Media & Power

Indonesia

With television being the country’s dominant media technology, 90% of the population owns a TV. However, the content that fills those screens comes, in large part, from a couple of knowledge monopolies. The two major knowledge monopolies that I have identified are large, corporate media companies and politicians. It gets even more tricky when the politicians are the ones who own the large media corporations. About 12 large groups make up the Indonesian media ownership, and about half of them are controlled by businessmen-turned-politicians. Their goals are to have a profitable business that is also personally and politically beneficial for themselves. This sort of invasion of authentic journalism is typical in Indonesia. It makes journalists uncomfortable, but they continue to keep their job. It is threatening freedom of the press. These types of media companies also create a hostile environment for independent journalists. First, to be an independent journalist in Indonesia, one must have enough money to successfully take on the challenge. However, even if they do have a successful company going, it is very hard to be heard over the rest of the large media groups. This situation has reached this extreme due to lack of regulations and enforcement of regulations. The Indonesian Broadcasting Commission has regulations, but they are not strictly enforced. In fact, they are known for being wishy-washy on cross-ownership of broadcast media. Furthermore, a press law in Indonesia outlines newsroom independence but it is not enforced. Another interesting twist on knowledge monopolies in Indonesia is the idea of citizen journalism. Especially with the huge use of Twitter in Indonesia, this low-budget way of reporting on events as they occur. It will be interesting to see how or if this affects large media corporations as Twitter grows.