The involvement of women candidates in Indonesia regional elections 2015
and the news construction by online media related to that phenomenon are
being the core of this research. The curiosity of feminine issues struggle in a
patriarchal political culture is served as the background for this study. By
using qualitative analysis through framing approach, it aims to explore
comprehensive understanding of how online media in Indonesia depicts
women candidates throughout one week before and after the D-day of
elections. The framing analysis model developed by Robert N. Entman has
considered as the one which could support a hypothesis for exploring the
context surrounding the text. The result shows that the domination of
patriarchal culture in politics is gradually shifting to more equal ones which
also proving that political culture is dynamic. Rather than confronting
women leaders in term of gender, media actually aiming for public attention
by looking at marketable news. Simply said, there is no need for women in
politics to adopt masculine values instead of focus on her own
empowerment since women and men can be defined only correlatively not
comparatively.
Keywords: women candidates, regional elections, framing analysis