Ambiguous Neutrality: Kompas’ Position Amid the Wave of Political Polarization During the Presidential Election 2014

Authors

  • Wijayanto Wijayanto Departemen Politik dan Pemerintahan, Universitas Diponegoro Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14203/jmb.v20i2.651

Keywords:

Kompas, Newspaper, Political Polarization, Presidential Election

Abstract

This study aims to examine the position of Kompas daily newspaper amid the wave political polarization during Indonesian presidential election 2014 and explain the underlying reason behind it. Based on six months on site observation within the daily’s newsroom as well as content analysis to 278 of Kompas’ article during the presidential campaign, this study found that the actual position of the daily has been ambiguous. On one hand, it claimed to be neutral in its editorial policy, but on the other hand, most of its editorial elites as well as its reporters had personally supported Jokowi. Furthermore, even though the daily has managed to be in a relative balance in term of space in its coverage, it has favored Jokowi in term of tone. This study argues there are political, economy as well as cultural reasons underlying this ambiguous position. Politically, Kompas took position to be neutral to stay close, and to avoid conflict, with whoever might win the election. Economically, this position was taken to maximize its economic interest to maintain its readers whose supports were also divided to the two pairs of candidates and to keep the chance to get advertising revenue from both candidates. Finally, this position has been justified by the shared cultural values among the journalists that this is important to remain neutral to avoid direct confrontation with either Presidential candidate. This values has been embodied as part of the habitus of the journalists which its development primarily took place under the previous authoritarian era. This situation is surprisingly similar with the case in the post authoritarian South American countries, in which the legacy of the authoritarian past still takes hold to the current state of its journalism.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Wijayanto Wijayanto, Departemen Politik dan Pemerintahan, Universitas Diponegoro Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University

WIJAYANTO is a PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is also a Lecturer in the Department of Government, Politics (DPP), Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia.

References

Deloire, C. & Hugo S. 1996. Handbook for Journalists during elections. Paris: Reporters Without Borders for Freedom of Information and Organization Internationale de Francophonie.

Hanitzcsh, T. (2005). Journalist in Indonesia: Educated but Timed Watchdogs.’ Journalism Studies, Volume 6, Number 4, 2005, pp. 493-508.crossref

Hanitzcsh, T. (2006). Mapping Journalism Culture: a Theoretical Taxonomy and Case Studies from Indonesia’, Asian Journal of Communication Vol. 16, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 169-186.crossref

Haryanto, I. (2011). ‘Media Ownership and Its Implications for Journalists and Journalism in Indonesia’ in Krishna Sen and David T. Hill (eds), Politics and the Media in Twenty-First Century Indonesia: Decade of Democracy, pp. 104-118. New York: Routledge

Hill, D.T. (1994). The Press in New Order Indonesia. Perth: University of Western Australia in Association with Asia Research Institute on Social, Political and Economic Change.

Hopmann, N.D Aelts, P.V & Legnante, G. (2011). Political balance in the news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 240-257. crossref

Kovach, B. & Rosentiel, T. (2001). The Elements of Journalism : What Journalists Should Know and the Public Should Expect. New York: Crown Publisher.

Lim, M. (2011). @Crossroad: Democratization and Corporatization of Media in Indonesia. Partcipatory Media Lab, Arizona State University and Ford Foundation.

Marquez-Ramirez, M. (2012). Change or continuity: The culture and practices of Journalism in Mexico(2000–2007) (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Goldsmiths University, London.

Patterson, T.E., & Donsbach, W. News Decision: Journalists as Partisan Actors. Political Communication, 13, 1996, pp. 455-468. crossref

Sambrook R. J. (2012). Delivering trust: Impartiality and objectivity in the digital age (Working Paper). Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.

Semetko, H. A. (2010). Election campaigns, partisan balance, and the news media. In P. Norris (Ed.) Public sentinel: Media and governance reform. Washington DC: The World Bank.

Sen, K., & Hill, D.T. (2000). Media, Culture and Politics in Indonesia. South Melbourne : Oxford University Press

Tapsell, R. (2012). ’Old Tricks in a New Era: Self-Censorship in Indonesian Journalism’, Asian Studies Review, June 2012, Vol. 36, pp. 227–245. crossref

Published

2018-10-31

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 2 (2018)

Section

ARTICLES

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the authors.
  2. Authors grant to the journal first publication rights and the right to distribute the article, including the journal's web site, online data bases and other similar forms.
  3. Authors agree to license their work according to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
  4. Articles published in JMB are free to use for non-commercial uses as long as the authors and the journal are attributed properly and the new creations are licensed under the indentical terms (license Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
  5. Authors retain the right to reproduce and distribute their articles in any format, without prior authorization, with the proper acknowledgment to the first publication.
  6. If the article contains copyright material owned by others, authors should obtain written permission from the copyright owner/s in order to reuse the material. Appropriate acknowledgment should be included.
  7. Authors are encouraged to post their article online (in institutional repositories, personal websites etc). Any such posting must include a reference and a link to the journal's website.

Penulis yang menerbitkan pada jurnal ini menyetujui ketentuan berikut:

  1. Hak cipta untuk artikel dalam jurnal ini disimpan oleh penulis.
  2. Penulis memberikan kepada jurnal hak publikasi pertama dan hak untuk mendistribusikan artikel, termasuk situs web jurnal, basis data online dan bentuk serupa lainnya.
  3. Penulis setuju untuk melisensikan karya mereka sesuai dengan Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
  4. Artikel yang diterbitkan dalam JMB bebas digunakan untuk penggunaan non-komersial selama penulis dan jurnal dikaitkan dengan benar dan kreasi baru dilisensikan menurut istilah indentis (lisensi Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
  5. Penulis mempertahankan hak untuk mereproduksi dan mendistribusikan artikel mereka dalam format apa pun, tanpa izin sebelumnya, dengan pengakuan yang tepat untuk publikasi pertama.
  6. Jika artikel tersebut berisi materi hak cipta yang dimiliki oleh orang lain, penulis harus mendapatkan izin tertulis dari pemilik hak cipta untuk menggunakan kembali materi tersebut. Pengakuan yang tepat harus disertakan.
  7. Penulis didorong untuk memposting artikel mereka secara online (dalam repositori institusional, situs web pribadi dll). Setiap posting seperti itu harus menyertakan referensi dan tautan ke situs web jurnal.