Graduated visibility: visual representation of ethnic minorities in Indonesian mainstream media, 2019–2023

Abstract

This study examines how Indonesian mainstream media calibrate the visibility of ethnic minorities, namely Papuan, Dayak, and Toraja communities, across 210 images from Kompas.com, Detik.com, and Tempo.co (2019-2023). Drawing on multimodal critical discourse analysis and quantitative content analysis, it develops graduated visibility: a regime in which minorities are rendered visible in calibrated degrees according to political context and visual register. The argument is anchored in a comparison of the 2019 Papuan anti-racism protests, visualised through anonymous masses and property damage, against Jakarta student protests, where participants were named and individualised. A further case shows that specifying vocabulary withheld within Papua extends to oppositional voices relocated outside contested territory. These cases are read alongside corpus-wide patterns of culturalization, exoticization, and visual marginalisation, and against counter-visual practices reaching the gradient’s upper end without escaping its logic. Perceived political risk to national cohesion is identified as the primary calibration axis.

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