Election: Power Over The Media

The presence of politics in Indonesia is obviously not the strangest to the eyes and ears of the citizens, not to mention the last elections held and the presidential election later this year. Promotions after promotions have been slapping straight at our faces and forcing us to see around the country.

But before we could even begin to discuss about politics in Indonesia, we all should understand the key main points or the absolute definition about politics. Politics can be referred as a game. A game of what, you may ask? It is a game of power, a game so dangerous if it is played wrong. It is the technique or practice to influence other people that have less power. The player of which holds one of the strongest authority in controlling one specific society or a state.

Then comes another one of the key elements of politics, which is power. What is power? Power is the ability—or even, a right to influence people that is given or ‘delegated’ to a person. Imagine having a power that big over a country, it is that easy to find ways to use it to the most extreme for your own benefit.

Now, Indonesia is one of the countries that has the biggest amount of users that make use of the media to access news about politics—not only about politics really, you literally can find everything about everything, and that also includes the news about this year’s election on the screen of your mobile phones or your television screen.

But every good thing comes with its drawbacks, of course, and with this matter, the media of Indonesia can be considered to be the ultimate tool to spread propaganda message to its viewers by its owners.

Even though the launch of the social media world may be beneficial to the politicians in helping their promotions, it may not be a big help for them after all. Even though the number of the social media users in Indonesia keeps on increasing every year, it only covers a certain 30% of the country. With the remaining 70% has only television or other traditional media such as newspaper as their source of information. The political parties of Indonesia also have to implement the traditional—old ways to promote themselves in order to survive, and that includes television.

What makes this a serious concern is that politicians own many of Indonesia’s media outlets or channels. It may seem okay at first glance. The presence of politics to the citizens of Indonesia is no longer a strange thing to their eyes, with the ability to access news regarding the matter with only one click away.

The major problem that couldn’t be ignored is that the media coverage tends to have one-sided information or even stories about the owner of that certain media or channel. KPI or Komisi Penyiaran Indonesia or even the Indonesia Broadcasting System already did their duty in warning off the two televisions stations because of their program that broadcasted a bias TV show about their owner—who is running for the vice presidential candidate for this year’s election—Harry Tanoesoedibjo along with his partner, Wiranto.

Same thing happened with the others television stations that are being owned by politicians. Critics and reviews also has been attacking the stations owned by the Golkar Party’s Aburizal Bakrie and the one that is owned by the National Demokrat’s Surya Paloh. The said TV stations has been alleged to cover stories and news that aims to show their biasness towards their owners and does not show their neutrality in political matter.

Earlier this month, Indonesia just held the legislative candidates election for achieving the spot in the presidential election that would later be held later in the year. One of the most well known techniques that have been adapted by the political parties is to use their power in terms of influencing the people is by exploiting the TV stations that they owned.

One of the examples would be the so-called quiz broadcasted in a certain local television station that gives off general knowledge questions to its viewers about the country. With giving off the title or theme of the quiz the name of the owners that are running for the presidential candidates, and making the viewers to chant their names in order to join the competitions.

That particular program was also being reproved by the broadcasting commission about the biasness of it and by indirectly giving off the impression in also promoting them for the election, and it has been said that it violates the promotional ‘rules’.

To top it all off, it also has been reported that the state-owned, public broadcasting television station, or the oldest TV station in Indonesia is also being reproved because of its program that broadcasted the two-hour-and-a-half coverage of the convention of the Democratic Party, which is obviously led by the current president of the country, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.  

Then comes with the presence of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even Youtube. Many of the politicians in Indonesia already launched and tackled their selves good into the social media world to have better access to the citizens—even the first lady of the country, Ani Yudhoyono, has already made herself an account on instagram that received so many critics and comments regarding the photos she posted.

So with everything that happened, then comes the question, how would all of this effect or influence the people with all this promotions in the social media world? Is it really effective? Or not even close? It may seem ridiculous to be a young citizen of Indonesia about this matter, but we can only hope other people would consider their voice wisely, and realize that their voice matters.