<![CDATA[This study investigates the use of modality as a linguistic mechanism for ideological representation in Indonesian news texts concerning Islamic boarding schools. Drawing upon Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (2013) and Fairclough’s framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (2010), the research explores how epistemic, deontic, and dynamic modalities are employed to construct authority, moral legitimacy, and national identity. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, the study analyzed selected news reports issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The data were collected through documentation and analyzed using interpretative linguistic analysis. The findings reveal that epistemic modality, particularly through the consistent use of will and would, reinforces state confidence and transforms policy aspirations into unquestionable commitments. Deontic modality, expressed through moralized terms such as spiritual calling and vital role, legitimizes government initiatives by embedding them in religious and ethical narratives. Meanwhile, dynamic modality projects Indonesia’s readiness and capacity to assume global leadership in Islamic education, reversing the traditional hierarchy of knowledge between the Middle East and Southeast Asia. To sum up, the research finds that modality in the analyzed texts plays the role of not only a grammatical category but also an ideological strategy that incorporates linguistic certainty, moral obligation, and institutional power to maintain the state's image of religious and national authority. One of the implications of this study is that the use of language in media discourse can act as a powerful means to influence the ideological perception and to justify the state policy. Keywords: Discourse Analysis; Ideology; Islamic Boarding School; Modality; News Texts]]>
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