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and Expand Democracy Worldwide" I published by National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 20 March 2002. 3 32 Personal interview in January 2002. 33 Interview with Thong Uy Pang in September 2000. Industrialized Media in Democratizing Indonesia Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi
INTRODUCTION The close of the twentieth century has witnessed one of the most profound transformations in the history of the mass media in Indonesia. This, in turn, may open the way for a new era in the country's political historY. We do not refer to the widely-discussed and often over-estimated social change brought about by information technology in general and the Internet more specifically. While Indonesia is not immune to some of the symptoms of the Internet fever, another series of developments has taken place in the mediascape, one which has been much less noted by observers inside and especially outside the country. We refer to the social tensions that have accompanied the recent rapid industrialization of the mass media. This chapter examines a major transition that the Indonesian mass media has been undergoing under the New Order regime (1966-98) and beyond. Crudely, the media's transition can be described as one from personifying an idealist force of "truth-seeker" that is subjected to constant state repression, to an increasingly autonomous, professionally managed, and essentially self-serVing industrial empire. However, our main interest is not in that broad and too familiar phenomenon. Like all tranSitions, the case at hand is full of contradictory elements, movements and tendencies. The ensuing discussion will describe and analyse the various details of tensions among old and new forces that constitute the case in.its specific contexts. The main agent of change in the process is neither the abstract state apparatus, nor any specific state 48 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi Downloaded from
agents, nor crusading journalists either. It is the whole network of state continues to retain some power in regulation and licensing, it has industrial capitalism at global, national and local levels that has been to share, negotiate, and compete with new forces in calling the shots in responsible for the transformation of the media as an institution, as mass media developments. well as its relations with other institutions, including the state. These new forces are not reducible to the new legislature and the For many decades the relation between the state and the institution familiar categories of capital and capitalists. Increasingly significant is of mass media in Indonesia, as in most of its neighbouring countries, the emergence of a new generation of journalists. At more Or less the has been one full of suspicion and tensions. The state has both same time, the Indonesian state has also been losing control over sponsored and controlled media developments as part of the several other institutions, including the educational, artistic, and consolidation of nation-state building and modernization. Today, the religious, as well as the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and Indonesian state has lost nearly all of its paternalistic control of the political parties. While journalists, along with other sectors of the mass media. And, comparable to situations in neighbouring Thailand intelligentsia, have always occupied strategic positions in the context of and the Philippines, state officials and institutions have been regular Indonesia's body politic, contemporary social conditions have eroded targets of criticism and derision by the press. Of course this does not the old bases of such privileged positions and material benefits, forcing mean that Indonesian journalists have attained full liberty and them to imagine, reformulate and seek to establish new ways of surviving, maturity. New adventurous and sensationalist presses have emerged, and to wield new sorts of power. while the old big companies maintain dominance. Overall, however, The main story that follows, therefore, is not so much about the rise journalists have found themselves in no more secure situations than and fall of companies in numerical terms, institutional bodies, titles of in the past, due to pressures from two non-state forces: market publications, size of Circulation, advertisement revenues, financial competition and Vigilante groups. turnovers, or capital gains that have predominated sociological and In purely economic terms, journalists working for a media company political economic analyses of the industrialization of the mass media. are industrial employees. However, "purely economic terms" do not Rather, it is a narrative account of social history and cultural politics in exist in the real world. In the context of contemporary Indonesia, the specific contexts of an industrializing and democratically-aspiring both in ideas and in practice, the status of journalists as industrial Indonesia, which seeks to: (a) analyse the nature of these challenges to employees of a corporate body is something quite novel, and is Indonesian contemporary journalists; (b) compare their situations with currently one of the most pressing controversies in the country. This other urban middle-class activists, especially the more academically chapter discusses why for a long time the idea of journalists as industrial based or -inclined counterparts; (c) examine some of their radical employees has been denied or misrecognized by many and often responses; and (d) assess the significance of these developments to the opposing camps; and why such recognition has now become practically discussion on Indonesia's road to democracy. To appreciate the historical unavoidable. It also briefly examines a similar and related phenomenon significance of recent events, it is absolutely necessary to first with reference to other urban sections of the middle-class intelligentsia conceptualize the formation of the SOCially-endowed power that these in today's turbulent Indonesia. journalists have had and the nature of their authority, as well as to While industrialization of the mass media is by no means new in examine what industrialization has done to these privileges. Indonesia - in fact it has been part and parcel of the entire history of the press in this society from the very beginning - recent developments DEMOCRACY AND LITERACY IN in industrialization have reached a scale that has engendered qualitative POST-COLONIAL SOCIETIES transformation. For the first time in modern Indonesia, following the fall of the New Order regime, the state has clearly lost once and for all Typical of many colonial and post-colonial SOCieties, the press (which the old paternalistic and monopolistIc control of the mass production inCludes print mass media and books) in Indonesia carries a moral and mass circulation of words and images across the nation. While the authority and political weight not seen in many industrialized First 50 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi Downloaded from
World countries. This partly explains why there has been a lot more settings, similar tensions have involved state agents (holders of censorship and there have been many more "prisoners of conscience II bureaucratic capital) and intellectuals and artists (owners of cultural in the formerly labelled Second and Third World countries than in the capital).2 First World "liberal" societies. There is nothing essential and permanent This media-centric perspective is intended to counterbalance the about the qualities of journalism or its practitioners in pre-industrial dominant politico-economic ones that usually fail to take into account societies. These qualities are culturally signified values, products of the dynamiC relations between media and their messages. Political particular social histories, and are susceptible both to social changes economic analyses usually concentrate on the content of mass from within and to external forces. In certain conducive moments, the communication, institutional repression and the resistance of selected culturally constructed authority of the press can be converted into journalists. In so doing, these sociological and politico-economic material gains that are exchangeable in the financial world market. analyses render the media as dead instruments in the hands of Rapid expansion of industrialization, especially in its early stages, powerful agents that can do what they like with them. For these constitutes one such moment. It is important to recognize both the reasons, Paul Tickell's critical problematization of relationships distinction and the convertibility between cultural, political and between freedom of speech, democratization and media in Indonesia economic values, as well as between the local and the global contexts. is highly innovative and relevant. 3 Tickell shows the importance of Until very recently, one of the important bases of this authority was distinguishing between freedom and democracy, and the problematic the relatively low level of functional (as opposed to nominal) literacy in correlations between the two. a modern phonetic writing system in societies like Indonesia.' This can Tickell argues that the widely perceived unfree press of Indonesia in be contrasted with the situation in many highly literate societies where the 1990s under the authoritarian regime of Soeharto's New Order was mass-produced and secular printed materials have been widely consumed not any more undemocratic than its counterpart during the liberal and and taken for granted. Printed messages in Indonesia, even when they parliamentary democracy of the young Republic in the 1950s. The press are purged of their religious aura, tend to be endowed with more in the 1950s was remarkably elitist by virtue of its much smaller prestige and more authority. The social and cultural costs that go with circulation numbers, the lower levels of literacy in society at large, and the making of such a scarce and elitist instrument and the competence the public's general lack of familiarity with the newly adopted national to read it render significant social respect for the medium, messengers, language (Bahasa Indonesia) in comparison to the press and its audience and messages. In many important ways they are comparable to the in the 1990s. If open and civilized participation as well as contestation phenomena related to computer literacy and the uses of multi-media of ideas are indispensable elements of democracy, functional literacy gadgets in seminar presentations during the late twentieth century. and acquisition of the national language (and public education more Understandably, printed messages often claim more credibility, too, generally) are prerequisites for engagement in public fora in a modern than the spoken word. In some of these situations, power begets truth, nation-state, usually through the mass mediation of the press and, or at least is perceived as such. more recently, radio, television, and the Internet. Functional literacy and the privileged access to mass print messages Because of these culturally and historically specific values of the in Indonesia, like elsewhere, have not been and caqnot be fully print media in Indonesia, by definition the press - as with the Internet monopolized by the autocratic state or its official proxies. There is in its initial presence - has inescapably been biased towards the urban usually a division of labour between those who run the country and intelligentsia, especially in the most industrialized island ofJava. It has those who dominate the production of authoritative writings on the been widely noted that the press determines what is news, regardless of affairs of that country. Consequently there have been potential and its smaller readership in comparison with the electronic media audience! actual tensions between the two, dating back to the tension between This is even stronger in the case of countries like Indonesia.5 Despite aristocrats and court scribes before the many islands along the equator being small in number, the urban intelligentsia in post-colonial societies were transformed into the Indonesian nation-state. In contemporary like IndoneSia enjoy more moral authority and political power than is Downloaded from
protest. For several months the government became the target of demonstrate the new challenges that the IndoneSian media industries criticism, and for the first time it quickly promised to reinstate the have to face. revoked licences, albeit conditionally. Instead of accepting the apologetic Well-trained professionals in journalism find themselves in new and gesture that the government offered, TEMPO journalists filed a lawsuit contradictory positions. On the one hand they are entering a new against a government that had won all previous legal disputes. In more period eqUipped with strong legaCies of activism, new political or less the same period, a new oppositional association of journalists, consciousness, professional pride and a cosmop·olitan lifestyle. On the AJI (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, or the Alliance of Independent other hand, they have no effective professional association to consolidate Journalists), was established in defiance of legal prohibition to challenge their positions in any official and institutional terms, and no institution the existing sole and officially-sanctioned PWI (Persatuan Wartawan to accommodate their aspirations or represent their corporate interests Indonesia, or IndoneSian Journalists Association). Membership in AJI in the rapidly growing media industry with the end of the familiar later resulted in the dismissal, demotion or removal of journalists from period where coercive apparatuses of the state were the main threats to their pOSitions in several media. both the industry and the profession. The 1994 bans have also become a milestone in the history of The two cases that are examined here are the experience of TEMPO, Indonesia's mass media in another little-recognized dimension. It is the leading news-magazine that was banned in 1994, and the fatal likely to be the last time an authoritarian government in Indonesia conflict of another weekly, the glossy news-magaZine, Jakarta-Jakarta. closes down a media company with the single stroke of an official's The subsequent section then focuses on eminently comparable events signature, thereby revoking the company's publishing licence. Soon that have affected the non-journalist urban intelligentSia, namely after Soeharto stepped down in May 1998, TEMPO regained its licence academic and NGO activists. The concluding section considers how the and commenced republishing in October 1998. The transitional arrival and rapid spread of the Internet has had some initial bearings government of Habibie abandoned the notorious licensing regulation, upon and complicated further the political roles and agendas of making it possible for the number of licensed print media to grow in a Indonesian journalists. matter of few months from 289 to more than 1,000. Soon after the newly elected government of Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri assumed power in October 1999, it closed down the THE CASE OF TEMPO Department of Information which had become the main institutional The 1994 banning of TEMPO, along with Editor and DeTIK, was body of state propaganda, surveillance and intimidation vis-a-vis the remarkable for several reasons, not least for the reaction it provoked, press during the New Order. especially among a wide range of middle-class urbanites. There were no As the state relinquished its century-old paternalistic control of the less than 170 reported demonstrations in the months immediately mass media in 2000, the 1994 bans and their aftermath are probably follOWing the bans in towns and cities in the islands of Java, Bali, the last case of a major public confrontation between the Indonesian Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. 12 In the entire New Order's history, state and the mass media. From now on journalists will have to take no single controversy had forged such broad-based civil protests, cutting care of their own affairs vis-a-vis the media industry. In the dramatic across religious, ideological, ethnic, linguistic, gender and geographical disappearance of long-term and well-defined common enemies, namely differences. Unlike previous social upheavalS, this had no central the military and the State Department of Information, journalists and organization, leadership or agenda. publishers have begun to be exposed to a host of internal problems The immediate historical contexts of the phenomenon need to be and contradictions within their own ranks and institutions. Many of understood. The bans and the public protests took place soon after these problems are greater and more complex than most journalists Megawati Sukarnoputri was elected the new Chair of the POI (Partai are prepared to confront, or even to admit.l1 The subsequent sections Demokrasi Indonesia) in the party's congress in Surabaya in late in this chapter will examine more closely a couple of cases that December 1993, in direct defiance of the blatant interference of the Downloaded from
/I Asian economic miracle" propaganda. 1994 event to being considered primarily as yet another case of political In one final and important contrast to their predecessors, the new repression and resistance. 16 generation of journalists was increasingly linked to their institutions The 1994 bans, especially that of TEMPO, are economically significant. primarily for economic reasons. Indonesia, and perhaps several other This is not only because it was preceded by TEMPO's coverage of the Asian nations, had not seen or even imagined this new phenomenon internal political and economic conflicts within the New Order elite before. Significantly divorced from political activism, for more and over the purchase, at too high a price, of German ships by B.]. Habibie, more practitioners journalism became a little more than just President Soeharto's protege and then Minister for Research and employment. For some this was not a cause for regret, but a fact of life. Technology. But what also set it apart from the previous victims of the While economic rationality may have been an important factor in the government's banning was TEMPO's substantial economic assets in decision of those who abandoned the struggle for TEMPO and opted to 1994: it was one of the biggest tax-paying publishers in the countryY work for GATRA, the heroic-sounding struggle for justice and democracy Indeed, so economically successful had TEMPO been in the 1980s that among TEMPO supporters does not operate purely on moral or political it ran into difficulties managing its financial success in the face of its grounds. It also has its own significantly economic basis and material increasingly professionally-inclined journalists and editors. The old and interests at stake, to an extent greater than is usually admitted by these amateurish dedication to pers perjuangan had already dissipated by activists or noted by their observers. 1987. The internal conflict was so deep that a good number of the most 60 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi Downloaded from
talented journalists and key figures left TEMPO in 1987 and established In order to survive in the thorny environment of crony capitalism a rival news-magazine, Editor, which would later be a fellow-victim in under the New Order authoritarianism, those directly responsible for the 1994 banning. the publication of Kampas have been prepared to make many The 1994 banning of TEMPO had enormous financial (and not compromises and are obliged to woo a broad range of social forces. In primarily or only moral) repercussions unseen in previous bans, leaving the end, however, Kampas could not make everyone happy. Too often thousands of people jobless and agitated. One of the conditions that associated with the conservative minority Catholic factions and came with the government's offer of reinstating TEMPO's licence was individuals during its early years, the daily has been a consistent the creation of a new management and a new composite of shareholders target of attacks from several directions, especially from Islamic in the company; thus there was more than just pressure for purely militants who came to prominence in the 1990s after Soeharto courted political compliance. This led to the strong suspicion among observers them for political expediency during the last and most difficult years that an economic takeover by externaJ parties might constitute part of of his reign. In addition, leftist activists considered the newspaper a 22 the motive and expected outcome of the banning. During more or less coward or worse. the same period, the crony capitalists of the New Order were aiming at While TEMPO has been one of the most successful media companies obtaining shares of major media companies." in respecting their employees by distributing editorial as well as Since the 1987 friction within TEMPO, media companies have learned managerial responsibilities, Jakarta-Jakarta is one of several cases of how to respect employees better. The management of post-1998 TEMPO failure. An unresolved industrial dispute had led 31 aggrieved staff of strengthened its commitment and secured ideological cohesion among Jakarta-Jakarta to found Indonesia's first official union of media its staff and viability for the institution by allocating 30 per cent of its employees to be registered with the Department of Labour in November ownership shares to its employees collectively under an independent 1999. This union made several demands to the Kompas Gramedia in-house trade union. TEMPO is one of the first of Indonesia's media Group management in response to the unilateral closure, with threats companies to be well-prepared to confront further challenges of of litigation should the demands be not satisfactorily met. As part of the industrialization in a democratizing Indonesia. In contrast to TEMPO is tussle, in May 2000 the newly unionized employees of Jakarta-Jakarta the case of the Jakarta-based weekly Jakarta-Jakarta. threatened to launch a mass strike that found sympathetic followers from other media companies within the conglomerate. In response the management of the Kompas Gramedia Group quickly raised the salaries THE CASE OF JAKARTA-JAKARTA of all employees across the board, by increments of 30 to 100 per cent. While TEMPO was revived soon after the collapse of Soeharto's To gauge the magnitude of the potential impact of the industrial authoritarian New Order, Jakarta-Jakarta ceased to exist on 23 November dispute, it is necessary to consider a number of points. We will proceed 1999. This was at a time when press freedom flourished to an with a consideration of the possible motives for the decision to close unprecedented degree and the number of newly-licensed publications down the news-magazine. The cited reason for the closure was financial rocketed to around 1,600 from 289 for the last few decades (though this rationality; the management claimed that it could not afford to continue was immediately followed by the collapse of about half of them due to to subsidize the publication of a small circulation but "prestigious" various reasons, mainly financial difficulties and poor management).l9 periodical that showed no prospect of reaching break-even point. The Significantly, unlike TEMPO, the involuntary martyr of the 1990s, Jakarta affected journalists, as well as informed observers, rejected this official Jakarta was closed down by its owners, the Kompas Gramedia Group, reason, raising at least two major sets of counter-arguments. the biggest media conglomerate in the country and publisher of Kampas, First, they argued, the Kompas Gramedia Group is one of the most the largest circulation quality daily in Southeast Asia.'" This media successful ·industries in the country. It was one of the publishing company is one of the largest tax payers in the country." companies least affected by the 1997 monetary crisis. Even if one f 62 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi Downloaded from
ll "foundation", "collective", "groupll or "association is invented ambiguously, in the documents to be co-signed at the beginning of unilaterally by the management, rather than being put forward by the employment. Yet employees do not usually take this very seriously. The employees. Directors or other high-ranking managerial officials within fact that until very recently, thousands of employees in hundreds of the company are usually appointed to the leading positions in these media companies had raised no questions about such organizations, associations or foundations. 2S The management then reports the and made no demands for transparency and effective representation, is establishment of the ostensible employees' union to the Department of highly instructive of the circumstances under which they work. Information, which has little interest in ensuring the report's validity. The following five related reasons may have been responsible for this Although such unions officially have the power to represent employees general acquiescence and inattention to their rights by employees. First in negotiations with management, most often the employees are not of all, at the most practical level, the stated stipulation is too ambiguous even aware of the existence of such bodies. This is what happened with to be taken seriously by recruits. Secondly, at the other end of the wide Jakarta-Jakarta. The newly unionized journalists of Jakarta-Jakarta (Serikat range of reasons, unionization in post-1965 Indonesia was strongly Karyawanjakarta-jakarta, SKjJJ claimed that for seven years their names demonized by the anti-left militarist regime of the New Order. Only had been misappropriated by the so-called Yayasan Kesejahteraan recently has working-class politics and unionization entered the public Karyawan Jakarta-Jakarta (The Foundation for the Jakarta-Jakarta imagination." In 1988 a tiny group of idealistic journalists in Kampas Employees' Welfare) founded unilaterally by the management. proposed the forming of an independent and union-like in-house The style of management in Jakarta-Jakarta reflects the rule rather organization to represent employees. While this enlightened group than the exception in Indonesia's media industry, though protests received a frosty response from its own ranks, the management was so against such practices have emerged in other media companies." terrified that it severely penalized them. '" However, the response from journalists affiliated with Jakarta-Jakarta Unfamiliarity with unionism is especially acute among the younger was one of the first in independent Indonesia. For the greater part of its generation of the urban middle-class intelligentsia who grew up in a history since the new editorial reforms in the early 1990s, Jakarta depoliticized Indonesia, where "the Asian familial style of deliberation Jakarta (like TEMPO and several other publications) accommodated and consensus" was prescribed by the state as the only legitimate some journalists-cum-political activists. It went through a series of procedure for confiict resolution. (Ironically, the very same state abused internal conflicts and restructuring. When Jakarta-Jakarta's sister the prescribed norm. In official rhetoric, nonetheless, it is propagated as publication Tiara was closed down unilaterally by the management in a genuinely Indonesian way of life as opposed to the supposedly December 1998, there was no negotiation with employees - who confiictual and confrontational style of the West.) officially held the legal right to own 20 per cent of ownership shares, Thirdly, as Indonesia's economy was only beginning to grow and and consequently the right to be consulted in any deliberations leading show promise since the 1980s, new recruits were usually grateful enough to the publication's closure - nor was there any challenge from the to be employed in the newly-expanding industry, and prepared to journalists affected. There was not even any formal letter of termination accept irregular management and mistreatment unless the situation of that publication. journalists and administrative staff of Tiara were were to become critical. After all, journalism under the New Order transferred to several less attractive posts within the same management regime was much more rewarding socially and financially than of the giant holding company, Kompas Gramedia Group. ever before. Furthermore·, the media industry was buoyant with To be sure, the standard practice of non-compliance with the legal experimentation, new experiences, excitement and a sense of unexplored stipulations concerning the rights of employees in media companies is possibilities. In situations where industrial disputes become severe, neither entirely a case of criminal fraud, nor of simple pragmatism on journalists would usually opt to leave their current employment and the part of the management. This is not a case of complete ignorance seek a new pOSition, rather than to pursue justice by confronting the and helplessness on the part of the employees either. The stipulation of management. Collective struggle was too costly financially and employees' rights to have access to the company's shares is stated, if emotionally, politically suspect, or simply unimaginable. 66 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Ad; Downloaded from
Fourthly, a number of financially successful companies had in fact The disadvantaged position of Indonesian journalists under the been both willing and able to placate occasional expressions of current situation became obvious in the industrial disputes, termination dissatisfaction from employees with a wide range of rewards, of contracts and dismissals that followed the self-dissolution of particular compensations and bonuses, but on an ad hoc basis. As noted earlier, publications.29 Too often in such situations the management treated the Kompas Gramedia Group resorted to a large-scale financial concession them as employees, and accordingly offered them meagre compensation - a substantial salary increment to all its employees - in its attempt to or transferred them to less desirable positions (as in the case of Tiara), defuse the challenges from the unionized journalists of Jakarta-Jakarta. or worse. This is ironic when one considers the legal stipulation that All four factors outlined above pOint to the seriously weak position of recognizes employees of media companies as shareholders who have employees in the media industry, as in other industries in Indonesia, the right to be represented and heard in deliberations as serious as those vis-it-vis their companies. These factors are serious, and it will take an determining the dissolution of the company and the various measures extended period of time to overcome them. However, we consider the of compensation for employees. next and the fifth factor to be the most important. It is less tangible, In 1995, when the afternoon daily Suara Pembaruan dismissed ten but more insidious, as it is deeply rooted in the publiC consciousness journalists for their critical views of its management, seven of them and that of individual journalists. We refer to the long-standing challenged the decision. Partly because of the persistence of these romanticization of the "journalist-as-activist" persona. Pers perjuangan journalists, the Department of Labour, the court and more tacitly the promotes the notion of the pursuance of various moral virtues supposedly Department of Information surprisingly sided with them, forcing the inherent in the journalistic profession (being unselfish, honest, management to retract the decision and to renew a series of negotiations intelligent and truth-seeking) and proscribes any activities that can be with the journalists. However, under the circumstances of that time, construed to be a pursuit of material gain. It rejects categorically the the company defied the court decision. The central issue of dispute was politics of unionism, whose agenda is to maximize their collective editorial responsibilities and autonomy, but the dispute grew to include worldly interests. the issue of the employees' right to own 20 per cent of the company's Compounding the problem is the pride of class (un)consciousness shares. Indeed, the question of a union did not come very prominently that is part of this mythologized persona. Even when confronted by real into the picture - and this is what distinguishes the 1995 case of Suara situations of victimization in industrial relations, and exposed to a Pembaruan from that of Jakarta-Jakarta in 2000. It is also different from rational proposal for some sort of union activism, many journalists the industrial dispute following the self-initiated closure of the news reject the idea of collective rights and struggle, because they conceptualize magazine Detektif & Romantika, another highly-politicized publication "unionism" as something downgrading, characteristically belonging under the New Order, on 25 January 2000. In this case, the number of to manual wage-labourers. Discursively, they call themselves kaum journalists who persisted in the radical challenge to the decision was profesional, genteel and gentrified "professionals" just like doctors, only two. The other 80 dismissed employees accepted the unilateral lawyers or engineers, which is worlds apart from pekerja or karyawan decision and the material compensation. (workers), or buruh (labour). Many would even feel reluctant to regard The demise of the Department of Information in March 2000 further or refer to themselves as pegawai (an employee). Far from peing simply complicated the matter. For many years the Department of Information self-inflation or something that exists purely in the mind, this sense of represented state repression, being the number-one enemy of the freedom hierarchy has been reinforced for years by the social structures and of expression that the mythologized journalist-as-activist was supposed practices of everyday life. They have enjoyed this status and wish to to epitomize. Paradoxically, this state department is also the only existing retain it. Industrialization,. and not intellectual enlightenment, is the agency that has the power and willingness to protect the material process that has effectively undermined the existing hierarchy and interests of journalists-as-employees vis-it-vis the corporate management long-standing privileges of these intelligentsia. of media companies. Although the Department never actively enforced 68 Ariel Heryanta and Stanley Yaseph Adi Downloaded from
of TEMPO, GATRA, Jakarta-Jakarta or Satya Wacana. Yet because these The arrival and rapid spread ofthe Internet have had some important NGOs were never intended to be corporate-like bodies, the temptation effects on the existing situation. They have eroded both the effectiveness to operate like professionally-paid organizations was never fully of state restrictions on the flow of information, and the dependence on developed or pursued. As a result, many of the tensions and internal the monopolistic distribution of newsprint. By this time, the number of conflicts remain disguised, aired only in whisper and gossip, and speakers of Bahasa Indonesia, as well as English, has multiplied several remaining unresolved in a confusing situation. times since the early years of the twentieth century when newspapers and magazines were first introduced to the archipelago. Contrary to the wishes of the nationalists of the Revolution and the 1945 Constitution, THE EARLY SPREAD OF THE INTERNET foreign investment has now become a reality in the electronic media The quantitative development of the Internet in Indonesia, as elsewhere, network, which is appealing for some but appalling to others. However, is notoriously difficult to capture for any in-depth and serious analysis. what difference the Internet makes to the political and economic This is due to the sheer rapid pace of these developments at this stage. positions of journalists remains unclear. The scholarly apparatuses of the social sciences are just too slow and When the Internet made its entry to Indonesia in the 1980s, its use inequipped to deal with these developments, let alone measure their was restricted to the Ministry of Research and Technology, led by B.J. 3 social impacts ' One tempting response to this overwhelming SOCial Habibie, and a few top state universities. It was not available to the phenomenon is to leave it uncommented upon, Or wait and assume public as a commercial commodity until May 1995, when Radnet that there will be a better time when developments are more stable and became Indonesia's first Internet service provider (ISP). Soon afterwards, predictable, and thus analysable. Against all these odds, we attempt a other companies followed suit. Ironically, none of them were as few remarks lhat run the risk of being obsolete very soon. We will also "socialistic" and IIdemocratic" in practice as the government IS Post speculate on the potential relevance of current developments to the Office, which was to establish nationwide ISPs in all the proVincial core issues discussed in the previous sections. cities in 1996 for the purpose of accumulating commercial profit. We began with the argument that highly functional literacy in a State ministries of the New Order were in direct opposition to each largely orally-oriented society generates significant power for the critical other in outlook and practice in response to the power of the Internet. minority of the intelligentsia. Indonesia's industrialization since the Sen and Hill compare the activities of the Department of Information, 1980s has, paradoxically, boosted this power and has also problematized which was keen on controlling and limiting the flow of information, it. Industrialization of the mass media has generated a much greater and those of the Department of Industry and of Trade, which saw the demand for skilled labour in the urban and modern sectors, with press as a domestic industry.34 A more important comparison is between handsome rewards, both material and non-material. The dramatic growth the Department of. Information and that of Tourism, Post, and in all levels of formal schooling has, to a considerable extent, supplied Telecommunication that spawned the popular Internet stalls (warnet), l' both the demand for labour and the consumers for mass-mediated now in the hundreds, and the earlier facsimile and long-distance messages. Under the New Order, however, these developments have telephone stalls (wartel) across the archipelago.3S In mid-2000 there taken place with severe restrictions to the flow of infortnation, and are were approximately 13,000 wartel across the nation and around 400 enmeshed in crony capitalism that, in the later part of the New Order, warnet. Warnet users account for 60-70 per cent of the total Internet included a monopoly on distribution and domestic production of users in the country.36 There is no way of knowing for sure the number newsprint. Journalists here enjoyed some benefits from the recent of Internet subscribers, not to speak of the actual users, but it would developments, but only up to a certain point, beyond which they have probably amount to one or two million in 2000, which is "up from discovered a ferocious process of reduction in their roles and functions, 400,000 the year before and in 2002 may escalate to 13 million-plus".37 making them unprotected elements within the productive machinery However, this is not a very large figure when one considers that the of the information industry. total population of the country is 202 million. II 74 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph AdiDownloaded from
Most commentators speak favourably of the democratizing power of As late as May 2002, there had been no laws that specifically regulate the Internet, fax and, to some extent, mobile telephone with reference the uses of the Internet, despite serious deliberations and amendments to the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, including of laws pertaining to the press and broadcasting that have taken effect. what happened in Indonesia in 1998.38 There is some truth in what Two years after the euphoria of Reformasi and government succession they say, especially the point about the wide spread of information have disSipated, the Internet has evolved and turned into something regarding the abuse of power by the ruling regimes and the activities of more and simultaneously less than simply a democratizing force or pro-democracy movements to challenge the status quo. In the absence agency. Resonating with the activist journalism of the banned DeTIK in of any clear unifying organizations or leadership of social movements, 1994, detik.com pioneered the first Indonesia "real time" on-line the public discourse that focussed on popular resentment against the journalism. Established on 1 July 1998, detik.com was the first to authoritarian regime served as an effective rallying point. Nevertheless, distinguish itself from other print media, whose web sites only posted with regard to Indonesia, what we find more interesting and important copies of what appeared in their print news. Detik.com reports on the for their relevance to the concerns of this chapter are selected events news almost hourly. Reflecting its technological savvy and prior and subsequent to the 1998-99 actual successions of governments. entrepreneurship, detik.com managed to cover its production costs A few months following the 1994 banning, several of the affected almost exclusively from advertisement revenue.'o Relying on its ability journalists from TEMPO revived their occupation, but this time on the to produce the earliest news of importance to the borderless cyber Net, through their Tempo Interaktifwebsite. The style of journalism, and world, it grew from an enterprise with one reporter, one tape recorder the personnel behind the production of news reports and analyses on and one desk to a big corporation in 2000 with 46 staff. this popular website, are strongly characteristic of the banned TEMPO. In February 2000, detik.com transformed itself into a portal offering This news-online service is the earliest public demonstration of the free e-mail,chatroom and directory facilities. This new development ineffectiveness of the old repressive measure of press banning and was made possible by the injection of US$2 million from censorship. In fact, collections of articles from Tempo Interaktif were techpacific.com, which had bought 15 per cent of detik.com's public periodically published in volumes as books of clippings, and were made listing. In the same month several other foreign investors set up new available in most bookshops in big cities. Unlike newspapers and portals, for instance Astaga.com, Catcha.com, Satunet.com. The long magazines, book publication does not officially require any permits term commercial impact of these portals and other on-line journalism similar to the notorious SIUPP. ·In 1995, a popular televised talk show, on existing print media and the hopeful democratization process in Perspektif, was banned. The programme host, Mr Wimar Witoelar, Indonesia is far from clear.4l Its immediate tangible impact in February continued the show in various forms, from travelling presentations in 2000 was more easily gauged. When Astaga Internet Konsulindo hotels and campus halls to radio and regular columns in the print invested 05$7.5 million to establish Astaga.com (launched on media, before finally getting back on televiSion again. 9 February 2000), 78 of its reporters had previously resigned from The above suggests that, prior to the eventful economic crises of prestigious media companies such as Kompas and RCTI (Rajawali Citra 1997 and the rapid collapse of the New Order regime in 1998, the Televisi Indonesia), the first private teleVision station in the country. electronic media had already allowed pro-democracy Il)ovements and Joining the new Internet company allowed many of these reporters to the public at large to see that mass communication was pOSSible, and in earn more than triple their previous salaries. 42 a remarkably more participatory mode, irrespective of the government's decisions and permits. It is also significant that around the same time the government banned TEMPO, Editor, and DeTIK, the early spread of I CONCLUSION the Internet was taking place in Indonesia, with virtually no restrictions from the government to say the least, and in some important respects _!ep We have noted that the prominent status of the intelligentsia in with the sponsorship of the more economically driven state ministries." Indonesia has its basis in the special status of literacy and modern 76 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph Adi Downloaded from
imagination of the Indonesian public for the greater part of the twentieth unexpected, or a rapid process. For more accounts of the broader political century, despite various discursive practices under the New Order regime circumstances of the time see the following: Heryanto, "Indonesian Middle that ran counter to this. In May 1998, the respected news magazine Panji class ... "; and Ariel Heryanto, IIlndonesia: Towards the Final Countdown?" advertised a number of key positions, including editor, reporter, Southeast Asian Affairs 1997, edited by D. Singh (Singapore: Institute of photographer, and promotional manager. The heading of the advertisement Southeast Asian Studies, 1997), pp. 107-26. reads: "Dicari: Pejuang Kebenaran Tanpa Kompromi" [Wanted: patriots 14 Sen and Hill, op. Cit., pp. 56-64. (who struggled, or truth with no compromise] (Kampas, 1998). Perjuangan 15 detik.com, "Majalah Gatra Pecah; Direksi dan Pemred Dicopot" [Gatra has acquired the status of a keyvvord in Bahasa Indonesia that finds no easy magaZine split: Director and chief editor dismissed],
shops, aquaculture, a major bookshop chain, department stores, travel for the seminar Evaluasi Organisasi jurnalis, on the occasion of the 6th agencies, property, banking, insurance, radio, heavy equipment distribution, anniversary o(AJI, Jakarta, 7 August 2000. gas exploration and film distribution. 26 For a review of recent cases, see Cahyani, Setiyardi Wicaksono and Hakim 22 The most spectacular case to illustrate the point was the protests by various "Wartawan itu Buruh atau Bukan?" Uournalists: Are they workers Or not?1, Islamic groups against the editor, and later against the tabloid Monitor in TEMPO, 14 December 1998, p. 65; for a review of the earlier years, see 1990 for allegedly defaming Islam. The television-guide tabloid had Angela Romano, Journalistic Identity and Practices in Late New Order Indonesia, published the result of a poll of its readers' most admired figures. President (Unpublished theSis, Queensland University ofTechnology, Australia, 1999), Soeharto came first, and the Prophet Mohammad eleventh, one below that p.127. of Monitor's chief editor, Arswendo Atmowiloto. Leading figures of the non~ 27 For more on recent working-class politics in Indonesia, see V. Hadiz, Workers monolithic Islamic communities in Indonesia were divided over the issue. and the State in New Order Indonesia (London: Routledge, 1997); and Under strong public pressure, the Kornpas Gramedia Group closed down V. Hadiz, "Changing State-Labour Relations and the Unravelling of the tabloid and another publication, Senang, for allegedly printing some Indonesia's New Order", in Challenging Authoritarianism: Connections Gild other proscribed images. The tarnished judiciary tried Atmowiloto and Comparison between Indonesia and Malaysia, edited by Ariel Heryanto and sentenced him to five years imprisonment. More than once the rightist Sumit K. MandaI (forthcoming). One of the earliest and most active advocates militant Komite Indonesia untuk Solidaritas Dunia Islam (KISDI) claimed of unionization for journalists under the New Order is Dhia Prekasha that Kompas had repeatedly run news reports that discredited Islam. In july Yoedha; see Dhia Prekasha Yoedha, "Profesionalisme dan Kinerja Organisasi 1998 KISDl threatened to sue Jakarta-Jakarta for reprinting a report on the ]urnalis" [Professionalism and performance of journalists organizations], mass rape of Chinese women in Jakarta in May 1998. See "Soal Tulisan di unpublished paper presented at Seminar Evaluasi Ofganisasi]urnalis Oakarta: 'jakarta-jakarta', KISDl akan GunakanJalur Hukum" [On the jakarta jakarta Aliansi Jurnalis lndependen, 7 August 2000). piece, KISDl will file a law suit], Kampas, 1 August 1998. 28 Romano, op. cit., pp. 108-9. For further discussion on the diversity of Islamic communities in 29 By Septem uer 2000, hundreds of print mass media titles had been closed Indonesia, of which KISDI is a part, see Robert W. Hefner, "Islam and down by their own management, officially for financial reasons. For further Nation in the Post-Suharto Era", in The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia, reports and discussions on the fate of employees affected under these edited by Adam Schwarz and Jonathan Paris (New York: Council on Foreign conditions, see P. Bambailg Wisudo, "Bulan Madu Pefs Telah Berakhir", Relations Press, 1999), pp. 40-72 and Robert W. Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims Kompas, 9 February 2000; and articles in the first issue of Suara Serikat and Democratization in Indonesia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, (Jakarta: Serikat Karyawan Jakarta-Jakarta, 2000). 2000). For attacks against NGO activists and any investigative reports that 30 Article 10 of the Law reads in rough translation as "The press enterprise exposed the crimes against humanity and women in May 1998 in ]akmta, provides social welfare to journalists and other press employees in the form see Ariel Heryanto, "Rape, Race, and Reporting", in Reformasi: Crisis and of share ownership and/or net dividends, and/or other forms of benefits". Change in Indonesia? edited by Arief Budiman, Barbara Hatley and Damien 31 The term" middle classes" has been widely debated. For a further discussion Kingsbury (Clayton: Monash Asia Institute, 1999), pp. 299-334. of such a debate with reference to Indonesia in the 1990s, see Ariel Heryanto, 23 Riant Nugroho, "Salah Urus di Gramedia Majalah" [Mismanagement at "Public intellectuals, media ... " Gramedia's Magazine Division], Suara Serikat 2 (20 March 2000), p. 12. 32 Many of these cases remained unknown to the public. We feel obliged to 24 Although this permit is officially intended to control the quality of the keep their anonymity and protect the innocent. company's management, any information or opinion in the pages deemed 33 Sen and Hill, op. cit., is one of the latest books on the media in Indonesia, undesirable by the government or military often cansed the cancellation of with one chapter fully devoted to the Internet. The book was a product of the permit, as happened in 1994 for TEMPO. long laborious research in the 1996, when three new Internet stalls (warnet) 25 For a list of profiles of the directorships of several bodies claiming to had just opened in Yogyakarta. This book provides a special section on the represent the media employees within the Kompas Gramedia Group, see event (pp. 198-99). When the book was launched in Melbourne in july appendixed table in Stanley Yoseph Adi, "Organisasi Pekerja PefS Indonesia: 2000, Yogya had almost 100 warnet. In September 2000, the number had Antara Idealisme dan Kepentingan Praksis" (Indonesia's Organization of jumped to almost 200. By April 2001, it had grown to 350; see Farida Farid, Journalists: Between idealism and practical interests}, unpublished paper "350 Warnet Lengkapi Kota Yogya" (350 internet stalls serve the city 82 Ariel Heryanto and Stanley Yoseph AdiDownloaded from
of Yogya)
Media Corrode Soeharto's Legitimacy" I Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 May INTRODUCTION 1998, pp. 18 & 20. 39 The headquarters of the Armed Forces is apparently the only state apparatus This chapter traces the role and challenges of the electronic media, to have attempted any serious measures to counter the outburst of anti particularly those of teleVision, at various key junctions in Indonesia's government information on the Net. Rather than imposing any legal political history. It also examines the status of television today as restrictions which was characteristic of the pre-Internet regimes, the Armed Indonesia grapples with its difficult transition to democracy. Forces set up its own website, or infiltrated Internet discussion groups and Political leaders habitually seek to manage the media. They can propagated ideas more sympathetic to the ruling government. enforce a regimen of control for a certain period of time, but the process 40 For more accounts of the success story of detik.com see "Portal-portal di is fraught with political tension and harbours a great potential for criSiS, Medan Laga" [Portals in battle]. SWA 16, no. 4 (24 February-8 March 2000): conflict and chaos. Although press freedom and freedom of expression 32-38; and "Berdagang dari Njuwok ke New York" [Doing business from are baSic human rights acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Njuwok to New York]. TEMPO, 12 March 2000, pp. 63-69. Human Rights (Article 19), as well as in Indonesia's 1945 Constitution, 41 Murphy and Cohen, op. cit. the implementation of these rights has had a chequered history. For 42 According to a survey of 250 journalist respondents conducted in May and more than 50 years after Indonesia's Independence (1945-1998), freedom June 1999 by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the salary distribution is Rp. 250,000 (5%), Rp. 500 thousand to Rp. 1 million (35%). of expression and press freedom were very much controlled by the Rp. 1-2 million (30%) and above Rp. 2 million (8%); see "Rendahnya Gaji rulers, except during two "honeymoon" periods.! Wartawan Indonesia (Gramedia Majalah) [The low salaries of Indonesian In the present post-Soeharto period, press freedom and freedom of journalists (Gramedia's Magazine Division)]", Suara Serikat 2000 (Jakarta: expression are safeguarded by an August 2000 amendment of the 1945 Serikat Karyawan Jakarta-Jakarta), p. 7. Constitution, the People's Consultative Assembly Decree no. XVII/1999 43 Wajah Pers Indonesia 1995 (Jakarta: AJI [AliansiJurnalis Independen] 1996); on Human Rights, and the Press Law no. 40/1999. However, written Sen and Hill, op. cit., pp. 67-69; and Jose Manuel Tesoro, "Indonesia: statutes alone cannot safeguard press freedom. Having the appropriate Learning the Ropes of Press Freedom", UNESCO Courier 2 (February 2000), laws is important, but a free press will only thrive if it becomes part of pp.43-45. a larger democratic culture within the country. Unfortunately, a 44 Tesoro, op. cit. democratic system and its values are not well-established yet in IndoneSian society. Many individuals or groups are already complaining