The Power of the Screen: Releasing Oneself from the Influence of Capital Owners

DOI

10.2991/icosop-17.2018.15How to use a DOI?

Keywords

elevision industry; capital owner; public

Abstract

Indonesia's Media has long played a pivotal role in every changing. The world's dependence on political, economic, and cultural changes leads the media playing an active role in the change order. It is not uncommon that the media has always been considered as an effective means to control changes or the process of social transformation. In the current era of reformation, the press, especially television industry has been experiencing rapid development. This is triggered by the opportunities opened for capital owners to invest their money into media business of television. Furthermore, the entrepreneurs or the capital owners capitalize the benefits by establishing several media subsidiaries. They try to seize the freely opened opportunity to create journalistic works. The law stipulates that press freedom is a form of popular sovereignty based on the principles of democracy, justice, and legal sovereignty. The mandate of this law indicates that press freedom should reflect people's sovereignty. The sovereign people are the people in power and have the power to potentially develop their life-force as much as possible. At present, Indonesia has over 15 national television stations, 12 of which are networked televisions, and no less than 250 local television stations. This number is projected to be increasing based on data on the number of lined up permit applicants registered at the Ministry of Communications and Information office (Kemenkominfo) or at the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) office both at the central and regional levels. If Indonesia has seriously implemented digital television system consistently as of the end of 2012, then that number could have doubled within a short period of time. One frequency that now can be used by one television station, will be able to accommodate 6 to 8 channels, and some even guarantee 12 broadcasting station channels. This paper seeks to examine the role of national private television in Indonesia through literature studies on media studies. From the review results of existing literature added with author's experiences and empirical observation, it can be inferred that the power of capital owners within Indonesia's television industry is still dominant. The process of producing TV programs and journalistic works on private television network is still filled with the struggle in the newsroom among capital owners. The capital owner has the power to fulfill his/her demands in accordance with his/her political interests and business goals. The number of investment opportunities wide open in the television industry allows the capital owners to have more power in instilling his/her influence through the TV programs within the television industry. Consequently, the public's rights to public frequency are subject to be neglected.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Puji Santoso
PY  - 2017/12
DA  - 2017/12
TI  - The Power of the Screen: Releasing Oneself from the Influence of Capital Owners
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 94
EP  - 101
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icosop-17.2018.15
DO  - 10.2991/icosop-17.2018.15
ID  - Santoso2017/12
ER  -