Local media creates new definitions for itself

Local media creates new definitions for itself

Media, Culture, and Politics in Indonesia;
Krishna Sen & David T. Hill;
Oxford University Press, 2000;
245 pages

JAKARTA (JP): Krishna Sen and David T. Hill, from Murdoch
University and Curtin University in Western Australia,
respectively, are widely known as Indonesianists who have done a
great deal of research on Indonesian culture and media.

In this book, published a year ago, Sen and Hill come to the
conclusion that while Soeharto's fall in 1998 was not the result
of television, radio, the Internet or imported rock music, it is
impossible to imagine that this event would have occurred without
the media.

This conclusion makes it very clear that we cannot take a
black-and-white view of the Indonesian media. During the New
Order, the media were caught between the co-optation of the state
and the expansion of capital growth.

It happened to all media; print media, film, television, radio
and the Internet.

During the New Order era, the state demanded political
corporation to ensure its control over the media. The state made
sure the media supported its interests in the name of national
stability and economic development.

Besides, the state also ran its rent-seeking activities, by
demanding taxes and fees before licensing a media enterprise.
These activities were run by the ministry of information, which
was very powerful under the Soeharto regime.

Once the media became critical of the government, it would
face being censored or banned, with the government simply
removing the license.

But the capital growth in the media had its own logic, and the
state's repressive actions were challenged by capital progress.

The line between "selling news" and "maintaining state
repression" became blurred. Capital interests tended to prove
victorious over the state's repressive measures, mainly in the
last years of the Soeharto regime.

This was back in the middle of 1994, only two weeks before
three weeklies -- Tempo, Detik and Editor -- were banned
and when top bureaucrats were divided over full foreign ownership
in the media industry.

Some economic ministers supported the idea of full foreign
ownership, while the orthodox camp, including the minister of
information, challenged the idea in the name of national
integrity and patriotism.

The then minister of information, Harmoko, who was also
chairman of Golkar, bet that president Soeharto also would
challenge that "liberal idea".

The television industry was another story. Indonesians may
still remember an interview aired by SCTV, owned by one of
Soeharto's relatives, with Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, one of the
outspoken ministers in Soeharto's Cabinet.

It sounds strange that a station owned by a Soeharto relative
would criticize the president. But it happened, and the response
from the family was quick, with the newscaster and news producer
being fired.

Later on we saw the demand for reform grow stronger than the
need to control and ban critical information from the public.
Soeharto fell on May 21, 1998, days after the SCTV interview.

This book is very useful in looking at the growth of the
Indonesian media. Sen and Hill excellently tell the history of
different branches of the media, while also discussing the state
of each media and the dynamic of capital development.

Each branch has taken different paths in developing. If other
researchers want to continue and build on Sen and Hill's work,
this book would be very valuable.

Media, Culture, and Politics is a complex term, and Sen and
Hill apparently use this term purposely to show the complexity of
recent developments in the Indonesian media. The media cannot be
separated from cultural and political phenomena, and the media
also cannot be separated from politics and culture.

Another point that Sen and Hill make is that media content is
primarily "national" rather than "local" or "global".

In this point the Indonesian media is caught between three
dimensions (local-national-global) of news which strongly
influence each other.

But under the New Order, writing about local cultures risked
being accused of exaggerating difference of culture, ethnicity,
religion or societal groups (locally known by the acronym SARA).

In writing a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Indonesian
culture and media, Sen and Hill combine two different approaches;
political economy and cultural studies.

Although this combination is debatable, it gives a whole
explanation of the Indonesian media. As for the issue of media
ownership, in the case of television, for example, it is a matter
of family business, since all private television stations are
directly or indirectly owned by the Soeharto family.

In the film industry, Subentra, a company controlled by a
relative of Soeharto, monopolized film distribution and
controlled a chain of cinema complexes in Indonesia.

If we look at how the media has developed in the four years
since Soeharto's downfall, we will see a blurred picture. Some
media groups have expanded their chains into small towns, and at
the same time we can find franchised media in the Indonesian
market.

There are Indonesian versions of Cosmopolitan magazine, as
well as Her World, Formula 1, Health Today and so on. The
ministry of information, once considered the God of media owners,
has been dissolved. In 1999, Indonesia received a new press law
which gave more leeway for media to exist and operate freely.

Within the last four years, there have been major changes in
the Indonesian media structure, which has shifted the role of the
media as defined during the New Order.

The media is no longer defined as the government's partner in
economic development, and now the media is creating new
definitions for itself, from the tool of political groups to a
bridge for understanding the many interests within society.

The media has also become a mere way to make money selling sex
and mystical stories. Some small publishers tried their luck in
the media business, but most of them failed to survive for more
than three months.

The current situation should encourage Sen and Hill to
research and write another book.

Ignatius Haryanto is the vice executive director of the
Institute for the Study of Press and Development in Jakarta.