Growth in communication phenomenal<\/p>\n
By Ariel Heryanto<\/p>\n
SALATIGA, Central Java (JP): Recent developments in the
\ninfrastructure of mass communications in Indonesia, as elsewhere,
\nhave been phenomenal. What remains less than clear is their
\nimpact on people's daily lives. It is most likely that the impact
\nis different from whatever is being dictated by sponsoring
\nagencies.<\/p>\n
History teaches us that technology has not simply served our
\nlife, facilitated our work or satisfied our desires in more
\nconvenient ways. Beyond our will it changes the fundamentals of
\nour lives and working systems. It alters our perception of space,
\ntime, and our own identities. It has never become a mere tool for
\nmanipulation by its owner, operator or those who legalize its
\nstatus.<\/p>\n
The significance of recent developments in mass communication
\nin Indonesia is more difficult to recognize than the infamous
\nbanning of three major weeklies by the government in June last
\nyear: DeTik, Tempo, and Editor.<\/p>\n
A common reaction here and abroad is that the bannings
\nreaffirm many observers' own belief of the government's
\nrepressive character, or of its ability to maintain the effective
\nprowess to be so repressive. Politics is understood primarily as
\na top-down process, with the state apparatus or its rulers at the
\napex.<\/p>\n
Missing in such observations is the broader picture in
\nhistorical perspective. Bannings are commonplace under the New
\nOrder. No less than 30 media publications have been banned by
\nthis administration over the past quarter of a century. But no
\nbans in the past provoked the kind of public outrage that took
\nplace at the time of the June 1994 bannings.<\/p>\n
Before being banned, DeTik had the biggest circulation of all
\nprint media in the country at approximately 600,000 copies. This
\nwas accomplished in less than a year of operation. Editor was the
\nsmallest among the three recently banned, having an estimated
\ncirculation of 60,000 and Tempo was 200,000. In Southeast Asia
\nand the Pacific these figures are not small. Daniel Dhakidae
\nestimates Tempo to be \"the largest magazine published in a
\nnational language in Asia outside India, Japan, China, Korea and
\nTaiwan.\" Or even in Asia-Pacific, outside those countries
\nmentioned above plus the United States and Russia.<\/p>\n
Among the surviving press, the dailies Kompas and Jawa Pos
\nsell more than half a million copies. In societies like Indonesia
\napproximately five people share each copy. In the near future
\nother print media (there are now more than 150) may catch up with
\nthose leading enterprises. That is not the whole story. More
\nsubversive are the recent developments in electronically mediated
\nmass communication.<\/p>\n
Indonesia is the third country in the world to launch a
\ntelecommunication satellite in 1976. When the Sukarno government
\nestablished the first and sole television station TVRI in 1962,
\nit was intended for educational and propaganda purposes. With a
\nsimilar attitude, the successive government has managed TVRI
\nsince 1966. It has purged advertisements from TVRI since 1981.<\/p>\n
With the launching of the private television station RCTI in
\n1987 it was clear that entertainment and advertisements were
\nirresistible. In 1993 the same government agreed to let four
\nprivate television stations compete commercially, rendering TVRI
\nobsolete.<\/p>\n
Today Western-derived soap operas, videoclips and news
\ndominate the screen, in lieu of the educational items and
\npolitical propaganda. Last year the government issued the most
\nliberal decree ever. It allows foreign investment to operate in
\nareas previously restricted to state-ownership, including
\ntelecommunications.<\/p>\n
There are now reportedly approximately 800,000 parabola
\nantennas in Indonesia, including those privately-owned in the
\nhomes of ordinary people. These are more than can be found in any
\nother Asian country, except Japan and Taiwan. Each antenna can
\ncater to approximately 40 television sets, or a whole
\nneighborhood as is often the case. Each set entertains more than
\none extended family.<\/p>\n
Mass telecommunications by computer network began rather late
\nin Indonesia. But its expansion is accelerating. In the past few
\nmonths, the number of subscribers increased by 700 percent, the
\nhighest in the whole of Asia, though the absolute number is very
\nsmall (3,000 among the world's 25 million).<\/p>\n
The foregoing example only suggests the conditions for
\nmultiple production and reproduction of information. The question
\nis whether it is all there is. Is the change chiefly
\nquantitative: more information, parabola antennas, television
\nsets, and private television stations? More powerful, smaller in
\nsize, and yet cheaper computers or mobile-telephones? An ever
\nbigger mass of consumers in a shrinking globe? Or are we
\nwitnessing a more qualitative or fundamental transformation of
\nour societal order?<\/p>\n
We have no answers, but some of the insights from the
\npostmodernists may be most helpful to understand the social
\nchanges taking place across the globe. Central in their sometimes
\nhigh-flying language is the idea concerning the rise of self-
\nreferential images, and the near demise of the two most crucial
\nentities in the modern world: man (the consciously referring
\nsubjects) and reality (referents, objects being referred to).<\/p>\n
The media becomes less and less a means of communication among
\nmen (free, essentially autonomous, rational beings) about reality
\n(things, concepts, events that are independent of man-made
\nlanguage). Information increasingly refers to itself or its own
\nkin (other information). It neither reveals truth\/reality in the
\nworld, nor conceals, or distorts it. Rather than seeking and
\nreporting events after the fact, the media precedes them. They
\nreconstruct the world, realities, truths, and subjects anew.<\/p>\n
The June 1994 bannings illustrate the point well. Far from
\nsuppressing information, the bannings freed up more information.
\nMore significantly, the surviving media was full of information
\nabout the media. But isn't this a very special and rare case? No!
\nIsn't it more and more common for the media to report other media
\nreports? They advertise each other's trading commodity items.
\nThey comment on comments previously produced in earlier editions
\nor those from other media. They refer less and less to reality
\noutside the media, real people and the world \"out there\".<\/p>\n
Next to the bannings and the APEC forum (itself a media
\nspectacle per excellence), the dismissal of senior lecturer Arief
\nBudiman from Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga was
\nthe most widely publicized event in the country in 1994. The case
\nis significant, not simply because of the generous coverage that
\nit received from the media but that it originated in the media,
\nand the media directed its subsequent course of events.<\/p>\n
The university concerned is a small one, just like the town
\nwhere it is located. Most people on this campus know each other
\npersonally. But the recent conflict split the academic community,
\nopposing parties launched attacks and counter-attacks mainly
\nthrough the mediation of the national press, and occasionally
\nthrough global faxes and e-mail contacts.<\/p>\n
The official pretext for Budiman's dismissal was his critical
\nstatements about the University's Board of Trustees. But the
\nlatter never received Budiman's critiques directly. They only
\nread his statements as mediated in the press. Neither did they
\nbother to demand his explanation afterwards for confirmation.<\/p>\n
The dismissal was based on a conviction that the press had
\nmirrored Budiman's original statements, and that the Board had
\nfully understood what these reported statements meant. The case
\naggregated, following protests from the majority of the faculty
\nand students. Budiman's colleagues were preoccupied with what got
\nprinted in the press in order to follow what purported to be
\ntaking place in their immediate surroundings.<\/p>\n
The failure to recognize how the media works today might have
\nbeen responsible for the incident in which East Timor youths were
\nshot in Dili in November 1991, or the female labor activist
\nMarsinah was killed in May 1993. Jakarta's strong reaction to the
\nManila conference on East Timor in 1994 provoked great media
\nattention. This might be what conference organizers had intended.
\nIf so, the goal was achieved before the meeting actually started.<\/p>\n
The writer is a lecturer at the Post-graduate Program at the
\nSatya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Central Java.<\/p>\n
Window: A common reaction here and abroad is that the bannings of
\nthe media publications reaffirm many observers' own belief of the
\ngovernment's repressive character.<\/p>",
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