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Indonesia Media Dilemmas
Sofia Tjiptadjaja
Indonesia has about 240 million people today. According to Era Muslim publication on September 11, 2006, the literacy rate in Indonesia is about 91.6% but there are only approximately 13.5 million people (5.65% of the population) who read newspapers daily. This discrepancy shows that although most people are able to read, but people might not have the capabilities to digest the content of the news because of lacking in education, the news are irrelevant to their lives, and people might not have the means to buy information daily because of lacking in economic power. Newspaper is still the luxury of the middle class. \\TVRI (Televisi Republik Indonesia) on the other hand, the oldest television in Indonesia since 1972, has the broadcast coverage up to 82% of the Indonesia population. So the penetration rate of information through the broadcasting medium is far greater than the printing medium. That is why this article chooses to focus on the television media when discussing the dilemmas Indonesia is facing in the media sector.
Where do the dilemmas come from? It is widely assumed that the chief purpose of media is to educate the people by giving them objective facts or information. Yet in reality, media enterprises are stretched out and limited by many different entities, each has their own agendas such as the stakeholders, the owners of the media enterprises, the advertisers, the government’s interests, and the security/terror potential by other entities. The last factor is especially quite a significant limitation in Indonesia compared to other advanced nations because the Indonesian government is not yet able to provide reliable security within the context of law. A recent example is the destruction of the “Playboy” magazine office by mobs and there was no protection from the law enforcement. These situations create real dilemmas for Indonesia media including television.
The Indonesia television programs consist of imported foreign programs mostly from U.S., India, HongKong., Korea, Japan, Mexico and local produced programs. The shows can be divided into several categories: soap operas (telenovelas and sinetrons), movies, game shows, news, info-tainment, talk shows, children programs, and religious programs. The religious programs consist of lectures or sermons from each religion’s leaders, there are also some religious soap operas, and some regular shows that depict horrifying dealings in metaphysics realms as consequences of defying the religion’s teachings. From a bird’s eye view, the landscape of Indonesia television programs is not really encouraging. Most of the programs are targeted for pure entertainment, non-educational for neither children nor adults, and they increasingly have more violence in them. The only supposed to be educational showings are the religious programs and some talk-shows.
For the educated, middle class people who concern about the quality of Indonesia television programs, they have the option to subscribe to cable television where they are able to watch many foreign TV broadcasts and movies. But for the majority of Indonesian viewers, it is not a viable option, since they would need to pay a non-small monthly fee to be able to subscribe.
In the old regime, television is used as a propaganda tool, most of the stations are owned either by the government or its cronies. Until now, the broadcasting infrastructures are seen as a power tool to disseminate information, to present the information, and in forming public opinions on issues or people. Thus many people, especially the conglomerates and the elites want to have their hands on television. The concerning fact is nowadays a lot of conglomeration happen between different media enterprises, from book publishing, newspaper, radio, and TV, they all could be owned by the same big media enterprise. This put the information power in only one hand and that could potentially give the disseminated information loop holes to be manipulated in many ways if there is no significant accountability from other media entities. It is a serious matter and there should be a law that regulate and prevent this from happening.
Indonesia television has yet been seen as a venue to cover and discuss real issues together, such as cultural, social, SARA (diverse tribe, religion, race, group), poverty issues, et cetera. Indonesia television is actually can be used as a space where people meet for open, honest discussions, dialogues between religious leaders/community leaders addressing relevant issues and conflicts, raising awareness of the public, concerns or issues to the government authorities. So the Indonesia media particularly television’s main objective should be for the interest of the people. Raising revenues should only be the means to achieve that objective, but not being the objective itself. There is so much potential for the development of civil society through television.
Television in Indonesia does not put itself in the position to voice the people’s concerns or educate its people, instead it anesthetize people from the reality with entertainment that is either low quality/non-educating or things that can only be understood and enjoyed by the middle class. This is quite a noteworthy problem for Indonesia, since the middle class is only a small fraction of Indonesia population. The main concern for most media enterprises right now is their own survival by growing their finances, shareholders’ values and securing protection by not offending any groups or authorities.
Another reality we need to understand with the realization of all the entities/factors mentioned before that are stretching and limiting the media is that it is hard for the media to be neutral. But that delicate balance of “objective” truth and vested interests must be seriously and continuously monitored. The main interest of the media should always be for the people’s interests although it is unavoidable that each media entity might have its own ideas about what is best for the people. Yet the ethical commitment to the hard truths should help as a guiding light.
There is still so much potential for Indonesia television programs. The varieties and the qualities of the programs can still be improved greatly. Most of Indonesia television programs are produced in big cities, so the contents reflect more of the lives of the middle class who live in the cities. Rarely, the contents could connect to the people in the rural areas or to the heart issues that they are facing. The contents of television programs in Indonesia are driven more by revenues which if looked from one angle is explicable, the media enterprises need revenue to be able to survive. The middle class are the people who have the economic power to buy, thus the programs are mostly targeted to that market. While the poor, uneducated people in the villages do not have other options, they are also usually very receptive to what are offered to them. They do not know how to channel their voice or concerns, they have not been exposed to something better and so are not aware of possible alternatives, and they are simply uneducated, not knowing how to critically process what is shown in television programs.
From the writer’s perspective, the effective key to resolve those dilemmas is held by the middle class. The television producers should be educated people who really care for better quality programs that are educative and not merely for pure entertainments. The middle class can show their seriousness by supporting better quality programs by either financing or watching the programs. If that middle class movement happens, the television producers will take seriously the public’s interests and requests. This method of giving funds to support certain programs has also been done successfully by PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) in United States.
Another way is by encouraging more competitions in public broadcasting industries and discouraging conglomeration of media enterprises. The government can help in this area by creating clear regulations and also keeping the regulations fairly. An example of this is already happening in Greater Malang area in East Java. From Jakarta Post article dated on August 29, 2005, there were already 5 local television stations serving about 4 million people compared to 1 television station that serves 2.6 million people in Surabaya, a much bigger city nearby. The responds from local people are also very positive. The local television stations show programs for children, news and local culture performances. It is said in the article that the presence of local television stations can help educate and entertain people. People are very interested to know what are happening in their own communities or cities. The programs can be tailored more to what the community needs and are experiencing day-to-day. Not only that, those local television stations can be an innovative outlet for all the local artists and creative people in that area, opening job and economic opportunities in that area. Agropolitan TV’s crews, one of the TV stations in Greater Malang area, are able to produce 80% out of the 52 programs themselves, which is quite an accomplishment.
The last component to have is the NGOs or other civil organizations that function as watch-dogs to keep improving the quality of television programs. The contents of the television programs need to be monitored so that they would continually promote decency, educating the people, and not provoking SARA (ethnicity, religion, race, social groups) issues. It is better for the watch-dogs to come from the people, independent from government institutions or the conglomerates, because the government and the conglomerates would unavoidably have their own vested interests that might not be coherent with the people’s interests. Besides protecting the people’s interests, the media entities must provide a venue for the people to voice their concerns in an orderly fashion. The key to make civil society works in Indonesia is by promoting accountability between government – enterprises – people. The media enterprises hold one of the determinant keys to make civil society comes about in Indonesia, thus they must use it responsibly.
Sofia Tjiptadjaja currently works as a Telecom Engineer in Chicago, IL. Her interests include media, social, and cultural issues.
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