Framing Suharto

Abstract

This study examines the complex, long-term relationship of Australia with Indonesia through the framing process in the Australian media. The authors describe a mature relationship in which the partners no longer have any illusions about each other, but where feelings of antipathy and hostility can have no place either in the longer-term relationship. In the events around the replacement of Suharto in May 1998 clear examples could be found of the framing process in which Australian media sought to make an Australian sense out of the Indonesian tragedies of the end of the century.