Politics and the Media in Twenty-First Century Indonesia

Decade of Democracy

Krishna Sen, David Hill, Krishna Sen, David Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415476522
• eBook ISBN: 9781136891489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Every political aspirant and activist knows the media are important. But there is little agreement on how an increasingly diversified media operate in post-authoritarian transitions and how they might promote, or impede, the pathways to a sustainable liberal democracy in the 21st century. This book examines the role of the media during Indonesia's longest experiment with democratisation. It addresses two important and related questions: how is the media being transformed, both in terms of its structure and content, by the changing political economy of Indonesia after the fall of Suharto? And what is the potential impact of this media in enabling or hampering the development of democracy in Indonesia?

The book explores the relation between the working of democratisation, by examining the role of ethnic identity and nationalism; increasingly cheaper and diversified means of media production, challenging state monopolies of the media; the reality of personalised and globalised media; and the challenging of the connection between a free media and democracy by global capitalism and corporate control of the media. The book argues that the dominant forces transforming Indonesia today did not arise from the singular point of Suharto's resignation, but from a set of factors which are independent from, but linked to, Indonesia's internal politics and which shape its cultural industries.

Table of contents

• Media, culture and social change in Asia
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Reorganisation of media power in post-authoritarian Indonesia
• 2 On the border
• 3 Community radio and the empowerment of local culture in Indonesia
• 4 Riding waves of change
• 5 Indonesian journalism post-Suharto
• 6 Media ownership and its implications for journalists and journalism in Indonesia
• 7 The transformation of the media scene
• 8 ‘Radio Active’
• 9 The construction of women in contemporary Indonesian women’s cinema
• 10 Media and morality
• Index