Framing the Black Pages of Dutch History : Depictions of the Indonesian Decolonization War and its Afterlife in Dutch Opinion Journals and Dutch Social Memory

This thesis presents the ways in which four major Dutch opinion journals have depicted the war of decolonization between the Netherlands and Indonesia and its afterlife in the years 1994, 1995, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. More specifically, through a textual analysis of 99 articles, it investigates which frames were attributed to the war by the four journals and which arguments were used to support these evaluations. Combining theories of social memory and the media’s relationship with the public, the results are linked to the academic debate on the Dutch social memory of the war of decolonization. The findings reveal that the examined opinion journals either frame the war positively or negatively, but rarely neutrally. In addition, great continuity and stability in the ways in which the journals framed the event was found, as the tone of the articles essentially did not change between 1994 and 2016. Due to the similar topics discussed and arguments given, it is also argued that the debate which took place in the Dutch opinion journals can be understood as very similar to the academic debate on the Dutch social memory of the war of decolonization