Abstract
This work focuses on structural-systemic factors that have been determining Indonesian commercial news TV Channels' political news production and publication in the Post-Soeharto Regime. A critical political economy perspective of the media and the media behaviours, performance, and content production models were adopted. Articles published in qualified journals, theses and reports released by Indonesian mainstream media related with such issue and in-depth interview derived from five senior editors/journalists of Indonesian commercial news TV channels and interview data collected from Indonesian journalists through online survey were extracted using the qualitative content and thematic analyses. The findings indicate that the following factors systematically determined political news production and publications organized by such private news TV channels. These factors include cartelised political system, party cartelisation, oligarchic media ownership, Pancasila (the Five Principles) as a unitary Indonesian state and government ideology, types and personal characters of the news sources, and religious violence groups.
TopBackground
Establishment of Democratic Media System and Its Consequences on the Roles of the Media in the Post-Soeharto New Order
Indonesia is one of republican democratic countries in Asia, which followed the presidential government system (Ahmad, 2017a, 2017b). In between 1966s and 1998s, this country has been ruled under authoritarian Soeharto’s New Order regime. Since such regime was in power, not only political parties, but also the media have been de-politicized forcefully. The Indonesian mainstream media, as an economic institution thrived substantially (Dhakidae, 1991). However, journalists who worked for these media enjoyed less freedoms to report political issues and events and express political (public) opinions either (Heryanto & Adi, 2001). Such developments kept prevailing within the last decade of this regime (Hidayat and Sendjaja, 2002).
In the early 1998s, dramatic social and political changes took place in this country. This was triggered by massive waves of political protests organized Indonesian students and middle class. Such protests were taking place in not only Jakarta, a capital city of Indonesia, but also some prominent cities of Indonesian provinces. They called for President Soeharto to step down from his presidency and establish a democratic political and election systems either. As such regime failed in handling such protest, power and political legitimacy of Soeharto presidency collapsed dramatically in 21 May 1998.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Political News: A news produced by the mainstream media, such as news TV channel, that contains information related with politics, public issues and policies and political affairs.
Cartelized Political System: A political system that exist in emerging democracies wherein the there are no real ideological stances between political parties. It is likely visible soon after the elections are being held. It takes place once these parties favoured prioritizing their own interests, as a group much more, rather than advocating diverse interests of the society these parties represent during the elections.
Party Cartelisation: A condition wherein political parties, which took part in the elections and ruled the government and parliament favoured establishing a political vast coalition that dampen political parties that lost in such elections to establish a (block of) political opposition. Such condition encourages these parties to establish a promiscuous power-sharing.
Oligarchic Media Ownership: A condition in country wherein limited number of powerful and influential elites, which are called as oligarchs, owned and controlled majority of the existing mainstream media industries and groups. These elites are wealthy individuals who have significant powers to control a system of power relation that not merely determine the political processes, but also concentrate wealth and authority in their hands and exploit such wealth and authority as a collective defence.
Commercial News TV Channel: A news TV channel, which is owned by Individual person or private institution or corporation. It is contrasted with a public news TV channel, which is owned or funded by public institution.
Critical Political Economy of Communication: A research perspective, which is adopted in the communication and media studies, that concerns on both political and economic aspects of communications. It critically scrutinizes the ways power relations are maintained and challenged and examines both symbolic and economic dimensions of the production of meaning and the ways such dimensions are related each other.
Soeharto’s New Order Regime: A political government regime, which has been established by President Soeharto in between 1966s and 1998s. This regime collapsed in 21 May 1998.
Critical Political Economy of the Media: A research perspective developed in the communication and media studies, which focuses on the following three-fold elements, which are: a) the nature of the relationship between media and communication systems; b) consequences of such relationship on social structure of society; and c) the effects of diverse types of the media ownership and support mechanisms and government policies related with the media on the media behaviour and content. It assumes that the media have been exploited by the dominant elites as ‘unconscious forces’ to achieve their goals and accomplish their political and business interests.