Constructing the Rupiah Depreciation: A Comparative Transitivity Analysis of News Coverage in the Jakarta Post and Antara News

This study analyses the representation of the 2026 Indonesian Rupiah depreciation in The Jakarta Post and Antara News. A total of 37 news articles were collected using purposive sampling. This resulted in a total of 137 clauses extracted from headlines, leads, key body paragraphs, quotations, and concluding segments. Transitivity analysis within Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics was used to analyse the data. Findings revealed that both platforms have a high frequency of Material processes. Nevertheless, The Jakarta Post employs mental processes more frequently to emphasise stakeholders’ concerns, uncertainty, and socioeconomic impacts. Meanwhile, Antara News relied more heavily on Verbal processes, focusing on governmental responses, coordination, and reassurance. Therefore, the study suggests that transitivity choices in economic news can shape readers’ understanding of financial unpredictability, agency, and responsibility

Systemic functional linguistics, Transitivity analysis, Critical discourse analysis, News reports, Economic news, Rupiah depreciation

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