'Where old and new media collide': convergence and media freedom in Indonesia

Crawford School of Public Policy | Arndt-Corden Department of Economics | Indonesia Project

Event details

Indonesia Study Group

Date & time

Wednesday 17 April 2013
12.30pm–2.00pm

Venue

Seminar Room B, Coombs Building, Fellows Road, ANU

Speaker

Ross Tapsell (School of Culture, History & Language

Contacts

Indonesia Project
+61 2 6125 5954
The media industries in Indonesia are currently undergoing profound change due to the convergence of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media. Media companies which previously only specialised in one platform (such as print, radio, television or online) are now forming larger, multi-platform media conglomerates. Media owners are creating multi-platform ‘news servicesŸ?. Previously separate offices of newspapers and television stations are being synchronised. Journalists are renamed as ‘content providersŸ?, and editors ‘curatorsŸ? of this content. Citizen journalism, where the general public takes on the role of journalists and reports information, is fast becoming incorporated into mainstream news media content, increasingly produced for mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone or Blackberry. Sensing a drastic change in the media landscape, the Indonesian government began drafting a Convergence Bill (Undang-undang Konvergensi Telematika).

This process of convergence provides a ‘fork in the road’ for media freedom in Indonesia. It is providing an opportunity for information to become more concentrated, controlled and cartelised. Convergence is also providing greater diversity of opinion and expression through a variety of platforms and mediums, particularly involving social media and citizen journalism. This seminar will to some extent speculate who benefits and who suffers from this process, including a discussion of the roles of media moguls running for President in 2014. But the central question of this seminar is to discuss the broader implications for media freedom in Indonesia in this “new era” of media convergence.

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