NEWS COVERAGE CONSTRUCTION OFBLUSUKAN PERFORMED BY THE CANDIDATES OF LOCAL LEADER ELECTION IN SURAKARTA CITY

Abstract

Blusukan is conducted by the candidate of local leader election in Surakarta City to attract public’s attention. The candidates’ blusukan campaign activities in many areas, particularly in traditional market, river bank, population-dense villages, and etc can attract the potential voters’ attention. During open campaigning period, mass media is a strategic medium for political party to deliver their political message through both advertisement and news coverage. News framing by local media Solopos will influence public opinion on certain couple. This research focuses on the election of local leader in 2010 by competing for mayor and deputy of mayor seats. Meanwhile, the couples competing are Joko Widodo-FX. Hadi Rudyatmo vs. Eddy Wirahbumi-Supradi Kertamenawi. This research framing analysis was used to find out the media’s construction on Local Leader Election political event. This research employed Zhondang Pan and Gerald M. Kosicki’s framinganalysis model because their framing set analyzes a journalistic product’s construction pattern by using four devices: syntactical structure, script, thematic, and rhetoric. The news on campaign blusukan event is covered by Solopos in balanced manner in which both candidates performed blusukan in the problematic places.