Constructing Gender: Analysis of Government Communication on Portal Lombok Timur Narrative

This study discusses how women and gender are constructed in the articles presented on the government's official website. By using post-structural feminism framework, this study examines the interplay between language, discourse, and power dynamics in the presentation of women and gender by the government. This study focuses on Portal Lombok Timur, East Lombok government's official website that functions as the main tool for public information dissemination for its stakeholders. East Lombok is recorded to have the highest numbers of violence against women cases in Indonesia, indicating their concerning gender inequality. This research implements a mix-method design of quantitative thematic content analysis and qualitative Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine how local government contributes to the construction of gender and how such construction impacts gender inequality in the area. Key quantitative findings reveal a dominant narrative that frequently views women as vulnerable and secondary actors, with their gender-related affairs addressed in the public sphere and are solved by the government as their saviour. Meanwhile, the qualitative analysis underlines crucial themes such as how gender is constructed and the effects that it produces. The result of this research reveals that the government reproduces patriarchal biases that considerably contribute to the pervasive gender inequality condition in the region.