Penelitian ini adalah kajian kritis yang memfokuskan pada bagaimana dua media berita lokal yang berpengaruh di Jawa Barat, yakni Harian Umum Pikiran Rakyat dan Harian Pagi Tribun Jabar, memposisikan isu-isu kemiskinan dalam liputan pemberitaannya dengan pola-pola representasi berita yang sesuai dalam konteks media liberal dan industri budaya media yang penuh persaingan. Melalui lensa Teori Pemosisian Sosial (Social Positioning Theory) yang menekankan pada bagaimana aktor wacana mengembangkan sudut pandang untuk memposisikan subjek dan pentingnya konteks representasi, penelitian ini menunjukkan bagaimana latar sosial budaya dan faktor-faktor ekonomi politik telah mempengaruhi lanskap media lokal (local mediascape) dan pola-pola representasi beritanya.Menyeleksi berita-berita terkait kemiskinan di kedua media yang terbit antara Desember 2012 hingga Februari 2013, ketika berlangsung kampanye pemilihan Gubernur dan Wakil Gubernur Jawa Barat Periode 2013-2018, penelitian ini menemukan terdapat 266 kisah berita yang merepresentasikan orang miskin dan isu-isu kemiskinan; yakni 175 (65, 79%) kisah berita kemiskinan di HU Pikiran Rakyat dan 91 (34, 21%) kisah berita kemiskinan di Harian Pagi Tribun Jabar.Kajian ini berkesimpulan bahwa proses eksklusi orang miskin yang berlangsung di dunia nyata juga tergambar di halaman media. Hal ini disebabkan pandangan-pandangan konvensional tentang kemiskinan yang masih hidup dan terus dikukuhkan dalam praktek jurnalisme yang berorientasi sudut pandang dominan, dan oleh kekuatan ekonomi politik, termasuk iklan yang mempengaruhi posisi berita dan teks kemiskinan dalam representasi beritanya. Dengan menekankan pola-pola representasi dominan-hegemonik, media memperkuat ideologi konsensus yang menekankan kemiskinan sebagai objek bantuan dan memperteguh sudut pandang yang melihat kemiskinan dari sudut masalah dan angka-angka sehingga membatasi representasi berita pada sisi kualitas manusia.Meski penelitian ini menemukan representasi dominan-hegemonik dengan pola-pola representasi yang menekankan pada sumber-sumber resmi, namun jurnalis lokal sebagai agen sosial dan aktor wacana juga punya ideologinya sendiri yang memungkinkan mereka mengembangkan representasi berita alternatif sebagai ?representasi hegemoni-tandingan? (?counter-hegemonic representation?) yang memberi ruang pluralisme pandangan dan suara orang miskin Penelitian ini mengusulkan media berita perlu menugaskan ?jurnalis kemiskinan? yang empatik dan sensitif gender serta menggunakan sudut pandang ?dari dalam atau dari bawah?. Penelitian ini bisa berkontribusi secara teoretik dalam memberikan pijakan bagi kajian representasi simbolik, khususnya berita kemiskinan dan kelompok marjinal, dan mengkontekstualkan Teori Pemosisian Sosial dalam kajian komunikasi yang bersandar pada data empirik dan berpijak pada dua landasan teoretik yang koheren untuk mempertemukan perspektif ekonomi politik kritis dan kajian budaya kritis dan menempatkannya dalam kajian media sebagai bagian dari industri budaya.

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This research is a critical research which focuses on how two influential local news media in West Java, namely Pikiran Rakyat and Tribun Jabar, place the poverty issues in their coverage with appropriate news representation patterns in a context of liberal media and competitive media culture industry. Through the lens of Social Positioning Theory which emphasizes on how discourse actors develop a point of view to place the subject and the importance in understanding representations context, this research shows how the background of socio-cultural and political economic factors have influenced local media landscape (local mediascape) and the news representation patterns it develops.Selecting news stories related with poverty in the two media which are published between December 2012 to February 2013, the time span for campaigns of West Java?s Governor and Vice Governor election for the 2013-2018 period, this research finds that there are 266 news stories which represent the poor and poverty issues; namely 175 (65.79%) poverty news stories in Pikiran Rakyat and 91 (34.21%) poverty news stories in Tribun Jabar. This research also proves previous studies in other countries that the quantity of poverty news is drastically increasing on the days before election, namely 70 (26.32%) in December 2012, 75 (28.30%) in January 2013, and in February 2013 (the election month) it has increased to 121 (45.49%) news stories.This research concludes that the exclusion process or marginalization of the poor which is occurring in the real world also shows up in the pages and in media text. This is caused by conventional views on poverty which still live and keeps on strengthened in the journalism practices with dominant point of view oriented, and also by political economic and capital powers, including advertisements which influence the location and position of the news and poverty texts in the news representations.By emphasizing dominant-hegemonic representation patterns, news media strengthen consensus ideology which emphasizes poverty as helping object and strengthen the point of view observing povertyfrom the point of view of problems and numbers therefore it limits the news representations range which emphasizes on human?s quality by observing poverty as daily life experience of the poor which is very complex and distinctive to each individual. Such representations strengthen the ?dehumanization? face of poverty.Although this research finds dominant-hegemonic representation with representation patterns emphasizing the official sources, this research also finds alternative representation significantly. Journalists as social agent and discourse actors also develop alternative news representations against or contravene with the dominant-hegemonic representation. In the more commercialized media setting, journalists develop alternative representation as the ?counter-hegemonic representation? which opens the space for the development of view pluralism and for the voice of the poor with various issues.This research suggests that news media needs to appoint poverty journalist or news reporter or a kind of emphatic and gender sensitive ?poverty journalist? and which is able to utilize ?from inside or from below? point of view. This research can contribute theoretically in giving the footsteps to news representation studies, especially poverty news and marginal groups, and contextualizing the Social Positioning Theory in communication study which relies on empirical data and stands on two coherent theoretical basis to integrate critical political economic perspective with critical cultural study and place them in media studies as part of cultural industries.