Indonesian Press
Democratic life in Indonesia is not as develop as we expected in the recent decade.Since 1998, Indonesia has undergoing the period known as 'The reformation Era'. This era was started by the down-falling of Suharto after his 32-years reign. However, after almost a decade of reformation in every aspects of livelihood in Indonesia, not much of significant change can be observed. Of course, there is much of differences in what we had a decade ago but for common or 'grassroot citizens', life is as harsh as beforew. Number of poverty still increasinf either in stastic value and in real life fact.
Living cost is increasing fast due to de-subsidiziation policy of Indonesian government. This policies are taken to fulfill the necesity to reduce government burden in their fiscal responsibility but most of the time government release their policies in the wrong moment. It is important to reduce subsidies either to reduce government cost or to make people become accustom to a real global price which by the could increase their income itself.
But from time to time, the real problem in Indonesia is corruption rate which consider as one of the highest in the world. Many effort has been done either by government or by any element of community to find the solution to get rid of this problem but none of it could give a significant impact. this is due to that corruption has become part of our culture so, it is rather hard to broken the chain of corruption in Indonesia.
The one that make reformation moving in slow phase is the role of press. Although there are some media which has tried to take the role of public informer and educator to democracy but this role is still not the dominant part of their responsibility to the public. By law, government hand has been a little bit tied up by the elemination of force liquidation of media and licensing. But capital control still became the major cause of self-restriction in Indonesia media. because of their necesity in capital some media have sold their ideality as the public informer and educator to democracy.
There are so many cases where media had put down an issue because of their capital bargain position. the issues might relate directly or indirectly to the capitalist behind the media or someone who are close to the capitalist. When the issues are put down, public will loose their awareness of the issues which will lead to the condition where public pressure become weak and the legal action or solution of the issue will be considered as unnecessary by the policy maker due to public ignorance. In contrast with major media in developed countries, most of media in Indonesia is part of a company which their main business is not in media but in different field. This fact has cause that the flagship company will not able to risk their main business only to maintain the ideality of a fragment of their organization.
Ideally, press should become the bridge between government interest and public interest. However, when press lose their space to move freely, their role as the bridge for both side will lose its meaning. Press position as the third power in democracy should give their true benefit to the public. But in Indonesia, this role will put media in a dilematic circumstance.
Apart from their dilematic position to become trult free, Indonesian media also has to face the fact that most of news content is not substancial. Indonesian public give more interest in issue related to entertainment and the illogical field of supernaturality.
There are some reason for this fact. The first reason is that Indonesian public has have enough of political of any nationalistic drama which do not give them any direct benefits. Most of the political drama in Indonesia has been going on and on without any real solution which make public has to use all of their emation and concentration on the issue just to find out that by the end the result will be far from their expectation. By this reason, Indonesian public would prefer entertainment issues which would not require much attention to it.
The second reason is that culturally, Indonesian public is an agricultural public which is logically will give more attention to their surrounding. And also the low education has made Indonesia public prefer illogical issue which give them diversion of their real life problem. And because of this reason, Indonesia public give their biggest interest in news or program related to supernaturality.
By the end, without a free press and a logical public, reformation in Indonesia will face the fact that it is useless to keep on their movement into democracy.
