Online News Framing: Muhammadiyah's Stance On The COVID-19 Vaccine Controversy

Abstract

As happened in many countries, the COVID-19 vaccine program in Indonesia has experienced challenges due to various hoaxes that accompany it. One of the controversies in the community was that the hoax of the vaccine was doubtful of its halalness. Having faced this situation, the government invited Muhammadiyah the largest Islamic community organization to participate in socializing the use of vaccines to reduce cases of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to find out the online news media that framed Muhammadiyah in facing the COVID-19 vaccines and analyzed the framing of the news using Robert Entman's theory. This research methodology uses a qualitative content analysis approach. The results of this study show that there are differences and perceptions of online news media (non-Muhammadiyah and Muhammadiyah affiliated) in framing Muhammadiyah's stance on the aspects of problem definition, problem diagnosis, moral judgment, and problem-solving related to the COVID-19 vaccine controversy. The differences encountered are the number of articles and the content of the messages raised between Muhammadiyah's non-affiliated media and Muhammadiyah's affiliated media. The similarity lies in the framing of Muhammadiyah's support for President Joko Widodo's invitation to fight the COVID-19 vaccine hoax. The results of this study are important in answering Muhammadiyah's position about the rejection of the government's vaccine program.