Edwin Jurriëns

From Monologue to Dialogue

From Monologue to Dialogue: Radio and Reform in Indonesia analyses how radio journalism since the late 1990s has been shaped by and contributed to Reformasi, or the ambition of democratizing Indonesian politics, economy and society. The book examines ideas and practices such as independent journalism, peace journalism, meta-journalism, virtual interactivity, talk-back radio and community radio, which have all been designed to renew audience interest in media and societal affairs. It pays special attention to radio programmes that enable hosts, experts, listeners and other participants to discuss and negotiate the very rules and boundaries of Indonesia’s newly acquired media freedom. The author argues that these contemporary programmes provide dialogic alternatives to the official New Order discourse dominated by monologism.

Intimate video? Creative bodies in the age of the selfie

This article critically examines and reinterprets the key characteristics associated with the contemporary medium of video, such as accessibility, connectivity and reflexivity. By analyzing various video genres and developments in the specific context of Indonesia, it explores to what extent local video users obtain a sense of agency and intimacy in dealing with the medium. It specifically focusses on the way in which the medium enables or obstructs people to have access to information and communication, reflect on social and personal issues and engage in aesthetic exploration. It examines these three different aspects of agency and intimacy by looking at bodily (self-)representations in commercial, home and art video genres. By demonstrating that bodily (self-)representations constitute a substantial part of the development of video in Indonesia, it provides a model for filling the gaps in the hitherto largely unexplored site-specific history of the medium. A special attention is paid to a recent work of the Indonesian video art pioneer, Krisna Murti, in which the representations of the artists own body are a central theme. The article shows how the work done by Murti puts forward the aesthetic modulation of a video as a way of safeguarding or recuperating agency and intimacy in contemporary information and communication society.

A CALL FOR MEDIA ECOLOGY

This article attempts to reinvigorate the concept of media ecology, specifically in reference to the study of Indonesian popular culture. It contains a critique of a Cultural Studies strand that focuses predominantly on audience interpretations of popular culture. The proposed media ecology also makes evaluative statements about and/or presents possible alternatives to popular culture ideas and practices.

Radio awards and the dialogic contestation of Indonesian journalism1

Reformasi-style radio journalism in Indonesia has been shaped by a desire to be dialogical and to involve the audience as producers or engaged consumers of current affairs. This is a break from the monologism of the New Orders official culture which excluded any serious audience participation. This article focuses on two competitions used by radio institutions for exploring different ‘dialogical’ strategies – the Balinese commercial radio station Global FM awards to listeners of ‘Social Empowerment Personality’ and that of the best radio news programme organised by the German NGO Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (FNS).

Video spa : Krisna Murti's treatment of the senses

This article discusses Indonesian artist Krisna Murti, whose video art and other creative work can be seen as a form of televisual metadiscourse. Murti’s artistic type of televisual metadiscourse provides insight into the commercial and ideological mechanisms behind the mass media industry; the cultural-technological features of various media; the historical dimensions of different genres of representation; the position of the artist and audience in processes of mediation; and alternative forms of intermediality and interactivity. Beyond merely television critique, Murti’s work presents an alternative vision of mixed environments where media and people harmoniously coexist and interact with each other. The author argues that this attempt at promoting pleasant, effective and sustainable communication environments could be seen as the media equivalent of ecology.

MOTION AND DISTORTION: The media in the art of jompet and tintin∗

Jompet Kuswidananto and Tintin Wulia are two young Indonesian artists who create art installations consisting of a rich variety of media, ranging from video and sound to kites, passports, masks and bicycles. While many other young video makers create slick short films in the style of MTV video clips, Jompet and Tintin usually integrate their videos into art installations to give a multimedia and multilayered critique on processes of mediation and media interactivity. In this respect, they fall outside current trends in Indonesian video art and continue the tradition of media metadiscourse as established by the pioneering generation of Indonesian video artists. I argue here that underlying Jompet and Tintins work is a personal dissatisfaction with the Indonesian broadcasting world. If their work is about a new ethics for the media, their subtle call is specifically directed at the Indonesian public and commercial television stations, which have neglected and underestimated the intellectual skills and informational needs of the Indonesian public for many years. *I would like to thank Krisna Murti for drawing my attention to the work of Jompet and Tintin. Also thanks to Amrih Widodo for personally introducing me to Tintin. Jompet and Tintin have both been very generous with assisting me in the research on which this article is based.

The Cosmopatriotism of Indonesia’s Radio-Active Public Sphere

This article demonstrates how Indonesian radio (radio news agencies, community radio and commercial talk-back radio) since the fall of Suharto has lived up to, contradicted, altered or abused the ideals of Habermas’s concept of the public sphere. It focuses on activities that can be roughly divided into the following three categories: 1. Activities that represent the ideals of a Habermasian public sphere; 2. Activities that include alternative “public” strategies; 3. Activities that are controversial with regard to the public interests they claim to defend. The “publicness” as expressed in Indonesian radio gives shape to specific manifestations and interrelations between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, which transcend the boundaries between society and the state, the commercial and the public, and the local and the national or the international.

1. Challenges and opportunities of the digital ‘revolution’ in Indonesia

Digital technology is fast becoming the core of life, work, culture and identity in Indonesia. In a young nation with a median age of 28 and a rapidly growing urban middle class, Indonesians are using digital technologies in ways that have made the world take notice. In 2016 Indonesia had 76 million Facebook users, the fourth highest number in the world. Jakarta has been named the worlds ‘most active city on Twitter’ (Lipman 2012), while other platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp, LINE, Path and Telegram are all being used in unique and dynamic ways. It is now commonplace to walk into a cafe in one of Indonesias cities and see a group of young Indonesians all sitting in silence, eyes fixed on their mobile phones. Even outside the cities, there is voracious demand for admittance into the digital world. In research exploring the ‘improbability’ of a nation with over 13,0000 islands, a coastline of 54,000 kilometres and a population of 250 million with dozens of ethnicities, journalist Elisabeth Pisani (2014: 3) observed villagers climbing trees in order to get 2G phone reception; ‘Millions of Indonesians live on

TV or Not TV

2 a day and are on Facebook’, she wrote. Indonesias digital economy is an area of great potential, as shown by the rise of Go-Jek and Grab, ride-sharing companies whose success has been propelled by the ubiquitous use of smartphones. In mid-2016 Go-Jek raised

Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia

550 million in new capital, giving it a value of