Framing Economic Reality in Political Discourse: Prabowo Subianto’s “Rural People Do Not Use Dollars”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55681/ijssh.v4i3.4368Keywords:
Framing, Prabowo, Political Communication, Public Perception, RhetoricAbstract
This study is motivated by global economic dynamics, particularly the appreciation of the United States dollar against the Indonesian rupiah, which has become a significant issue in public discourse. The purpose of this research is to analyze how President Prabowo Subianto’s statement that “rural people do not use dollars” frames economic reality and to examine the rhetorical strategies used to shape public perception. This study adopts a qualitative approach by combining Erving Goffman’s framing theory and Aristotelian rhetorical analysis. From Goffman’s perspective, framing is applied as an interpretive schema to examine how economic issues are organized and presented. Meanwhile, Aristotelian rhetorical analysis is used to identify elements of ethos, pathos, and logos in message delivery. The study provides an understanding of the economic perspective constructed by the President through his speech, particularly in framing the rising dollar exchange rate within everyday life. Ultimately, the study shows that the statement functions as a political communication strategy that shapes public interpretation.
References
Aristotle. (2007). On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (G. A. Kennedy (Ed.); 2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Bennett, W. L., & Livingston, S. (2018). The Disinformation Order: Disruptive Communication and the Decline of Democratic Institutions. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323118760311
Chachanidze, Z. (2026). Aristotelian Rhetoric in Contemporary Media Discourse: A Linguistic Analysis of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Science, Education and Innovations in the Context of Modern Problems, 9(6), 1–13.
Charteris-Black, J. (2018). Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Chou, M. (2020). Populism and the Rhetoric of the Rural-Urban Divide in National Crises. Political Studies, 68(3), 612–630. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719877232
D’Angelo, P. (Ed.). (2018). Doing News Framing Analysis II: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives. Routledge.
Entman, R. M., & Usher, N. (2018). Framing in a Fractured Democracy: Political Communication in the Twenty-First Century. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(3), 298–308. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161218781254
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harper & Row.
Hameleers, M. (2021). Populating the Crisis: How Leaders Reframe Economic Anxiety into Identity Politics. Journal of Language and Politics, 20(4), 512–531. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20019.ham
Indriyana, T., & Albab, C. U. (2020). Blaming the victim: Representation the victim of rape in M.F.A film. Informasi, 50(1), 46–57. https://doi.org/10.21831/informasi.v50i1.27861
Konety, N., Wicaksono, S. A., Rosanta, S., Paluin, R. G., & Sari, D. S. (2026). Indonesian netizen responses to energy inflation threats after the Strait of Hormuz crisis. Jurnal Audience: Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi, 9(2), 220–233.
Lakoff, G. (2019). Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (15th anniversary ed.). Chelsea Green Publishing.
Moffitt, B. (2020). Populism. Polity Press.
Persson, A. (2019). Framing Social Interaction: Continuities and Cracks in Goffman’s Frame Analysis. Routledge.
Rodrik, D. (2018). Populism and the Economics of Globalization. Journal of International Business Policy, 1(1), 12–33. https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-018-0001-4
Saputra, F. A., & Albab, C. U. (2024). Representasi maskulinitas dalam karakter Dom (Analisis semiotika Roland Barthes pada film Jakarta vs Everybody). Jurnal PIKMA: Publikasi Ilmu Komunikasi Media Dan Cinema, 6(2), 261–277.
Sorensen, M. J. (2020). Humor as a Strategic Tool in Political Crisis Communication. International Journal of Communication, 14, 2341–2359.
Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2018). Macrostructures: An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction, and Cognition. Routledge.
Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2019). Emotions, Media and Politics. Polity Press.
Wodak, R. (2021). The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Aristotle. (2007). On rhetoric: A theory of civic discourse (2nd ed., G. A. Kennedy, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Boukes, M. (2022). Episodic and thematic framing effects on the attribution of responsibility: The effects of personalized and contextualized news on perceptions of individual and political responsibility for causing the economic crisis. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 27(2), 374–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220985241
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Samuel Victor Christian, Choirul Ulil Albab
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
