Communication – Indonesian style

References

• Singapore (224 square miles) is smaller than a tea estate (Kannan Devan Co., 240 square miles) in the tiny South Indian state of Kerala (15,000 square miles).
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• A wide range of books on Indonesian culture and its social system is available. For a taste of them see Ruth R. McVey (editor), Indonesia, (New Haven, Connecticut: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University Press, 1963); Daniel S. Lev, The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics, 1957–59, (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1966); Bernard H.M. Vlekke, Nusantara: A History of Indonesia, (Brussels: Uitgeversmaatschappij A. Manteau n.v., 1959). The Holt Collection at the Indonesia-America Centre, (mostly in English) and the Idayu Foundation Library (in Bahasa-Indonesia, Dutch, English and other languages), both located in Jakarta, offer most titles which scholars need to consult.
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• Abdul Razak, Desk Editor, Antara News Agency, Jakarta (Jefferson Fellow 1971, East-West Center, Honolulu), “Freedom of the Press in Indonesia”, paper presented on March 22, 1971, before an East-West Communication Institute Seminar.
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• P.K, Ojong, Editor-in-Chief, Kompas, Jakarta, “The Situation in Indonesia, Especially on Java”, document prepared for the SODEPAX Conference on Communication for Development in Asia, Hong Kong, October 5–9, 1971.
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• Sumadi, Director of Foreign Information (Ex-Director of Television), Ministry of Information, “Television and National Development: The Indonesian Experience”, paper presented at the WHO Inter-Country Workshop on Development of Health Education Media with Particular Reference to Family Health, New Delhi, October 19, 1971.
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• B.S. Sehgal, WHO Short-Term Consultant, “A Review of Current National Media Programmes in Health Education — South-East Asia Region”, document prepared for the New Delhi Workshop, cited above.
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• International Planned Parenthood Federation, London, document 01.839-2911/6 (Janury 1971).
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• Newspaper circulation data usually tend to be on the higher side in many countries of Africa and Asia (where a quota system exists for newsprint), and radio-TV figures to be on the lower side (where licensing of sets enforced, or transistor smuggling thrives). Evidence gathered for this survey prompts to place the total circulation of all Indonesian dailies, as at the end of December 1971, around a million copies, nearly half of which are distributed in the national capital and most of the rest in other urban centres.
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• Details of this kind to be found in this article have been collected by a dozen Indonesian research associates and, therefore, no attempt is made to footnote them. Many of them prefer to remain anonymous.
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• Taking into account all the minor ethnic strata scattered in the far-flung islands, some scholars estimate over 300 such groups — each with its own cultural identity — using more than 250 languages and dialects.
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• Malcolm MacDonald, Titans & Others (London: Collins, 1972), p.137. The Balinese believed Sukarno to be the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. The Javanese considered him cast in the mould of the omniscient and omnipotent great rulers of Mataram and Madjapahit kingdoms. Born on June 6, 1901, under Gemini (on the sixth day of the sixth month) he was destined to be a great dual personality — no mere user of radio or TV, but another god-king.
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• Herbert Feith estimated them between one and one-and-onehalf million in 1961, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1962) p.l 11; a year or so later the figure of two to three million was offered, George M. Kahin (editor), Major Governments of Asia, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1963), p.587.
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• Literature in English on Indonesian mass media is limited, focussed more on the printed medium than on any other, and is of varying quality, mainly by Indonesian newspapermen and assorted foreign scholars. Three articles of general interest by Indonesian journalists are: Mochtar Lubis, “The Press in Indonesia”, Far Eastern Survey, 21:9, June 1952, pp.90–94; Rosihan Anwar, “Compromise — or Capitulate?” IPI Report, March 1961, pp.4–7; Jacob Oetama, “The Indonesian Press: Problems and Perspectives”, Quadrant, October 1969, pp.82–84. For two Journalism Quarterly articles, see Justus M. van der Kroef, “The Press in Indonesia: By-Product of Nationalism”, 31:337–46, (Summer 1954); John H. Sullivan, “The Press and Politics in Indonesia”, 44:99–106, (Spring 1967). University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan, include such dissertations as Robert H. Crawford, “The Daily Indonesian-Language Press of Djakarta: An Analysis of Two Recent Critical Periods”, (1967); Edward C. Smith, “History of Newspaper Suppression in Indonesia, 1949–69” (1969). Among other material of interest are: Adaham Hasibuan, “Genesis of a Press”, Gazette, 3:29–46, 1957; Robert Goralski, “The Legacy of Press Suppression in Indonesia”, SAIS Review, 5:4, (Summer 1963), pp.24–29; Robert H. Crawford, “Some Cultural and Social Considerations in Indonesian Newspaper Publishing”, paper presented at the AEJ Convention, Lawrence, Kansas, August 25–29, 1968. Also, see Oey Hong Lee, Indonesian Government and Press During Guided Democracy, (Hull: Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull, 1971); K.E. Eapen, Communication, the Churches and Development: An Exploratory Survey in Zambia and Indonesia, (Leicester: Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, June 1972). Several UNESCO documents have dealt with broadcasting facilities in Indonesia, with particular stress on their responsibilities for educational and other developmental tasks. See C. Koch, “Indonesia: Educational Broadcasting”, UNESCO, Paris, December 1968, Serial No. 919/BMS.RD/MC; L.H. Emerson, “Indonesia: Educational Planning”, January 1969, Serial No. 960/BMS.RD/EP; “Educational Broadcasting in Indonesia”, Draft Report, Jakarta, August 14, 1970 (UNESCO Educational Broadcasting Mission, July–August 1970).
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• Though Indonesia has been independent for more than two decades, the network of roads in the major islands is roughly the same as in 1939, with less than five per cent of it considered good. The railways are mainly confined to Java and Sumatra, with much of the tracks and railway bridges in poor condition. Over 60 per cent of the railway’s motive power is more than 40 years old. Inter-island sea communications suffer similarly. See Notes on Economic Conditions in Indonesia, April 1972, prepared by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, London, for more details.
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• Raymond B. Nixon, “Freedom in the World’s Press: A Fresh Appraisal with New Data”, Journalism Quarterly, 42:3–14, (Winter 1965). Index 9 on this scale is “Controlled press system; no qualifications”, and 1, “Free press system; no qualifications”.
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• Stephen A. Douglas, Political Socialization and Student Activism in Indonesia, (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp.94–95. To the extent that assessments of freedom of Indonesia are based on first-hand investigations, western observers have over-emphasized the formal, legalistic provisions for regulation of the press and the occasional instances of temporary or permanent revocation of publishing licences. In “Can Journalist be a ‘Professional’ in a Developing Country?” Sydney W. Head stressed that “the newsman is a newsman insofar as he conceives of himself as employed by the public to serve the public. To the extent that this conception is impossible, to that extent he is not a newsman but an apologist or a public relations man. But… there is no situation in which he does not have some degree of freedom to develop this point of view, and the more he develops it the more likely he is to win further degrees of freedom to achieve true professional status”, Journalism Quarterly, 40:598 (Autumn 1963).
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• In an acronym-conscious society, “Gestapu” stands for the abortive coup (September 30—October 1, 1965) in which the Communist tried to seize power but failed.
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• While the early government-owned broadcasts were in Dutch, Sultan Pangeran Mangkunegara VII sponsored the first Indonesian language broadcast from Surakarta through Solose Radio Vereniging (SRV) in 1933. This was intended to promote Javanese music and arts, and wayang programmes. Other private stations followed. The Sultan in Jogjakarta, for example, set up one; so also the Chinese in Surabaja. But these were minor ventures, mainly confined to music and entertainment.
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• One of the decisive elements responsible for Sukarno’s fall was youth activism. Students started their own publications as stencilled brochures which have since blossomed into such influential newspapers as Harian Kami (started June 1966). It is generally believed that they had their underground radio transmitters, with the blessings of the army. Once the army came to power, it could not prevent the sprouting up of a large number of private radio stations. Many of these are one-man, single-room operations; some are located in the universities and some are commercial ventures. Both the student newspapers and radio stations are not phenomena generally to be found elsewhere among Asian countries.
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• The UNESCO Statistical Year Book, 1970, mentions 75,000 for 1969 and the World Radio-TV Handbook for 1970 offers 95,000 for 1971. The official figure for licensed sets, as at the end of 1971, is suggested as 125,000.
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• Low salaries are not necessarily a curse of the broadcasting system alone. This malaise is spread over other communication facilities as well. Because of the vary nature of poor emoluments, most Indonesians are engaged in more than one full-time job, often affecting the quality of work and leading to malpractices. Despite considerable salary increases in both government and private employment in recent years, the inadequate rewards prevail. Thus, existing communication systems, private and public, remain to be put to optimum effective use.Additional mass media structures alone are not likely to do much better so long as constraints of this nature exist.
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• This section is based on the Minister of Information’s speech at the Working Conference of the Department of Information, Jakarta, 1971; his speech at the Faculty of Publicistik, University of Padjadjaran, Bandung, 1971: and on the writer’s notes of interviews with high-ranking information officials of the Indonesian Government, and others.
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• There are powerful communication sub-systems represented in religious or political organisations in the country. See Eapen, op.cit., Section III and related appendices, for details of some of the Christian facilities (reflected in such dailies as Sinar Harapan, magazines such as Basis, broadcast studios such as Sanggar Prathivi, many amateur radio transmitters, printing shops such as Arena Press Service, urban and rural church congregations, educational institutions, hospitals, etc.), which do not normally receive deserving attention of most international communication specialists.
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• Looking at the Batak clan, it is clear that there are many sub-groups among them: Angkola, Karo, Mandailing, Pakpak, Simelungen and Toba. The effects of exposure to the West on the Toba and Karo, for example, have been different. While the former generally took to Christianity, education and professional jobs, the latter went off on the tangent of agricultural modernisation. See D.H. Penny and Masri Singarimbun, “Economic Activity Among the Karo Batak of Indonesia: A Case Study in Economic Change,” (Concluding Notes), Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, No. 6, February 1967, pp.53–57.
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• If availability of mass media is to be equated with their effective use, we have an obligation to make sure that the knowledge of what is available is accurate and that the available is being put to optimum use. The World Radio-TV Handbook 1972, for example, mentions the number of television receivers in Indonesia as 95,000. On querying its editor about the reliability of this number, he answered: “Regarding TV sets in Indonesia the figure was given in “Broadcasting & Tele-communications’ of July 5th as 200,091 supplied by the Director-General for radio, television and film affairs of the Indonesian Ministry of Information. He added, however, ‘the exact figure is hard to determine due to lack of co-operation among the various agencies. Figures supplied by television dealers are not very exact due to tax fears’.” (Letter to the author dated August 16,1972).
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• There are many constraints on the use of Western methodology in Indonesia; see Eapen, op.cit., pp.I.17–18. “The Javanese have seven ways of saying ‘yes’, and depending on how it is pronounced, the same word can mean anything from ‘yes’ to ‘maybe’ or even an insulting ‘no’”, Peter Polomka, Indonesia Since Sukarno, (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1971), p.28.
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