Mass media's neutral stance after New Order<\/p>\n
By Junarto Imam Prakoso<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Greater openness has allowed many Indonesian
\nmedia publications to emerge but whether they can stick to
\njournalistic principles of objectivity and impartiality is open
\nto question.<\/p>\n
In the 1950s, many media publications were partisan. Pedoman,
\nfor example, leaned to the Indonesian Socialist Party, Abadi to
\nMasyumi, a Moslem party, Harian Rakyat to the Indonesian
\nCommunist Party and Suluh Indonesia to the Indonesian Nationalist
\nParty. Others, like Indonesia Raya and Times of Indonesia, tried
\nto be independent.<\/p>\n
During the Guided Democracy period in late 1950s, mass media
\ndid not dare to oppose the government policies, despite their
\nlink with certain political forces, for fear of being banned.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the New Order administration in the mid-
\n1960s, the media got a taste of press freedom. Based on Law No.
\n11\/1966 on the Principles of the Press, it assumed a very
\ncritical attitude toward the government without any fear of being
\nbanned.<\/p>\n
Things changed, however, when the New Order government created
\nthe myth of "political stability being the prerequisite for
\neconomic growth" with political repression and control over the
\nflow of information being the logical consequences.<\/p>\n
The fusion of political parties in the 1970s, and the outbreak
\nof major student demonstrations in 1974, compelled the media to
\nfurther forsake their ideological idealism. As a result, most
\npress publications focused on flexing their commercial muscle.<\/p>\n
The industry was considered a lucrative business and
\nnonpolitical media such as Gadis and Femina were mushrooming. The
\npress in general, in the meantime, was extra-careful in exposing
\npolitical issues which were considered sensitive. Political
\nobserver Daniel Dhakidae said: "Indonesian newspapers kept the
\ndistance far enough from the state to make them interesting, and
\nthus to enlarge the leadership but close enough to the capital to
\nkeep them alive."<\/p>\n
On May 21, 1998, Soeharto stepped down under strong political
\npressure after ruling the country for 32 years, and a hope that
\nthis date would be a turning point for Indonesia's political
\nsystem toward democracy was rekindled.<\/p>\n
The subsequent Habibie government lifted regulations
\nrestricting press freedom, such as Minister of Information Decree
\nNo. 1\/1984.<\/p>\n
The people welcomed this sign of openness with a number of
\nnew media companies springing up partly because of the simple
\npress licensing procedure despite the ongoing economic crisis.<\/p>\n
Under a political system with a homogeneous culture like that
\nin Britain, Commonwealth countries and the United States, the
\npress has a tendency of being autonomous and distinguishable.<\/p>\n
Under a political system characterized by fragmentation, like
\nthat in France and Italy, the press tends to be dominated and
\ncontrolled by interest groups and political parties. It is akin
\nto what is happening here now as a consequence of a relatively
\nopen political system.<\/p>\n
At this point, it is important to know how the extent of the
\nmass media's partisanship can be measured. Blumler and Gurevitch
\nintroduce the following set of dimensions:<\/p>\n
* The degree of the state's control over the mass media
\norganization.<\/p>\n
* The degree of the media's partisanship.<\/p>\n
* The character of the system of belief prevailing in the said
\nmedia.<\/p>\n
* The degree of integration between the media elite and the
\npolitical elite.<\/p>\n
The degree of the state's control over media organization
\nincludes control over staff appointment, finance and the content
\nof the media publication; the kind of control which legally
\nconcerns the code of publication. In Indonesia, this dimension
\ncan be ignored with the revocation of Minister of Information
\nRegulation No. 1\/1984, which was used by the New Order regime as
\na legal weapon to revoke the licenses of mass media opposing it.<\/p>\n
The degree of the media's partisanship is open to at least
\nthree possibilities. In an extreme case, the highest degree of a
\nmedia publication's partisanship may be seen when a particular
\nparty is directly associated with the very existence of the media
\nin terms of, for example, financial subsidies or managerial
\nmembership in the editorial board.<\/p>\n
A media publication may show its partisanship with a certain
\npolitical party voluntarily, or, in other cases, partisanship may
\nbe unpredictable because a media publication may adopt this
\nattitude on the basis of the "value" of a certain case. This
\nmeans that this attitude of partisanship may change at any time.<\/p>\n
The last possibility is that a media publication assumes a
\ncompletely neutral attitude and tries its utmost not to lend
\nsupport to any political party.<\/p>\n
The character of the system of belief prevailing in the said
\nmedia is shaped by various elements, such as a belief that the
\nmain task concerns the public, an emphasis on mastery of the
\ncommunications science, a belief in the function of "a watchdog",
\nan attitude of opposition in dealing with politicians and
\ncommitment in a universal criteria, such as political truth with
\nbalance and objectivity in political fights.<\/p>\n
The degree of integration between the media elite and the
\npolitical elite is viewed that a structural gap between media and
\npolitical institutions may be bridged in the following ways.<\/p>\n
* To ensure that they share a common interest, and value elite
\nmembers of the media are recruited on the basis of a common
\nsocial and cultural background or are required to socialize in a
\ncommon social and cultural environment.<\/p>\n
* An overlapping attitude of the personnel in the sense that a
\nstaffer may believe that he is independent while in fact he
\nsupports a particular party.<\/p>\n
* The media elite and the political elite are at least involved
\nin informal interaction so that they will share a common
\nunderstanding and minimize their differences.<\/p>\n
Dan Nimmo views the impossibility of the mass media to assume
\na neutral stance on a smaller scope, the news. According to him,
\nnews reports constitute what reporters see, do and sell in the
\nframework of institutional, economic, technological, social and
\npsychological limitations.<\/p>\n
In this context, a reporter serves as a communicator and as
\none who constructs the meaning of a happening. The report
\nprepared by such a reporter is not the truth but rather a reality
\nwhich is drawn up for a practical purpose of attempting to put
\nunder the spotlight an "unusual" event. When receiving a report
\nfrom a reporter, a chief editor knows very well the objective of
\nthe writing of this report. A chief editor's job is short of
\ncompletion if he simply gathers information for his readers. The
\nreaders are expected to be influenced by the stimulus exerted by
\nnews reports, which, in Lipmann's words, have gone through a
\nseries of selection.<\/p>\n
Mass media's partisanship were obvious both in the Old Order
\nera and in the early years of the New Order government.<\/p>\n
In the early part of the New Order administration, despite
\ntheir attitude of partisanship, the media could not oppose the
\nruler because of the nature of the political system. The mass
\nmedia tried to take sides with particular political parties and
\ngroups but the politics of repression prompted the mass media
\npracticing partisanship to reduce their sectional loyalty in an
\nobvious manner.<\/p>\n
As a result of the change toward greater accommodation and
\nopenness introduced in Indonesia's political system in May 1998,
\nthe pattern of partisanship has again resurfaced.<\/p>\n
If this new political system finally finds its format in a
\ndemocratic system, it is expected that the media will generally
\nhave a tendency to show a high degree of partisanship or openly
\ndemonstrate that they take sides with certain political parties
\nor groups of interest.<\/p>\n
Such a phenomenon is made possible by the fact that the
\npotential of the society being politically fragmented, which was
\nstifled by the New Order regime with its antiplurality policy,
\nhas found its "liberation" in the next era.<\/p>\n
The writer is a Communications Science student of the
\nUniversity of Indonesia's School of Social and Political Sciences
\nand assistant lecturer for Communications Research Methodology.<\/p>",
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