit and a social exchange of meanings (Halliday and
Hasan 2).
To elaborate my analysis, I will use Van Dijk’s negative otherpresentation and positive self-presentation. I will analyze quotes, lexicon or
choice of words, as well as the syntax, semantics, and graphological elements
used in the data. In lexicon, there are rhetoric, which is hyperbole, metaphor, and
register. In syntax, there are nominalizations and passive sentences. Besides, in
semantics, Van Dijk classifies this strategy into four elements: implicitness,

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specificity, modalities, and evidentiality. In addition, graphological element
includes bold capital and quotation marks. The analysis of how the strategy is
applied in the text will help in revealing the explicit and implicit meaning of my
data. At last, hopefully, those who read my thesis can get an idea of how a text in
a media can create representation of a powerful figure in the society.
(824 words)

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

I am going to find out the answers to these following questions:
1. How are the police represented in the article?
2. What linguistic devices are used in creating the representation?

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
In writing this thesis, I want to show:
1. how the police are represented in the article.
2. the linguistic devices which are used in creating the representation.

METHOD OF RESEARCH
I began the research for this thesis by finding my data in Tempo magazine.
Then I searched the Internet to look for the theory about representation and for
some journal articles which were related to the topic discussed. The articles by
Van Dijk became my primary source as they provided the basic knowledge of text
analysis and the theories of the instruments to use in making a text analysis. The

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theories which were used in my data analysis were representation and positive
self-presentation and negative other-presentation.

ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS
I divide the thesis into four chapters. The first chapter is Introduction,
which consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of
the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two
contains the theoretical framework which is used to analyze the data. Chapter
Three is the analysis of the text. The last chapter, Chapter Four, is the conclusion
of the analysis. At the end of the thesis, I put Bibliography and Appendix.

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

Based on the data analysis in Chapter Three, I find that some linguistic

devices are used in the text to present the police negatively. Those are lexicon,
syntax, quotes, graphological elements and semantics. The text uses the lexicon of
words such as conspiracy, high-ranking police officer, order, decision,
congratulations, sudden, arrest, charged, suspicion, ensure, however, no sign, and
must abide by. Through those words, negative representation of the police can be
seen in which the text implicitly uses the words to make the readers think more
negatively toward the police. By using the phrase high-ranking police officer and
the word conspiracy, the text tries to present the police negatively as the party
which abuses its power. By using the word order, the text tries to present the
police negatively as the party which cannot account for what it does. It can be
seen that the police give an order to detain Bibit and Chandra based on illogical
reasons, and it shows that the police abuses its power. By using the word
congratulations addressed to Bibit and Chandra, whom the police accuse and
arrest, the text implicitly presents the police negatively as the party which abuses
its power. They detain people who are not yet proved guilty, in this case Bibit and
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Chandra. By using the words arrest and sudden, the text tries to present the police

negatively as the party which abuses its power, as seen from the illogical reasons
the police give for arresting Bibit and Chandra. By using the words charged and
suspicion, the text tries to present the police negatively as the party whose deed is
often unreasonable. By using the word ensure, the text presents the police
negatively as the party which is not professional, objective, nor transparent in
doing their job. By using the words however and no sign, the text tries to present
the police negatively as the party which does not have good intention and does not
want to create good relationship with their opposition. From the words must abide
by, the text presents the police negatively as the party which does not obey what
the Constitutional Court orders.
Besides, the text also employs certain syntactic structure in presenting the
police negatively. The text often uses nominalization in which the text often uses
noun to describe the police negatively, as seen from the lexicon explained in the
above paragraph. By using nominalization, the text seems to be neutral.
Moreover, nominalization makes the actor disappear in the text, in this case the
police. Although the text describes the police negatively, the text still limits its
explicitness about the police officers who are represented negatively by using
nominalization. It is known that in Indonesia, the police have high position and
they are powerful. They can do anything they want. An example in the data is that
the police can arrest Bibit and Chandra by abusing their power even though Bibit

and Chandra are not yet proved guilty.
Besides lexicon and syntax, the text also uses semantics in presenting the
police negatively. By using semantic strategies, the text still creates a bad image

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of the actor by giving a detailed and specific description of the actor, in this case
the police. In the data analysis, the text does not defame the police specifically in
all the data, but there is one data in which the word police is mentioned
specifically, that is as high-ranking police officer. In the data, it seems that the text
gives specific description about the rank of the police officer who abuses his
power and who arrests Bibit and Chandra without any credible proof or sensible
reasons. In the data analysis, modalities can also be seen in the word must. It is
seen from the meaning of the word must, as the text forces the police to obey the
Constitutional Court’s orders. In addition, evidentiality can also be found in the
data analysis. The police who charge Bibit and Chandra do not have credible
evidence but they charge Bibit and Chandra based on suspicion only. It means that
the police use their feelings in charging Bibit and Chandra, so in other words, it is
impossible that the police have had the evidence.
Besides, the text also uses quotes and quotation marks by quoting
Hikmahanto’s words directly. In addition, the use of graphological elements, in
which the text tries to present the police negatively, can be seen through the use of
bold capitalized font. By using bold capital in the data analysis, the text tries to
emphasize the word congratulations which is given to Bibit and Chandra, so the
villain, who in this case is the police, is defamed indirectly.
From the analysis, it can be seen that in almost all data the police are
depicted as a party which often abuses its power. However, the text acknowledges
that the police are powerful, as seen in the text that seems to limit itself in
revealing the fact about Bibit and Chandra’s case. Since the police are powerful,
the text does not have the complete freedom to say just anything. In other words,

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the text is under the police’s authority. If it is seen from the data analysis, the text
seems to side with Bibit and Chandra by defaming the police implicitly. The bad
actions of the police which are presented by the text implicitly can be seen from
the use of nominalization, in which the text uses noun more often in the data
analysis. Even if Tempo tries to impose their belief about the police on people, it
can only do so ideologically as a text is an ideological state apparatus (Modules
on Althusser).
In this paper, the data is taken only from an article in one edition of the
Tempo magazine. The analysis can be developed further by adding other articles
of the same topic to see how Tempo works in bodying the ideology of audience.
The analysis can also be developed by adding articles published in several other
magazines so that the differences in how each text presents the police can be
analysed.

(1012 words)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Text:
Anne L. Handayani, Ramidi, Rini Kustiani, and Anton Septian. “Exposing
Manipulation.” Tempo Magazine 1-9 Nov. 2009, pp. 20-24.

References:
Eriyanto. Analisis Wacana: Pengantar Analisis Teks media. Yogyakarta: LKiS
Yogyakarta, 2001.
Flowerdew, J., et al. Discriminatory News Discourse: some Hong Kong Data.
London: SAGE Publications, 2002.
Hall, S. Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices (Culture,
Media and Identities Series). Sage, 1997.
Halliday, M. A. K, and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English. London: Longman
Group Limited, 1976.
Hornby, A. S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995.
Martin J. R., and David Rose. Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause.
London: British Library of Congress Cataloging, 2007.

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Redaksi Kawan Pustaka. UUD 45 & Perubahannya: Susunan Kabinet RI Lengkap
(1945-2009). Jakarta: Kawan Pustaka, 2004.
Van Dijk, T. A. Discourse and Manipulation. London: SAGE Publications, 2006.
Van Dijk, T. A. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: SAGE, 1993.

Electronic Publications:
Chapter 2 Discourse Analysis as Ideological Analysis, Teun A. Van Dijk.
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Chapter 4 Teun A. van Dijk (Amsterdam) On the analysis of parliamentary
debates on immigration.
.

Chapter 6 Analyzing Racism Through Discourse Analysis Some Methodological
Reflections, Teun A. Van Dijk.
.
Dijk, T. A. “Politics, Ideology and Discourse”. 15 June 2004. 10 August 2011

“Inilah Kronologi Kasus Penyidikan Kasus Chandra dan Bibit.” Kompas.com 30
Oktober 2009. 20 September 2010
< http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2009/10/30/20562153/>.
Ideology and Discourse, Teun A. Van Dijk

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Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi. Tuduhan Aliran Uang ke Bibit-Chandra
Terbantahkan. 2010. 20 September 2010
.

Kompasiana. KUHP; Penghinaan/ Pencemaran Nama Baik. 2009. 4 March 2011
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Modules on Althusser. Dino Franco Felluga. 2011. 24 March 2011
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New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach, Teun A. van Dijk.
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Syavira, Famega. “Indonesia Negara Paling Korup se-Asia.” Tempo Interaktif
Nasional 9 April 2009. 15 March 2011
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“Bukti Kasus Bibit-Chandra Direkayasa Menguat”. VIVAnews.com 20 Agustus
2010. 20 September 2010
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Wirantaprawira, LL. M. Willy R. Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Acara Pidana
(KUHAP) Nomor 8 Tahun 1981. 1981. 5 March 2011
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