Media a problem in democracy?    Ignatius Haryanto  ;   A media researcher at the Institute of Press and Development Studies (LSPP), Jakarta

JAKARTA POST, 15 April 2014

                                      

                                                                                         

                                                             

Maybe in the next five to 10 years many local and foreign observers will look at Indonesia’s 2014 elections as one of the most celebrated tales in the country’s media history. Both conventional and social media hosted much discussion and criticism, as political parties used the media for their campaign platforms as well as using social media for campaigning. Among the contestants of the 2014 general elections, three figures are media owners who also lead political parties: presidential candidates Surya Paloh of the NasDem Party and Aburizal Bakrie of the Golkar Party and vice presidential hopeful Hary Tanoesoedibjo of the Hanura Party. The three of them used media in their business groups to promote and produce political advertisements since last year for their parties and personalities, even though the official campaign season was not yet open. Since then, all three have continued to produce many forms of media to promote themselves and their political parties. According to communication and marketing theories, campaigning for products or people can be effective when there are time limitations, which create awareness about the people or products. But without time limitations, the public will regard such messages as pollution or excessive, leading to fatigue and boredom. Contestants like Tanoesoedibjo, and Hanura founder Wiranto, created media gimmicks through their media outlets to promote themselves by having much reportage on themselves and their parties. Examples include Wiranto’s role on the RCTI television station’s sinetron (soap opera) program Tukang Bubur Naik Haji (The Porridge Man Goes on the Haj), where the former military commander played the everyman character of a becak (pedicab) driver. Surya Paloh became known for giving political briefings on Metro TV for lengthy periods of time. On TVOne and ANTV, many hours were dedicated to ARB, as Aburizal Bakrie is known, for reporting on his nationwide political safari, his speeches and other aspects of his public life — not including his trip to the Maldives with several actresses, which was leaked on YouTube. One day before election day, we also heard how the CEO of TVOne and Viva.co.id, Anindra Ardiansyah Bakrie, was angered by news portal Vivanews carrying advertisements for Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, presidential candidate from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Ardi Bakrie, as he is known, reportedly threatened members of Vivanews management with losing their jobs over the incident. Those who use their influence as owners of media organizations hope that the more media content is produced, the more influence and public sympathy they will get. They thought that media content featuring their faces would turn into votes in the legislative election on April 9. But reality was not the same as their hopes. Thinking that audiences are passive, stupid and will do as the media’s messages tell them is very wrong. Therefore, the more media items produced and circulated through biased media channels will not necessarily result in more votes for these candidates. In reality, audiences are active and smart, with a complex structure in regards to political participation. They consider political candidates not only on the basis of their media performances, but also on candidates’ track records, discussions with their peers, or information from other media channels, before they enter polling stations and cast their votes. Many people forget that whereas now many media channels provide alternative information, they also create confusion because the amount of information is enormous. Smart and active audiences process the information they get before they make their decisions about who to vote for. According to several quick counts by survey institutions, so far the PDI-P is the most popular party. A quick count from national daily Kompas, for instance, ranked the PDI-P first with 19.4 percent of votes, followed by Golkar with 14.9 percent and Gerindra in third position with 11.7 percent. What happened to Hanura and NasDem? Hanura got 5.1 percent and NasDem 6.8 percent. Parties with wide support from their media affiliations were not entirely successful in getting votes. Regardless of such failure, using influence in the media to support political ambitions is undemocratic, since it creates inequality with other political parties. If we agree to support democratic values, we need to regulate how the media is used and abused by its owners, especially when they enter politics. In other countries, such practices are condemned and media owners must resign from their media positions before they enter politics. Media regulators like the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) or the Press Council must act more harshly to stop this abuse. The KPI, the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) and the General Elections Commission (KPU) have issued warnings to the MNC television group and other stations, but such letters were toothless. The legislature and government is scheduled to finish deliberations shortly about a revision of the country’s Broadcasting Law. These media owners have used the loophole in the current Broadcasting Law to capitalize on their interests, and media regulators in the past have failed to recognize this issue. Consequently, in the revised Broadcasting Law, the political activities of media owners must be regulated. This measure would ensure that media organizations perform their role as part of Indonesia’s democratic process, rather than being part of the problem in our democratization. ●

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