This research focuses on the narrative found in the online article of mainstream news media and how they characterize Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest female politician that won an unexpected victory against Joe Crowley.
The study uses qualitative descriptive method with purposive sampling technique. The sources of data were used, the primary sources which are the news article from cnn.com and cbsnews.com with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez contained in the news either in the title or in the news itself from July 2018 to April 2019. The secondary data are the book and journal which discuss about American women in politics. The primary data will then be analyzed with Tzvetan Todorov’s 5 stages of narrative structure and then analyzed with Vladimir Propp’s 7 Character Functions with the secondary data used as supplement.
Within the time of research, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in CNN’s narrative as a whole is characterized as The Helper for the Democratic Party to connect it with the progressives against the republican, in CBS narrative there is no clear one big narrative that is being created and most of CBS articles are reports.
Looking the narrative topic by topic in the first few months after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unexpected victory against Joe Crowley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in CNN’s Narrative fit the characterization of false hero because her gaffes. Getting into specific topics after one month, while some aspect of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was portrayed negatively such as solutions for tax and the green new deal in CNN’s narrative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez herself is still portrayed as helper. In CBS narrative, she is only portrayed negatively in the first few months, after the first months, her character function fits to either helper or hero. While this is a positive change compared to Hillary Clinton in 2008, American Women is only portrayed positively when it is not as a leader
