Framing Cultural Narratives in News Coverage of Indonesia’s Thorium Power Plant Debate

This research applies a framing analysis to deconstruct how media discourses construct cultural and political meanings around the development of a thorium-based power plant on Gelasa Island, Central Bangka Regency, Indonesia. Drawing on Pan and Kosicki’s framing model, the research interprets the syntactic, script, thematic, and rhetorical structures in three news articles published by detikcom and KOMPAS.com between 1 August 2022 and 31 August 2023, selected for their prominence, explicit case relevance, and citation of institutional actors. Guided by Framing Theory and the Theory of Public Opinion Formation, the research adopts a qualitative, constructivist approach to interrogate how narratives of foreign interest, technological advancement, and national sovereignty are shaped in media representations. Specifically, it seeks to answer the question of why detikcom and KOMPAS.com framed the existence of foreign interests in the thorium power plant project. The findings reveal three dominant frames: developmental modernity and techno-optimism, sovereignty and foreign dependency, and state-led modernization. These frames are embedded in broader cultural narratives of techno-nationalism, environmental concern, and postcolonial identity in Indonesia’s development discourse. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how energy debates are mediated through symbolic language and national imaginaries, with implications for science communication, media literacy, and renewable energy policy.