Media Use and Mediatization of Transnational Political Participation: The Case of Transnational Indonesians in the United States A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Yearry P. Setianto August 2016 © 2016 Yearry P. Setianto. All Rights Reserved. This dissertation titled Media Use and Mediatization of Transnational Political Participation: The Case of Transnational Indonesians in the United States by YEARRY P. SETIANTO has been approved for the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Scripps College of Communication by Drew O. McDaniel Professor of Media Arts and Studies Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii Abstract SETIANTO, YEARRY P., Ph.D., August 2016, Media Arts Studies Media Use and Mediatization of Transnational Political Participation: The Case of Transnational Indonesians in the United States Director of Dissertation: Drew O. McDaniel This dissertation explores the interplay between diasporic life of transnational Indonesians in the United States and their use of media to engage in the long-distance politics of their home country. It aims to investigate how, and to what extent, that people in diaspora use media to perform mediatization of transnational-homeland politics. In this dissertation, I also exemplified the theory of mediatization of politics by examining the appropriation of various media platforms by Indonesian diaspora in two metropolitan areas, Washington, D. C. and Los Angeles, both in their electoral and non-electoral political engagement. Utilizing a multi-sited media ethnographic, which includes ten months of participant observations and thirty in-depth interviews between October 2014 and July 2015, I examine the complexity of Indonesian diaspora’s relationship with media and transnational politics. In my empirical chapters, in addition to the discussion of increasing availability of homeland media content in diaspora, I analyze how the presence of diaspora spaces enabled these displaced nationals to foster their sense of community, which eventually would help them to maintain their relationship with their country of origin’s matters, including politics. While Indonesian diaspora exhibited dual-nature of media use, accessing both host land and homeland media, it was the consumption of homeland iii political news that I found as the most prominent practice demonstrated by overseas Indonesian to mediatize their long-distance political participation. Furthermore, in various diasporic political engagements, media practice was not only amalgamated with non-media political activism, but to some extent, also was considered to be the preexisting condition of transnational Indonesians’ involvement in their home country’s political sphere. Finally, this dissertation argues that the degree of mediatization of transnational politics was amplified by both media and non-media factors. While media factors included structural and individual elements, such as media and audience availability, non- media factors were associated with the issues of homeland and host land conditions, where each factor should be understood as interrelated. Despite some variations, most of people in diaspora had an equal chance to participate in home country’s politics due to the availability of Indonesian political content, mainly through online and social media, which highlights the multifaceted mediatization of politics of diasporic community. iv Dedication For Dessy Dristy Herawati v Acknowledgments I am grateful to my academic and dissertation advisor, Dr. Drew McDaniel, who providing me with intellectual discussions, advises, and also constructive criticisms, which guided me throughout my academic years at Ohio University. I learned from him how to become a better academia. I have also been lucky to work with Dr. Roger Cooper, who had introduced me to audience research. He is also one of the best professors at the school, who was more than welcoming to hear some stories and even complaints from his graduate students. Dr. Gene Ammarell, who taught me how to ‘appropriate’ ethnographic fieldwork for my study, to which I found extremely important in this current research of diaspora’s media culture. I am indebted to Dr. Bob Stewart, who was willing to serve as one of my committee members despite his busyness as the Director of E. W. Scripps School of Journalism. I am thankful to Pak Bill Liddle, especially for his short but insightful comments on one of my dissertation chapters. I also wish to thank Dr. Don Flournoy for his tremendous support for Indonesian student at the School of Media Arts and Studies just like myself. A special thank you goes to Patricia Black, Don Dudding and Bob West, who have been committed editors for this dissertation. I am especially grateful to all the people who helped me with this research project, both in Washington, D. C. and Los Angeles. To all my ‘family’ in diaspora, Mas Andre and Mbak Dewi Masfar, Dody and Yusi Achmad, also Hari Haryanto and Andy for their friendship. I also owe much help from people at the Indonesian Embassy and Consulate Office, as well as Indonesian diaspora at the IMAAM Center. I hope that this vi study could contribute to their efforts in maintaining a stronger relationship with the Indonesian political processes, regardless their distance from their beloved homeland. Finally, I want to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Dessy Dristy Herawati, who supported me throughout the ‘darkest days’ of the academic life in the United States. My warmest appreciation goes to my family back home in Indonesia, my parents, Turut Arief and Hartati (and also my parents-in-law), who have been patiently waiting for their son to finish his study and return home. vii Table of Contents Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Dedication ........................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter I Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Overview of the Study .................................................................................................... 3 Personal Perspective on the Research ........................................................................... 10 Structure of Dissertation ............................................................................................... 17 Chapter II Transnational Mobility of Indonesians: Historical Overview of the Indonesian Transnational Migrations .................................................................................................. 22 Pre-Modern Indonesians' Transnational Mobility ........................................................ 24 Colonial-Influenced Indonesians' Migration ................................................................ 29 Human Mobility and Long-Distance Politics in the Post-Independence Indonesia ..... 47 The Moluccan diaspora in the Netherlands .............................................................. 48 The story of Sukarno's students ................................................................................ 51 Long-distance politics of Acehnese diaspora ........................................................... 54 Indonesian Migrations to the United States .................................................................. 59 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter III Literature Review ........................................................................................... 69 Relationship Between Diaspora, Transnationalism and Media .................................... 70 Why diaspora matters? .............................................................................................. 70 Understanding transnationalism ................................................................................ 74 Diaspora, transnational practice and media .............................................................. 77 Transnational Political Engagement and Media Use .................................................... 83 Understanding transnational politics ......................................................................... 83 Determining factors of long-distance politics ........................................................... 89 Media use for political participation ......................................................................... 97 Media's role in political communication .............................................................. 97 viii Political participation in a newer media environment ....................................... 100 Mediatization Theory and Political Sphere ................................................................ 106 Conceptualizing mediatization ................................................................................ 106 Mediatization