MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Wijayanto, Ph.D (wijayanto@live.undip.a.cid)

Hendra Try Ardianto, MA (htardianto@live.undip.ac.id)
Course outline
This seminar deals with the current problems facing the democratization process in Indonesia
and their representation in Indonesian media, both in local, national, and international level.
Students familiarize themselves with important contemporary issues and learn to interpret the
reporting of those issues in news media of various kinds, from government press releases to
dissident blogs and from academic current affairs fora to TV channels owned by business
oligarchs. The course puts academic knowledge of the Indonesian histories, cultures, and
institutions as an aid to the understanding of important current events.

Course objectives
This general aim of this course is to introduce the current problems of Indonesian democracy
as presented in the media and to provide students with analytical tool to be able to critically
analyze how those issues are presented or under represented. By the word “media”, it refers to
not only conventional media such as: newspaper, radio and TV but also social media such as:
face book, twitter, blogosphere, whatsapp group, youtube and others.

More specifically this course aims

1. to give students analytical tool to read the news in the media

2. to introduce the students on the current state and nature of Indonesian media today.
3. to familirize students with many kinds mainstream media today
4. to stimulate students to examine the existence of the new media such as face book,
twitter, youtube, whatsapp interact each other with the “conventional” media such as
TV, newspapers, radio to shape public discourse on the ongoing democratization
process,
5. to familirize the students to key issues presented in the mainstream media as well as
the social media
6. to help students identify and examine the dominant political actors occupying
Indonesian media and investigate their main agendas.
7. to stimulate student to reflect on the current problems of democratization in Indonesia
Mode of instruction

 Seminar
 Discussion and presentation
 Writing assignment

Assessment method

 presentation (10%),
 class participation (10%),
 blog postings (20%),
 mid-term assignment (30%)
 final examination (30%)

Note that fully 30 percent of the available marks will be allocated for participation (10%) and
presentation (10%) together with web postings in response to the set readings provided for
seminars 2-8 (10%). Every week, each student must submit a web posting of 250-300 words, at
least 24 hours in advance of the seminar. The purpose of the posting is to demonstrate critical
reading of the assigned sources. Each week a specific question will be set, to be answered in
the posting on the basis of these assigned sources.

Meeting Agenda

Meeting Topic Reference

1 Introduction
2 Reading the News
3 Political Economy of
Indonesian Media
4 Current state of Indonesian
media freedom
5 Internet and Politics
6 Social Media and Social
Movement
7 Blasphemy
8 Mid term
-
(Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2014) (Ethical Journalism
Network, 2015) (Aliansi Jurnalis Indonesia, 2018)
(Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia, 2018)
(Nugroho, Putri, & Laksmi, 2013) (Haryanto, 2011)
(Patterson & Donsbagh, 1996) (Schultz, 1998)
(Herman & Chomsky, 2002)
(Wiratraman, 2014) (Hill, 2007) (Steele, 2010) (Lim,
2011)
(Chadwick & Howard, 2009) (Sen & Hill, 2007: 194-
219) (Ho, Kluver, & Yang, 2003)
(Gainous & Wagner, 2014) (Lim, 2002, 2004, 2014)
(Jeffares, 2014) (Seib, 2012)
(Hamayotsu, 2013) (Wiratraman, 2014: 52-57)
-
 9 Media Independence (Haryanto, 2011) (Hill, 2007: 81) (Lim, 2011)
(Shoemaker & Reese, 2014: 39-63) (Tapsell, 2012)
(Hanitzsch, 2005, 2006)
10 Hoax Analysis (1) (Sokal, 2008)
11 Hoax Analysis (2) (Sokal, 2008)
12 Media Analysis: Newspaper (Taylor & Harris, 2008) (Wilkins & Christians, ed.,
& Online Media 2009) (Nielsen, 2015) (Luhmann, 2000)
13 Media Analysis: Television (Sen & Hill T, 2007: 108-136) (Sudibyo & Patria,
2013) (Mander, 1978) (Dimaggio, 2008)
14 Citizen Journalism (Banda, 2010: 43-72) (Nasrullah, 2012) (Jurrat,
2011) (Noor, 2017)
15 Media Cooperation (Boyle, 2013)
16 Final Test -

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