Attitude Resources of Prabowo Subianto’s Portrayal in BBC News: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This study adopted Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as the research method to examine how evaluative language is discursively employed to construct the public image of Prabowo Subianto in selected BBC News articles. Combining both deductive and inductive approaches, the analysis drew on Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory, specifically the attitude resources to identify affect, judgement, and appreciation using the UAM Corpus Tool. Discursive strategies were further examined through Wodak’s (2001) Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). While the deductive analysis applied these theoretical frameworks to annotate and categorize data, the inductive analysis explored the underlying ideological positioning embedded in the texts. The findings indicated that judgement was the most frequently used attitude resource (53.13%), followed by affect (30.96%) and appreciation (15.89%). Negative judgement of propriety (30.8%) dominated the discourse, portraying Prabowo as morally compromised, especially in connection to past human rights allegations. Negative affect reflects public fear toward his perceived authoritarianism, whereas appreciation is primarily used to positively evaluate his campaign efforts to appeal to voters. The overall negative portrayal suggests an alignment with the BBC’s ideological stance on human rights and liberal democratic values, while the inclusion of positive evaluations appears to uphold journalistic fairness and impartiality.