ジェンダー研究第 23 号

2020 年

投稿論文

The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case
Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media
Aprilia Gunawan

Hokkaido University

From November 2018 to August 2019, Indonesian newspapers reported
heavily on the case of Baiq Nuril Maknun, a woman who was a victim of sexual
harassment yet was prosecuted for defamation. Her deliberate portrayal as a
victim in the media gave rise to movements for women’s rights and led to thequestioning the certain laws. Most importantly, it provoked a major discussion
among feminist media researchers about female representation. Still in a stageof transition, Indonesian journalism and media display a variety of styles. In thispaper, I examine articles from Koran Tempo, Kompas, and Republika by applying
narrative analysis. Examples of Tuchman’s symbolic annihilation, victimization,and objectification based on gender are found across all three articles but tovarying degrees. Koran Tempo, the most liberal newspaper, employs empowering
adjectives to describe Nuril and uses her case to discuss the larger issue of thelegal treatment of women. Representing conservative media, Republika avoids
discussing social and legal issues, and additionally places Nuril in a traditional
feminine role. Kompas, a moderate media outlet, raises the issue of law and womenwhile still applying a traditional approach when portraying female independence.
The diversity of the findings implies that interested parties have a strong influenceon news content, which is reflected in the variety of representations of women.

Keywords
feminist media studies, newspaper, Baiq Nuril, narrative analysis, Indonesia

Baiq Nuril and Indonesian Media

Towards the end of 2018, Baiq Nuril
Maknun 1 became the most talked about

topic in all of Indonesia. The national media was fixated on the case of Baiq Nuril

1 Henceforth will be referred to as Nuril

DOI：10.24567/00063799

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The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

Maknun, a 37-year-old woman and former high school teacher from Mataram inWest Nusa Tenggara Province. Beginningin August 2012, Nuril had been receiving
regular phone calls from Mr. Muslim, theprincipal of her school, during which hedisclosed his sexual exploits with his mistress. These phone calls evolved into verbal sexual abuse directed at Nuril, and thisabuse eventually went beyond just phone
calls.
Nuril decided to record one of theseconversations, which lasted for over 20
minutes, and later passed it along to oneof her colleagues. This colleague proceeded to report the phone call to the local
authorities. Subsequently, the recording
was somehow leaked and spread quickly
throughout the public. Consequently, Muslim got demoted and Nuril was fired fromher job.
In March 2015, Muslim sued Nuril for
defamation in the district court of Mataram. She was prosecuted of violating the2008 Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE) law and faced a six year prison
sentence and a fine of 1 million Indonesian rupiah (equivalent to $70,895). Aftera long legal battle, Nuril was detained
from March 2017 to July 2017 before being
found not guilty and released.
The prosecution did not relent in theirefforts to convict Nuril, and in September
2018 they brought the case to the Supreme
Court of Indonesia. The judge overruled
the district court’s verdict and sentenced
Nuril to six months in prison, in addition
to a fine of 500 million Indonesian rupiah

124(equivalent to $33,749). Nuril exercised
her right to appeal her case to the Supreme
Court of Indonesia, but her appeal was
denied in July 2019. As a last resort, shesought amnesty from the President of Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, which
was granted in August 2019.
This case, which is often referred to as
the “Baiq Nuril Case,” was heavily publicized by national media, to the extent thatit sparked the emergence of movements
supporting women across the country.
Indeed, this support resulted from Nuril
being depicted of a victim of the ITE law,rather than a perpetrator.
The Baiq Nuril case is a useful opportunity for scrutinizing how Indonesian
media, notably newspapers, function toposition women as subjects in criminalcases, and how this influences public perception. Betty Friedan (1979) was one of
the first feminist theorists to theorize thelink between media (advertising, television, and magazines) and gender roles andits influence on expectations after observing the shared problems of countless
American women. Since then, a wealth offeminist media research has been carriedout in Western countries, which necessitates a discussion on how this research
applies to the circumstances of Indonesia.
Ross Tapsell (2017) reveals that researchon journalism predominantly focuses on
two countries: the United States and theUnited Kingdom. This exclusive focus on
Western countries has resulted in a lackof research on Southeast Asia. Feminist
analyses of Indonesian media have so far

ジェンダー研究focused predominantly on the representations of women in popular culture—specifically films (Haryati & Suwana, 2014;
Eliyanah, 2018) and magazine illustrations(Brenner, 1999).
The structure of Indonesian media andjournalism is in a constant state of change,as the country is currently transitioning toa democratic system following the overthrow of General Soeharto in 1998, after
over 30 years in power (Sen, 2011). Therefore, research which explores this issue
while simultaneously attempting to explain the power relations between media,
the people, and government is needed.
As Griffin explains (2007), McCombs
and Shaw suggest that mass media has theability to introduce topics of discussion
and debate to the public. Not only is media able to implant particular opinions inmedia consumers, it is also able to inducechanged in behavior, as demonstrated in
Baiq Nuril’s case, where the legitimacyof the ITE law was brought into question.
That is, McCombs and Shaw have hypothesized that media deliberately attempts toshape public opinion concerning women’s
rightful place in society.
Media has become polarized and fragmented as a result of dynamic interaction
with other institutions, particularly politics(Reese & Shoemaker, 2016). Therefore, inthis paper, I would like to determine how
the personal agency of Baiq Nuril was depicted in the reporting of three different
newspapers: Kompas, Republika, and Koran Tempo. Indeed, considering the continually changing system of Indonesian

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media and journalism, I am motivated to
examine the different approaches taken byeach national newspaper in order to better define the current structure of news
reporting in Indonesia and the position of
women within Indonesian society.

The Portrayal of Women in the MediaAs women do not all share the same essential identity, there is no single and unified feminist perspective. However, allwomen are bound together by a singularconcern: the status of women in society,most notably the nature of gender and theinterpretation of being a woman as a basic distinguishing label that often tends tolegitimizing women subordination (Bachman et al., 2018). Because women holddifferent levels of knowledge and haveundergone different experiences, feminist
theory must account for the complex anddiverse intersectional nature of women’s
identities. As Judith Butler states:

Gender intersects with racial, class,ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities. As a result, it becomes impossible to separate out “Gender” from thepolitical and cultural intersections inwhich it is invariably produced andmaintained. (1990, p. 3)
Nevertheless, women from various
parts of the world are still marginalized
and misrepresented in media discourses
and practices. Feminist media studies
scholars examine how women have been

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The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

represented in the media, often criticizing
representations of women for legitimizing
women’s subordination and oppression.
Tuchman (2000) refers to this phenomenon as “symbolic annihilation,” claiming that it functions to maintain women’s
subordinate position in society and shapes
young girls’ needs, wants, and expectations. Media representations of women
exploit taken-for-granted binaries, suchas mind/body, subject/object, and reason/
emotion, in order to justify portrayals of
women as inferior to men. In professional
newsroom, the objectification of women
has been conceived as a strategic ritual or
routine procedure, as a protection for theorganization to deflect any potential criticism (Tuchman, 1972).
Davies (2000) shows how binaries relyon an implicit assumption that the twoconcepts of the dualism are interdependent
yet unequal, meaning that one cannot exist
without the other despite the fact that they
are always battling each other. The male/
female binary is related to the conscious
and unconscious mind; the former is superior but always at risk of being undermined by the latter. Davies makes note of
Hélène Cixous’s claim that women, despite
being educated, are constructed as “other”
to rational thought. In contrast to men,
women are commonly associated withemotions, feelings, and other “irrational”
elements. Hence, women are seen as to the
opposite of “good” thought, masculinity,
and rational decision making. This echoes
Ngai’s (2007) finding that “ugly feelings,”
such as envy and paranoia, are forms of126

passivity, where one feels disempowered
or is perceived as a small subject. This
type of emotion is a result of a larger political problem which leads to the obstruction of personal agency.
The poststructuralist theory of agency
can be contrasted to the humanist perspective of Davies, which characterizes agency
as synonymous with personhood. That is,Davies does not interpret agency to be aneffect of discourse in which the subject
finds himself or herself. The dominant discourse defines moral rightness; those whoare able to influence discourse have theauthority to tell others what to do. Davies
summarizes the poststructuralist view ofagency as follows:
Agency is never freedom from discursive constitution of self but the capacity to recognize that constitution
and to resist, subvert and change thediscourses themselves through which
one is being constituted. (2000, p. 65)

Women and Law

Echoing the prevailing argument of feminists, Frug (1992) asserts that differences
between women and men are socially constructed and not biologically determined.
As cultural mechanisms, legal rules assign
meanings to the female body that are rationalized through an appeal to the “natural” differences between the sexes. Furthermore, Catherine MacKinnon argues
that law and legal methods are gendered
tools of social organization due to thedominant male point of view, making theジェンダー研究exclusion of women’s experiences imperceptible. Law devalues women, and therefore they are in danger of losing the ability
to define themselves (MacKinnon, cited inJackson, 1992, p. 195).
The exclusion of women’s experiencesin law has been discussed by Sandiata(2018) in her study of Indonesia’s judiciary system. By assessing the national legal
elements (articles, structure, and culture),
Sandiata suggests that the legal systemdoes not fully recognize women as a resultof the deep-rooted patriarchy within society. When charged with a crime, women are
regarded as meek, yet are responsible forthings that they do not wish to befall uponthem. This tends to come into practice inrape cases in which the female victims
share partial blame for not being strong
enough or subconsciously incite the perpetrators. Frug states that legal discourse
employs linguistic strategies in order todefine women as either “weak, nurturing,or sexy.”
Critiquing how Indonesian women aretreated by the law in light of the increasing
publication of such case mentioned above,
Melati (2007) observes that laws supposedly conceived to protect women are often contradicted by other legal statutes,
or are simply ignored. Taking the Baiq
Nuril case as an example, she criticizes
the ruling of the Supreme Court as having directly contradicted Supreme Courtof Indonesia Regulation Number 3 from2017, which deals with women facing legal
charges. Moreover, Melati has expressedthat existing regulations meant to protect

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women from cyber sexual crimes are inefficient and in dire need of revision, as thenumber of offenses are increasing.

Women in Indonesia

Blackburn (2004) believes that the incoherency and inconsistencies of gender ideology in Indonesia are a result of the different
gender traditions of various ethnic groups.
Moreover, this situation is further aggravated by other forms of diversity, such asclasses and religious diversity. Nevertheless, the Indonesian state has adopted thegender ideology of a group of men of who
are predominantly moderate Muslim men
with Western educations.
Porter (2003) has compared Indonesian
women to women in other predominantly
Muslim countries, such as Iran, Pakistan,
Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, claiming thatIndonesian women are relatively more
liberal and independent, both individually and collectively. The independence ofindividual comes in many forms, for example, wearing a veil ( jilbab or hijab) is
optional, girls go to school, the minimum
marriageable age for girls is 16, women
can initiate divorce, and contraception isallowed. Whereas as a group, there has
been publicly acknowledged appearancesof female organizations. However, womenare still considered subordinate to men.
Curnow (2015) suggests that only following the end of Soeharto’s presidency
have social, institutional, and legal reforms brought Indonesia more in line with
the international standard of human rights.
Despite the establishment of the National

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The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

Commission on Human Rights in 1993
and the ratification of the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1984, humanrights were not effectively enforced during
Soeharto’s era due to New Order cronyism. The two acts were considered to be amere façade erected by Soeharto in order
to appease the international community.
Indeed, the mandates of judicial rulings
are not always enforced beyond the doorsof the courts. Access to courts in Indonesia
is remarkably low, especially for women,
who are reluctant to go to court in the firstplace as they are unlikely to be supported.
Blackburn confirms this by using certain
ethnic groups’ restrictions on women’sthat result in the state’s reluctance to fightthe discrimination as follows:
The Indonesian state has been too
weak or reluctant to try to displace
subordinate groups as they exert control over women. When it does claim
the citizenly obedience of women,
it is not always to their advantage.
(2004, p.88)
The position of women in society is determined not only by religion but also by
Pancasila (Indonesian state philosophy),formal government rules and regulations,and the cultural norms of ethnic groups.
The dynamic of all these elements causing
complexity of Indonesian women’s roles,
but when contradiction occurs the elements tend to sort out themselves, yet thegeneral outcome usually still puts women128

to stereotypical traditional roles.

Media in Indonesia

Media ownership in Indonesia is intimately intertwined with questions of politicalpower and influence. Ida (2011) claims
that when analyzing Indonesian media,
business and politics cannot be separated,particularly following Soeharto’s fall frompower. Ida points out that the majority of
media corporations are still largely owned
by Soeharto’s family and cronies, including Bambang Hary Iswanto Tanoesoedibyo—better known as Hary Tanoe—a
Chinese-Indonesian capitalist who holds a
100 percent stake in the shares of PT Media Nusantara Citra (MNC), one of the nation’s largest media corporations.
According to Shoemaker and Reese’s(1996) theory of the hierarchy of influences, media content is shaped by aspects
which extend from the lowest, micro level(i.e. individual characteristics of newsworkers) to higher, macro level (i.e. larger
social system). The lower-level elements
are affected by activities occurring at thehigher level. Tapsell (2017) conducted aseries of interviews with powerful figures
in Indonesian media, from owners to fieldreporters, and concluded that the national
media landscape is still highly oligopolistic. The interests of owners overwhelm theautonomy individual newsmakers. That is,
newsmakers do not have the freedom toselect and frame news content, as the majority of media conglomerates are also major political actors. Thus, according to Ida:

ジェンダー研究Media ownership remains in thehands of political and economic players, and their ideology of media marketization acts as a barrier to the development of alternative broadcasting
services and democratization of themedia […] a similar pattern of concentration is replicated at the local
level. (2011, p. 16)
The challenges facing the developmentof Indonesian media are not limited tointerference by business interests. Steele(2011) asserts that the problem is embedded within the culture of the national media itself, which lacks context and overly
privileges official sources, revealing a tendency toward superficial reporting which
does not consider underlying causes. This
type of journalism has been practiced
since Soeharto’s era and is still prevalent
in Indonesia today.
Indonesian media tends to report on
single events without providing a wider
perspective. Questions of accountability
are often left unasked, and more in-depth
reporting on how to fix underlying issues
is instead substituted by a focus on the suffering of victims and economic impacts.
Based on her experience in translating Indonesian news, Steele (2011, p. 91) commented on the banality of news reportingin Indonesia when compared to stories
written by foreign reporters, writing: “Thede-politicization of journalism under Soeharto led to a kind of ‘A said X and B said

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Y’ journalism that passively relied on official sources and statements.”
Despite the rise of investigative reporting in Indonesia, there are still restrictions
on what topics can be investigated. In addition to pressure exerted by the wealthy,
journalists who are considered to be “attacking” certain individuals or groups
maybe threatened with criminal defamation lawsuits. Moreover, the press is encouraged to stay away from stories thatwould cause ethnic, religious, racial, orinter-group conflict.
As I have mentioned, feminist values
are no longer restricted by physical geography or borders. As a result, the representation of women in previously understudied areas has become a topic of discussion,and scholars are exploring issues uniqueto the social and cultural environment ofeach region, such as the symbolic annihilation of women in Middle Eastern media(Lance & Paschyn, 2018) and the inclusionof women in South African media (Buiten,2012). This case study is no different.

Data Collection and Analysis

For this study, I analyzed newspaper articles covering the Baiq Nuril case fromthree major newspapers in Indonesia:
Kompas, Republika, and Koran Tempo.
In this order, the three newspapers are
the three most read Indonesian-language
national newspapers in the country 2. In
addition to their popularity, I believe that

2 4International Media & Newspapers, Top Newspapers in Indonesia , [website], https://www.4imn.

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The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

these three newspapers accurately represent mainstream reporting by Indonesian
newspapers, as the newspapers display adiversity of characteristics and ideologicalperspectives.
Established in 1965, Kompas is still
owned by its founder Jakob Oetama andremains the most read newspaper in Indonesia. Indeed, their 2014 media kit
boasted an estimated daily circulation of
507,000 units in 2013 (Suryana, 2018).
Suryana characterized Kompas as a liberal media outlet, as they explicitly criticize the persecution of minority religious
groups. However, this label may only bepartially appropriate, as the newspaper
also avoids coverage of LBGT issues thatis still condemned by majority of Indonesians. Hence, putting Kompas somewhere
in between. As Keller (2009) posits, evensince Soeharto’s era, Kompas has always
been an “obedient” newspaper which does
not upset dominant social values. Benedict
Anderson, who has researched Indonesianpolitics extensively, described Kompas as
the “New Order’s newspaper par excellence” (Tapsell, 2017). Thus, Kompas is an
accurate representation of center-left Indonesian media in general.
Republika is owned by the Mahaka Media Group and began publication in 1993
by Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia – Association of Indonesian Muslim
Scholars (ICMI). Republika is the firstIslamic newspaper and the first news outlet to begin publishing online in Indonecom/id/

130sia. As a reflection of the aspirations of
the Islamic community in Indonesia, thebirth of Republika marks the rise of theIslamic community in the country – a religious group which Soeharto tried to approach to maintain the status quo during
the last days of his reign (Nugroho, Putri,& Laksmi, 2012). Due to their interests, it
is not surprising that Suryana (2018) described Republika as a conservative newspaper. However, he has also demonstrated
that the newspaper does not exclusively reflect conservative values, as they promotereligious tolerance while also inserting
Islamic teachings into their stories. Nevertheless, the unique practices of Republika
make it a worthy data source for studying
conservative media outlets in Indonesia.
As a part of Tempo Group, Koran Tempo is an extension of the magazine of thesame name, which came into existencelong before the newspaper. Indeed, while
the magazine has been in existence since1971, the newspaper version is fairly new.
The late arrival of the newspaper is a result of the magazine having been banned
twice for its explicit criticisms of Soeharto, once in 1982 and again 1994 during the
New Order era. Following Soeharto’s fallfrom power, the newspaper version, Koran
Tempo, was established in 2001. Similar
to the magazine, Koran Tempo is often
praised—even by foreign journalists—for
its investigative reporting and its progressive and democratic perspective, despite
experiencing constant financial difficultyジェンダー研究(Keller, 2014; Tapsell, 2017). For this reason, Suryana (2018) categorizes Koran
Tempo as a liberal media outlet. I agreewith this characterization and therefore
selected this publication to represent liberally aligned media in Indonesian.
As there is no integrated newspaper
search engine such as LexisNexis for Indonesian newspapers, the articles analyzed
for this study were gathered by searchingfor the keyword “Baiq Nuril” in the online
archives of the three previously discussed
newspapers. My searches targeted a timeframe beginning in the month when thecase first became public, November 2018,
to when Nuril received presidential amnesty in August 2019.
All articles that did not discuss the Baiq
Nuril case as the main subject of the story or stories which merely mentioned thecase as an example while discussing a different issue (such as the sexual harassmentbill) were excluded from my analysis. Thissame rule was applied to opinion columns,
photographs, and photograph captions. In
the end, my study focused on 29 articles
from Koran Tempo, 18 articles from Kompas, and 19 articles from Republika.
This research was conducted using aqualitative approach and employed thenarrative analysis method. Qualitative
document analysis is an appropriate approach for investigating the media’s deliberate attempts to shape public opinion,
as this method emphasizes the discovery
and description of underlying meanings
in texts (Altheide, 2000). Arguably, mass
media, including print, mediates or gives

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meaning to texts because news recontextualizes and transforms social practices,e.g., politics, law, and are in turn recontextualized in the texts and interactions in our
everyday life (Fairclough, 2003).
Narrative analysis is an appropriate
method for evaluating the meanings embedded within mass media texts, as thesetexts provide traces of the socially constructed reality in which they were created. Therefore, in order to understand thesocial context, it is necessary to study thewords, concepts, ideas, themes, and issues
that are contained within the texts (Brennen, 2013).
In studies which apply the narrative
analysis method to works of journalism,
Kitch (2007) points out how this methodattempts to identify common structuralelements that are consistently utilized byreporters and editors. According to thismethod, observation points include notjust the story’s individual content andstructure, but also, more importantly, recurring characters and subplots. The moresignificant findings come in the form of ageneral depiction of the culture in which
the story takes place by attempting to understand the connotative and denotative
meanings of the language and imagery.
Despite its utility, narrative analysis isoften overlooked in feminist studies. Ruth
Page (2007) posits that narrative analysis
does not take place in a context-free vacuum, instead narrative strategies must be
considered within the context of the cultural construction of gender. Susan Lanser(1986), a pioneer of feminist narratology,

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The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

believes that narratology needs to be conducted in a context that is simultaneously
linguistic, literary, historical, biographical,
social, and political. She also reevaluates
the narrative method, which she says in
the past has been “gender-specific, focusing on texts primarily by and about men.”
As narrative research on gender inherently must discuss inequality, Susan Ehrlich (2015) shows that narratives (and narrators) can get mangled at the boundaries
of powerful institutions. In other words,
the ability to recount narratives in ways
preferred by institutions is intimately connected to power structures. Investigating
the implicit power distribution within atext may allow the author to answer questions about agency.
In this study, articles of a single newspaper were analyzed in relation to each otherin order to identify major themes. Thismethod is known as the holistic-content
approach, as described by Lieblich et al.
(1998). According to Iyengar (2014), who
has provided step-to-step procedures forthis approach, re-reading is crucial for
gradually identifying major themes. Iyengar instructs that any intuitive thoughts
should be noted before moving on to thestep of charting the overall impressions
left by narratives. Themes emerge bygrouping words or “labeling” words thatare closely associated in meaning or form
by using color codes.
Next in the process, findings are connected to external aspects of the text according to their interdependent nature.
Moreover, in addition to elements present

132

in the text, the meaningful absence of certain elements, as well, should be analyzed.
This study focuses on two aspects of thesenewspaper articles. First, I explore the depiction and agency of Baiq Nuril Maknun
in these articles. Second, I investigate how
the depictions differ across the three newspapers. In the following section, I describe
the themes which emerged after conducting a narrative analysis according to thesteps proposed by Iyengar (2014).

Victims of Law

Newspaper articles on Baiq Nuril havebeen inconsistent in their reporting of her
profession. Koran Tempo described her
as “a former public high school honorary
teacher” while Republika interchangeably
used this same phrase, while also describing her as a “former honorary administrator of a public high school.” As if aware of
the inconsistencies in information, Kompas wittily called her “a former honorary
staff member of a public high school.” Inspite of the inconsistency, it was continually stressed that she was a “former honorary staff member” or a former part-timeworker in a high school. In every article,
Baiq Nuril is identified using a variationof this phrase.
Another common element of newspaper
articles is referring to Nuril as “a victim
of a sexual harassment,” which indicatesthat newspapers unanimously acknowledged that she was the victim of a crime.
Moreover, Republika explicitly associatedher past employment status with her experience of harassment:

ジェンダー研究

During the period, Nuril had been an
honorary teacher and her job depended on the principal. Nuril had no way
out because her position was threatened. (Republika, 2018, Nov 17)
In addition to acknowledging the harassment, the three media outlets also
harshly criticized the ITE law, which wasused to convict Nuril. Koran Tempo identified Nuril as a “criminalized victim ofsexual harassment” (Koran Tempo, 2019,
July 3) while Kompas similarly called hera “victim of the ITE law” (Kompas, 2018,
November 17). The two media outlets related Nuril’s case to other similar cases,characterizing all of them as “innocent
people who are victims of the ITE Law”
(Koran Tempo, 2019, July 25) and “people who are weak and could not achieve
justice from law enforcement” (Kompas,
2019, July 26).
Koran Tempo and Kompas criticized the
ITE law by characterizing Nuril and others as “victims” of the law and described
them with adjectives which connote
powerlessness, such as “innocent” and“weak.” Koran Tempo blatantly criticized
the law, decrying the law as a “repressivetool” (Koran Tempo, 2019, July 9) while
also castigating the Supreme Court of Indonesia’s ruling as “ignoring the process
to eradicate sexual crimes” (Koran Tempo,
2019, July 25).
Republika never explicitly declared
Nuril to be a victim of injustice, and instead questioned the legitimacy of the ITE
law using subtle phrasing:

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Nuril expressed the injustice that she
is facing, of being entrapped by the
ITE law, when in reality she is a victim of verbal sexual abuse.” (Republika, 2018, Nov 17)

Familial Ties

Another label attached to Nuril by the three
media outlets was “a mother of three.”Even in early reports, Republika was using
this label along with a detailed descriptionof Nuril’s family and how her family members were coping with the news:
Nuril mentioned how she has alreadyplanned separate birthday celebrations for her two sons for upcoming
November 24th and December 2nd.
The married couple, Nuril and Lalu
Muhammad Isaeni, are parents ofthree children who are ages 17, 13,
and 7. Two of their children are already aware of what has happened totheir mother, whereas the youngest
has not. Nuril’s biggest concern is thepsychological health of her children.”(Republika, 2019, November 15)
Kompas places emphasis on Nuril’s
family by extensively using her male relatives as sources:
Nuril’s extended family members are
relieved and grateful for the amnesty
grant […] “I can sleep now,” said Lalu
Mustajab, Nuril’s father. […] Nuril’s
uncle, Lalu Junaidi, is hoping that
Nuril’s case will be an important les-133

The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Mediason and a basis for evaluating the ITE
Law. (Kompas, 2019, July 30)
While Republika and Kompas always
discussed Nuril in relation to her male family members, Koran Tempo approached hercase differently. Koran Tempo never mentioned Nuril’s male relatives, and instead
expanded on Nuril’s empowered identity
as a mother:
What Nuril had done was simply an
act to protect her honor and dignity asa woman and mother. (Koran Tempo,
2019, July 16)

Nuril’s Feelings and Expressions

Articles by both Republika and Kompas
heavily emphasized Nuril’s emotions andactions. In the first article by Kompas dealing with the case, Nuril is twice described
as being in a state of “despair” and “desperate” within the same article (Kompas,
2018, November 17). In their first article,
Republika exaggerates this even further
by employing the following dramatic storytelling trope to begin the article:
Baiq Nuril (40) could not hold backher tears in the middle of telling thestory of what had happened to her.
(Republika, 2018, November 15)
The dramatic depictions of Nuril’s emotions is not limited to just negative emotions. Indeed, this approach is also used
when reporting on Nuril’s joy when thepredicament came to an end:

134

After the amnesty grant has beenconcluded by a hit of the gavel,
Nuril—who went through the wholeprocess in the House of Representatives—immediately covered her facewith her two hands […] A smile could
be seen on her face. (Republika, 2019,
July 26)
Kompas wrote about this scene in amore graphic nature, describing her attire
in addition to her facial expressions:
Baiq Nuril Maknun, the victim ofsexual harassment who had been sentenced to prison, now looks cheerful.
The smile did not leave her lips. Nuril,
who is wearing a white blouse and redheadscarf, is now relieved. (Kompas,
2019, August 3)

Nuril’s (In)dependency

In addition to being presented as a victim
of sexual harassment, Koran Tempo also
represented Nuril as a proactive agent
seeking justice for being mistreated. In an
article published on July 16, 2019, Koran
Tempo characterized Nuril as acting alone
in search of justice for herself:
Nuril is fighting for an amnesty grant
after the Supreme Court’s ruling […]Nuril visited the Minister of Justiceand Human Rights to discuss the process for receiving an amnesty grant […]After receiving the result of her appeal,
Nuril has been visiting several institutions. (Koran Tempo, 2019, July 16)

ジェンダー研究It is interesting to note that the three
newspapers ascribe Nuril’s differing degrees of personal agency by highlighting
one particular element: the House of Representative’s support for Nuril. No matter
how independent she might have been, it
would have been impossible for Nuril toreceive amnesty without the endorsementof the legislature.
Koran Tempo wrote: “The House ofRepresentatives (DPR) supports the planfor Baiq Nuril’s amnesty” (Koran Tempo,
2019, July 9). Republika also stated, “Baiq
Nuril, through her legal representative,
seeks the DPR’s support concerning theamnesty grant from President Joko Widodo” (Republika, 2019, July 10). An article
from Kompas uses a similar structure to
Republika’s article, writing: “Accompanied by her legal representative and a DPR
member from the PDI-P Party, Rieke Diah
Pitaloka, Nuril managed to meet Yasonna
the day before” (Kompas, 2019, July 9).
Comparing the sentence from the Koran
Tempo article with those of Republika andKompas reveals that the latter two newspapers’ portrayals of Nuril are inseparable from other figures, namely her legal
advisors. Furthermore, in later articles,
Republika forgoes discussion of Nuril andinstead focuses on her companions, as if
these figures were more central to Nuril
gaining amnesty than Nuril herself:
Rieke and the legal representative, as
well as Nuril, arrived in the Attorney
General’s office at around 10 AM.
Rieke came with Baiq Nuril, while

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2020 年

her legal counsel, Joko Sumadi, hadcome earlier in a separate vehicle.
(Republika, 2019, July 13)
Kompas portrays Nuril as a figure who
needs to be protected, such as in their article from July 26, 2019, which refers to “amnesty as protection” (Kompas, 2019, July26). An emphasis of the notion of protection is not limited to Nuril, but is extended
to Indonesian women in general, which isreflected in the use of the phrase “Women
Protection” by Kompas as a main headline(Kompas, 2018, November 17). These twostatements reinforce the hegemonic belief
that women are beings who must be kept
safe by men.

Discussion

By constantly emphasizing Nuril’s status
as a part-time worker, the three newspapers attempted to highlight Nuril’s financially precarious situation and characterize her as heavily reliant on her job, despite
treatment she received from her supervisor. Republika discussed her risk of being
fired, highlighting the difficult position she
found herself in and legitimizing the media’s portrayal of her as a “victim.”
Her victim status was also emphasizedwhen newspapers called attention to thesexual harassment case. As Tuchman’s
theory of symbolic annihilation suggests(2000), victimization is a very common
pattern found across all media texts reporting on woman. Placing women in asubordinate position makes them appear
incompetent. Tuchman finds even a work-

135

The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Mediaing woman, like Nuril in this, are stillbound to be condemned by media, being
an inferior subject within her workplace.
A breadwinner status does not equal to to
be liberated from inferiority when placedin a professional setting.
Similar to Sandiata’s (2018) statementon the representation of Indonesian woman
as meek when confronting criminal cases
as well as the adjectives of powerlessness
used by Koran Tempo and Kompas demonstrate how the case evolved in an unexpected fashion. These labels, which wereused both in reference to Nuril and other
women as well as to condemn the ITE law,
imply a power relation in practice within
the regulation; the law holds power toforce women into objectification. As thewomen are portrayed as subjects lacking
authority, the law is described as being inpossession of and in control over them,eventually causing them to suffer.
Instead of directly criticizing the ITE
law, Republika uses oppositions to express its disagreement with the law. However, Republika is not apprehensive whendescribing details about Nuril’s family.
Placing women within a domestic setting
is one form of Tuchman’s symbolic annihilation, in which women are relegated tothe most stereotypical sex roles, such asa housewife or mother (Tuchman, 2000).
In addition, women are only able to exist
when are defined in terms of their relationships with men, an approach employed
by Kompas when they use Nuril’s family
members as sources.
In comparison to the other two newspa-

136

pers, Koran Tempo employed empowering descriptions of Nuril that reflect what
Porter (2003) has coined “maternal feminism.” Porter observes that the dynamic
identities of Indonesian women are boundto traditional, male-dominated values. At
the same time, they enjoy more relative
freedom than women in other predominantly Muslim countries. The interrelationof what seemingly contradictive identitiesof the aforementioned feminine freedom
in a male-dominated society eventually
gave birth to “maternal feminism” that
Porter defines as women’s focus on theirreproductive capacities as a liberation.
Koran Tempo also differs from both Republika and Kompas, as only the latter twoemphasize Nuril’s expressions and emotions. Associating women with emotions is
a common trope of media representationsof women and is related to the concept ofbinaries introduced earlier. Women arecharacterized as emotional whereas men
are represented as rational (Davies, 2000).
Ngai (2005) has expressed a connection
between negative feelings and disempowerment. In the context of the practice ofvictimization, “ugly” feelings obstruct a
sense of agency by objectifying the subject as small and passive. Indeed, detailed
descriptions of Nuril’s emotions seek toobjectify her, treating her as a specimen
under a microscope.
By describing minute details of Nuril’s
appearance, such as her clothing and facial expressions, we can observe the “malegaze” at work in these articles. Althoughthe “male gaze” is typically an aspect ofジェンダー研究visual mediums such as television andfilm, the aforementioned newspaper articles describe Nuril in a cinematographic
manner. Mulvey (1975) determines thisconcept as a strong visual emphasize on awoman, putting female in the passive sideof the action of looking. In other words,
woman is a “spectacle”, and man is “thebearer of the look”. This is especially true
considering Sandiata’s (2018) statementthat the Indonesian legal system is strongly
influenced by dominant patriarch values.
Nuril’s passivity is further enforced by
Republika and Kompas through the depiction of her in relation to her legal advisors.
Indeed, these descriptions reinforce thestereotype that Indonesian women are reluctant to take legal action unless they arebeing supported by one or more supporters that can guarantee their innocence, as
argued by Curnow (2015).
Descriptions of Nuril across all three
newspapers generally conform to one of
the three qualities that are used in legal
discourse strategies: “weak, nurturing, orsexy” (Frug, 1992). As I have shown, themedia plays a significant role in the symbolic annihilation of women by promoting
the subordinate position of women in theeyes of the law. As suggested by Tuchman(2000), this pattern is concerning, as it
may shape young girls’ wants, needs, behavior, and attitudes.
The objectification of women is not foreign to Indonesian journalism. According
to Suryana’s (2018) ethnographic study of

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2020 年

ten mainstream Indonesian media outlets, 3
the biggest problem of Indonesian journalism is its ignorance and insensitivity
towards minorities, women included. Indonesian journalism relies heavily on sensationalism to attract commercial interest.
Excessive focus on capturing market share
is a characteristic common to countries
which have undergone abrupt political
reform, transitioning from authoritarianism to liberal democracy (Hanitzsch, et al.
2011). All of the three newspapers studied
here objectified women in different ways.
There was one common element which
all three newspaper shared. Nuril was defined as a victim that is passive. However,this is where Koran Tempo differs from theother two newspapers. Well-known for its
investigative reporting, Koran Tempo does
not shy from writing styles that deviate
from standards. As mentioned by Blackburn (2004), the state ideology of Indonesia is dominated by males who are Muslim
and Western educated, the dominant viewpoint is also reflected in the news reportsthat are prudent enough to write things
that may spark counterarguments fromthe domineering group. Hence, we see that
Koran Tempo affirms Nuril’s agency while
also addressing questions over the effectiveness of the ITE law.
Republika, on the other hand, faithfully
adheres to the expectations of the dominant group and adheres to the Islamic values which inform the philosophy of thenewspaper. Republika was first established3 Three of which are this paper’s data sources: Koran Tempo, Republika, and Kompas.

137

The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

as part of a giant media group called Visi
News Asia, which was previously owned
by Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of apreeminent political party, Golkar (Tapsell, 2017). As such, Republika operates
in accordance with hegemonic beliefs, andtherefore was hesitant to extrapolate larger
conclusions from the case. This is anothercharacteristic of journalism in a developing country where journalists find themselves cooperating with the official policies of the government (Hanitzsch et al.,2011).
Kompas is interesting in this regard, as
it both criticizes the ITE law while still
portrays women according to traditional
approaches. According to Suryana (2014),
Kompas is a liberal newspaper because
it uses individual cases to address larger
problems. In contrast, Benedict Andersonin Tapsell (2017) classified Kompas as a
“cowardly” media outlet after observing
their obedience to the ruling government.
One of the characteristics of Kompas is
its heavy reliance on official quotations,as mentioned by Steele (2011). This fact isreflected in the words of the founder andowner, Jakob Oetama’s:
Others call us names such as “CrabJournalists.” I told my fellow journalists, “We write whatever we write toreach the top and towards any challenge; but whenever we detect any
risk of damage, we need to step back.”
People have been comparing us tocrabs, by moving back and forth. But
for me, going back is necessary in or-138

der to advance. This is our choice. I
don’t mind being criticized since thatis the fact. (Keller, 2004, p. 46)

Conclusion

I have now clearly shown that Koran Tempo provided the most unique reporting on
Nuril by endowing her with empowering
aspects while also representing her as feeble and using her case to discuss underlying social issues, such as Indonesian women in legal predicaments. In stark contrast,
Republika’s coverage does not aim to shine
a light on social issues, and instead it treats
Baiq Nuril’s case as just another legal dispute. Even when criticizing the ITE law as
the source of Nuril’s misfortune, Republika chooses to employ subtler language.
Kompas employs an approach which combines elements from Koran Tempo and Republika. Indeed, Kompas raises the issueof women and law in Indonesia, yet still
succumbs to the traditional method of depicting women as dependent on men.
Women’s issues must always be investigated from a variety of angles, as gender
identity is the product of many overlapping elements in society. The combinationof the aforementioned of conflict of interests and hegemonic patriarchal values of
the country still pushes the application ofclassic women objectification in issues ofsexual harassment and gender-based abusein Indonesia. As “concerning” as it could
have been perceived by the general feminist standard, it is an appraisable attempt
to bring forward the social issue. Despite
the inevitable tendency to reduce female

ジェンダー研究

subjects to passive figures, the case of Baiq
Nuril, along with the escalated supports,
attests to an increasing awareness of social
injustice throughout the nation, particularly gendered violence.
As I have stated, journalists in Indonesian media tend to show little initiative
due to being overpowered by institutional
and political interests. My analysis of threedifferent newspapers’ coverage of the Baiq

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2020 年

Nuril case show that real differences in reporting to exist. For this reason, the question of how much autonomy individualjournalists have in the newsrooms of Indonesia should be studied further, particularly in regards to the portrayal of genderroles. Another unique characteristic ofIndonesian reporting is the use of directsources (Steele, 2011), which could serve
as a novel point of focus for another study.

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141The Case of Criminalized Victim Baiq Nuril: A Narrative Case Study of Female Representation in Indonesian Media

要旨

バイック・ヌリル、犯罪化された犠牲者―インドネシアメディアにおける女性表象のナラティブ研究
アプリリア・グナワン
2018 年 11 月から 2019 年 8 月にかけて、インドネシアの新聞はセクシュアル・ハラスメン
トの被害者でありながら名誉毀損の罪で告訴されたバイック・ヌリル・マックヌンの事件を数多く報道した。メディアにおける被害者としての彼女の描写は、それが意図的であったが故、法律の有効性について多くの疑問をもたらしたのである。何より、フェミニスト・メ
ディアを専門とする研究者の間で議論を大いに巻き起こした。インドネシアのメディアはまだ過渡期にあり、そのためにスタイルが一様ではない。本稿では、新聞 3 紙、Koran Tempo、
Kompas そして Republika の記事を取り上げそのナラティブを分析する。ゲイ・タックマンによる「象徴的抹消」、被害者化、そして性別に基づく他者化は、3 紙すべてで見られた。自由主義な新聞として、Koran Tempo はヌリルの人物像を説明するためにエンパワーメントをあらわす形容詞を用い、彼女のケースから女性の法的扱いに関するより幅広い議論を展開している。保守的なメディアを代表する Republika は、社会的および法的問題を議論するのを避け、さらに、ヌリルを伝統的女性の役割に押しとどめる。穏健なメディアの代表として、Kompas は女性を描写する際に従来のアプローチを適用しながら女性の独立および法律の話を提起する。以上 3 紙の分析結果から、利害関係者がニュースコンテンツに強い影響力を持っていることが示唆され、それが女性の様々な表象に反映されていることを明らかに
する。
キーワード
フェミニスト・メディア研究、新聞、バイック・ヌリル、ナラティブ分析、インドネシア

142