The representation of sampang attack case in the Jakarta Post?s editorials (viewed from critical discourse analysis)

This research attempts to analyze and comprehend the role of media?s discourse in representing the objective reality and constructing it in the light of ideological square. The object of the study is the Jakarta Post?s two editorials entitled ?Editorial: Post Idul Fitri Murder? and ?Editorial: Sampang Solution? by using Critical Discourse Analysis of van Dijk?s four principles in discovering ideology and Halliday?s tenor, field and mode of discourse in uncovering situational context behind the text. The research reveals that the Jakarta Post?s representing Sampang attack case is by arousing the discourse of religious discrimination in which the Sunni majority viewed as the attackers on Shiite Islam basing on religious differences or intolerant attitude toward minority. In further analysis, the study proved on how the Jakarta Post represented the conflict of Sunni-Shiite in the term of biased judgment in which it supports the latter for their weakness and condemns the former for any attack on the minority group. The research revealed that how the objective the media is in reporting news, there is always a definite ideology behind it which determines what is true or false, what is to be reported or not in the light of regime of knowledge that they have