Culture important in management of the mass media

Culture important in management of the mass media

JAKARTA (JP): Media managers in Indonesia must take into
account the prevailing cultural values if they want to survive
and flourish, executives say.

"We should remember that in Indonesia, we have a culture which
believes that if you don't want to get hurt or criticized, then
you don't hurt others. This is unlike the Western concept which
believes one should solve any problem no matter what is at
stake," Secretary General of the Union of Newspaper Publishers
(SPS) S. Leo Batubara, said at a seminar yesterday.

The one-day seminar, discussing "Alternative perspectives to
develop a sound management of the mass media," was held by
students of the School of Political and Social Sciences of the
University of Indonesia.

The delicate issue of "dominant cultural values" -- which is,
in fact, another term for the Javanese culture -- was brought up
by M. Budyatna, the school's dean, and by Aristides Katoppo, a
senior journalist from the Suara Pembaruan daily. Aristides is
also the former chief editor of the banned Sinar Harapan daily.

Several participants questioned how media managers should deal
with the government controls and how it should strive to abide by
those rules in order to survive and flourish.

Aristides pointed out that there were currently no specific
rules explaining the limits of the government's control.

"A part of society is the powerful ruling group -- the
government -- a majority of whom happen to possess 'dominant
cultural values'," he said.

"These people tend to express themselves, communicate and
criticize others, in a very obscure, indirect manner which is
often unreadable for the minority groups in Indonesia."

A native of Sulawesi, Katoppo said there should be clear
guidelines concerning what they are allowed to say in their news
reports. "Any government ruling against a media should not be
based on such an ambiguous means of communication."

Citing the recent banning of three prominent news magazines,
Tempo, Editor and DeTik as an example, Katoppo pointed out that
the decision was made without due process of law.

"If any of the banned publications have indeed violated a law,
they should have been brought to face judicial charges first,"
Katoppo said.

Ambiguity

Budyatna felt that this ambiguity was caused by "communication
problems" in Indonesia between the majority of Javanese
possessing the "dominant cultural values" and the minority
groups.

"Should the minority of people adapt to this situation?"
Budyatna asked.

Leo said that, in order to voice criticism without endangering
its existence, managers of the media should be particularly
careful that they do not step into what he referred to as the
"restricted area" of news reporting.

Instead, he said, they should cohere to the safe areas if they
intend to survive and flourish in the country.

"A media can try taking several steps forward, glance around
to see if the others are going at the same pace, and step back if
they're not," Leo suggested.

"We are given a certain extent of freedom, so we should
exploit what we have as much as we can ... and during the process
we can try to take further steps forward," he added.

Disagreeing with this opinion, Aristides pointed out that the
"dominant culture" should be clearly differentiated between what
he considered were remains of a feudalistic, fearful mentality
and the lofty cultural values which contained the seeds of
democracy.

"Our founding fathers who formulated Pancasila and the 1945
Constitution -- both which contain democratic values and a high
regard for human rights -- were, in fact, part of the 'dominant
culture,'" he stressed.(pwn)