MEDIA DISCOURSES ON SOUND HOREG: NEGOTIATING CULTURAL IDENTITY, RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY, AND PUBLIC LEGITIMACY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21009/ishel.v2i1.70934Keywords:
critical discourse analysis, sound horeg, media discourse, cultural identity, public legitimacyAbstract
The rapid growth of Sound Horeg as a community-based entertainment practice in Indonesia has generated intense public debate, particularly following the issuance of Fatwa of the Indonesian Ulema Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia/MUI) of East Java No. 1 of 2025. Although previous studies have examined this phenomenon from sociological, legal, cultural, and religious perspectives, limited attention has been paid to how online media construct competing meanings underlying the controversy. This study aims to examine how online media in Indonesia negotiate cultural identity, religious authority, and public legitimacy through media discourse. Employing a qualitative approach, this study applies Fairclough's three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to 50 purposively selected online media documents published during the 2025–2026 period. The analysis identifies five dominant discourses: religious, governmental, cultural, academic, and public discourses. The findings demonstrate that online media function not merely as channels for disseminating information but also as discursive arenas in which institutional narratives are circulated, contested, and recontextualized. Public legitimacy emerges through interactions among actors representing diverse discourses rather than being derived solely from the authority of a single institution. This study contributes to the advancement of Critical Discourse Analysis by explaining how competing institutional discourses shape contemporary cultural controversies within Indonesia's digital public sphere.
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