The Image of Politicians of Prospective Governor and Deputy Governor of North Maluku in 2018 in a Local Media Frame

The fact of reality in the local election process in looking for regional leaders is always colored by "image of conflict" in the national escalation labelled as the "conflict provinces". The reality of local political actors in North Maluku eventually became a commodity of mass media institutions as a material for political coverage. This study uses an interpretive paradigm of the reality of the image of political actors in the frame of local mass media in the simultaneous elections at North Maluku in 2018, through a qualitative approach to framing analysis. Data collection methods is done by using text analysis, observation, in-depth interviews, FGDs and document searches found the results of how the mass media frame in the context of political communication and how the framing process occurs in the construction of local media against the meaning of the image of the candidates for governor and deputy governor.