News Flows in Asia - MAFIADOC.COM

News Flows in Asia An International Conference

Venue: Korea Press Foundation Building 19thfloor, Conference Room Date: 27 – 29 August 2009

Host: KSJCS (Korean Society for Journalism & Communication Studies) Sponsors: NAPF (News Agency Promotion Foundation) KPF (Korea Press Foundation) YNA (Yonhap News Agency)

News Flows in Asia

An International Conference 27 – 29 August 2009 Korea Press Foundation 19thfloor, Conference Room

Host: KSJCS (Korean Society for Journalism & Communication Studies) Sponsors: NAPF (News Agency Promotion Foundation) KPF (Korea Press Foundation) YNA (Yonhap News Agency)

Conference Program Pre-Conference Meeting & Reception Thursday 27 August

14:00 - 18:00

Hotel Check In (after 14:00) and Informal Meetings among participants

19:00 - 22:00

Reception Dinner at Hotel (Restaurant Mon Tour – 1st Floor)

Conference: Day One Friday 28 August

09:10 - 09:30

Participant Registration

09:30 - 10:10

Opening Ceremony Moderator: Choi, Young Jae (Conference Organizer) Opening Remarks: Choi, Kyu Chul (President, News Agency Promotion Foundation) Keynote Speech Park, Jung Chan (President, Yonhap News Agency) “Role of Asia News Agencies in Asia Ages”

10:20 - 12:00

New Trends in News Flows in Asia Moderator: Michael Prieler (Professor, Hallym University, Korea) Speaker 1: Kim, Sa Seong (Assoc. Professor, Soongsil University, Korea) "News Coverage and Exchanges among Asia News Agencies”

Speaker 2: Han, Soo Hyok (Director, Yonahp Infomax, Korea) “Experience in Business News Flows in Asia: Asia Pulse, Asianet” Discussant: Tranthi Khanh VAN (Seoul Bureau Chief, Vietnam News Agency) Lee, Dongmin (Editor, Yonhap News Korea, English Language News Department) Sato, Daisuke (Correspondent in Seoul, Kyodo News) Ji, Xinlong (Seoul Bureau Chief, Xinhua News Agency) Ahn Chak Hee (Anchor, Arirang TV, Korea)

12:00 - 13:20

Luncheon

13:20 - 15:00

Asian Journalism Model Moderator: Im, Yung-Ho (Pusan National University) Speaker 1: Thomas Jayaprakash (CurtinUniversityofTechnology,Malaysia) "Journalism, Democracy and Public Sphere in Malaysia" Speaker 2: Kim, Sung Hae (Korea Press Foundation) “Conflicting Issues portrayed in North-east Asia News Media” Speaker 3: Shim, Doobo (Sungshin Women’s University) “Conflicting Issues portrayed in Southeast Asia News Media” Speaker 4: Gawthrop, Daniel (Faculty of Professional Communication,

Royal Roads University, Canada) “Circumventing the junta: How Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy” Discussants: Sohn, Ji-Ae (Seoul Bureau-chief, CNN) Lee, Kwang Yup (YTN, Korea) Ju, Youngkee (Hallym University, Korea) 15:00 - 15:20

Coffee Break

15:20 - 17:00

Continuities and Changes in Asian News Moderator: Choi, Yang Soo (Yonsei University, Korea) Speaker 1: Toshiya Nakamura (University of Nagasaki, Japan) “The Newspaper Crisis in Japan” Speaker 2: Hwang, Seongbin (Rikkyo University, Japan) "Changes and Continuities in Media System in Post-Democratization – a Case Study of Far-Eastern Democracies" Speaker 3: Ahmad Nyarwi (Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia) “The Dynamic Performance of Indonesian Private Television Broadcasting Journalism, Public Sphere and Power in the Mediated Democracy of Post-New Order Indonesian” Speaker 4: Im, Yung-Ho (Pusan National University), Kim, Kyungmo (Yonsei University), Kim, Eun-mee (Yonsei University), Kim, Yeran (Kwangwoon University) “Diffusion or Evolution?: A case study of news diffusion in cyberspace” Discussants:

Thomas Jayaprakash (Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia) Cho, Joohee (Seoul Bureau Chief & Global Correspondent, ABC News) Lee, Young Eum (Korea National Open University, Korea) 17:00 - 17:10

Closing Remarks

17:10 - 17:30

Post Conference Meeting

17:40 - 19:40

Dinner

Conference: Day Two Saturday 29 August

09:10 - 09:30

Conference Registration

10:00 - 10:30

Brief tour of Yonhap News Agency

10:40 - 12:00

Round Table Discussion “Asia Journalism Model and News Flows in Asia” Moderator & Speaker: Choi, Young Jae (Hallym University, Korea) Speaker: Seol, Jinah (Korea National Open University, Korea) Discussion Panel: Thomas Jayaprakash (Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia) Michael Prieler (Professor, Hallym University, Korea) Kim, Sa Seong (Assoc. Professor, Soongsil University, Korea)

Han, Soo Hyok (Director, Yonahp Infomax, Korea) Tranthi Khanh VAN (Seoul Bureau Chief,Vietnam News Agency) Sato, Daisuke (Correspondent in Seoul, Kyodo News) Ji, Xinlong (Seoul Bureau Chief, Xinhua News Agency) Kim, Sung Hae (Korea Press Foundation) Toshiya Nakamura (University of Nagasaki, Japan) Im, Yung-Ho (Pusan National University) Hwang, Seongbin (Rikkyo University, Japan) 12:10 - 13:30 13:30 -

Lunch Conference ends after lunch Informal Meetings & Cultural Tours (optional)

Table of Contents

1. New Trends in News Flows in Asia

1

"News Coverage and Exchanges among Asia News Agencies” ··········································· 3 by Kim, Sa Seong (Assoc. Professor, Soongsil University, Korea)

“Experience in Business News Flows in Asia: Asia Pulse, Asianet” ····················· 21 by Han, Soo Hyok (Director, Yonahp Infomax, Korea)

2. Asian Journalism Model

29

"Journalism, Democracy and Public Sphere in Malaysia" ··················································· 31 by Thomas Jayaprakash (CurtinUniversityofTechnology,Malaysia) “Conflicting Issues portrayed in North‐east Asia News Media” ········································· 45 by Kim, Sung Hae (Korea Press Foundation) “Conflicting Issues portrayed in Southeast Asia News Media” ·········································· 53 by Shim, Doobo (Sungshin Women’s University)

“Circumventing the junta: How Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy” ········································································· 57 by Gawthrop, Daniel (Faculty, Royal Roads University, Canada)

3. Continuities and Changes in Asian News

77

“The Newspaper Crisis in Japan” ························································································· 79 by Toshiya Nakamura (University of Nagasaki, Japan) "Changes and Continuities in Media System in Post‐Democratization – a Case Study of Far‐Eastern Democracies" ····································································· 107 by Hwang, Seongbin (Rikkyo University, Japan) “The Dynamic Performance of Indonesian Private Television Broadcasting Journalism, Public Sphere and Power in the Mediated Democracy of Post‐New Order Indonesian” ···· 119 by Ahmad Nyarwi (Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia)

“Diffusion or Evolution?: A case study of news diffusion in cyberspace” ·················· 151 by Im, Yung‐Ho (Pusan National University), Kim, Kyungmo (Yonsei University), Kim, Eun‐mee (Yonsei University), Kim, Yeran (Kwangwoon University)

4. Asia Journalism Model and News Flows in Asia

179

“Western Journalism and Asian Journalism” ······································································· 181 by Choi, Young Jae (Hallym University, Korea) “Asia’s Inernet Journalism and News Flows” ····································································· 191 by Seol, Jinah (Korea National Open University, Korea)

1 New Trends in News Flows in Asia

Day1: August 28, 2009.

International Conference on News Flows in Asia

News Coverage and Exchanges between Local News Agencies in Asia

Kim, Sa Seong* (Assistant Profess, SoongsilUniversity)

1. Introduction Unlike the major international news agencies that have tried to change their identities as news wholesalers, the local news agencies have maintained their traditional ways. As Boyd-Barrett (UNESCO, 2001) worried at the workshop of the UNESCO in 2001, the local news agencies are facing difficulties of dealing with fluctuating environments characterised by the digital technologies. The workshops discussed various issues such as service diversification, ownership and management dilemma, marketing and customer relationships, internet business, training for developing professionalism, networking among agencies, the future of the national news agencies, and so on. This demonstrates that the emerging changes around the news agency industry impact and threaten the local agencies. The local news agencies have heavily depended on a single product supplied by a few international news agencies. This clearly causes a problematic situation in the market where the demands for news from the client media organisations become more diverse. In this vein, participants at the UNESCO workshop emphasize the need to network among other local news agencies. Although the problem is evident, the solution does not seem so easy to achieve. Most local news agencies are experiencing tough times in their relationship with the government, since they are subsidized by the government as national news agencies. Moreover, they have to resolve conflicts with their traditional clients, by which time they can develop new markets by exploiting new technologies of the Internet. Such a business diversification cannot be achieved just by its own efforts. The local

* [email protected]

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news agencies have limited resources. The lack of financial resource inhibits them from extending the boundary of the business. Their institutional status as national news agencies does not easily allow them to develop commercial activities. Less specialized human resources is also another problem in diversifying business efforts. Furthermore, there is a strong difference of opinion with their clients as to whether there is sufficient space in the market for national agencies to pursue a niche market. Thus, the local news agencies are eager to make some collaborative relationships with other agencies. Networking among agencies is a possible way of collaboration. They can develop the network in bilateral or multilateral ways. They expect various benefits from the collaborative networks: from the simple exchange of information, co-training courses, to sharing human resources. This paper aims to examine the possible ways of creating network between local news agencies, which could view the potential benefits from the collaborative networks. 2. Literature Review 1) Identity of the national news agency The cultural imperialism in 1970s focused on the unbalanced flow of the international news arguing that the news information of the big four agencies of the western countries produced the distorted images of the third world's reality. This approach criticized the view of communication and development supported by Lerner (1963) as the western news structured the system of international news transaction, then the other countries could not help but depend on their news streams (Boyd-Barrett, 1977; Mattelart,

1979;

Schiller

1976).

The

NWICO

(New

World

Information

and

Communication Order) was the result of this movement, organized by the UNESCO. The role of national news agency has been importantly evaluated as being a protective institution in this context. The NWICO, however, also presented another worry. Third world's dictatorial governments intended to exploit this movement by regulating unfavourable news flows in the domestic market. This trend sometimes resulted in conflicts between the major media of the western countries and new emerging governments in the third world (Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen, 2004)). It shows that national news agencies are undergoing difficulties from both directions of the external influences of the western agencies and the internal oppression of the government. In the midst of these problems, the national news agencies is experiencing much more difficult hardships because of change in digital technologies. This change

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develops a multinational media environment and worsens the imbalance of information flow. Even in such a tough situations, the national news agencies retain their own reasons to exit as an infrastructure to encourage public communication. As news retailers, they play a pivotal role in providing essential news information for the local news media, that is, the regional news media as well as the national media. Some are evidently incapable of gathering and organizing specific types of news, including the international news. More importantly, they provide news stories that commercially oriented news media cannot be expected to give, even if they are necessary for the process of democratic debates (Curran, 1998, 2000). In other words, the national news agencies protect public information from commodified information. This role of national news agencies eventually serves to preserve the identity of the nation. In the age of the globalisation, the concept of the nation or national identity may be regarded as regressive. Conversely, in such an environment, the minority powers in Asian regions should establish their own national identity to defend their own political system, the economic structure, and cultural characteristics. National news agencies, in some ways, play a role of representing their countries in the globalised international news markets, as argued by Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen (2004). Globalisation should be compatible with robust national news agencies. 2) Collaboration among news agencies As assumed in the introductory part, the necessity of collaboration between national agencies in Asia is a compelling argument, especially in this globalised information market environment. Problem is how to conduct the collaborative work, that is to say, the ways of collaborative network. Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen's (2004) examinations on the history of constructing the global news system will provide some insights. They divide the process of constructing and dismantling this system into four eras. First period was the age of hegemony of the European news cartel from 1870 to 1917. It was characterised by a single cartel. The essence of the relationship between national and international agencies lay in its exclusivity in two different ways. One was that national agencies provided their news to international agencies without any charge and bought the news from global agencies. The other was that only one agency in one country could receive the news that could only be used by its clients. Thus the market was ruled by the exclusive relationship, the 1:1 relationship. The French Havas, the German Wolff, the British Reuters, and the U.S. Associated Press all followed this rule. These major agencies served national markets that were relatively large and rich in

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newspapers and clients. Second period started with the expansion of the AP and the UPI in South America from 1918 to 1934. The dissatisfaction of the national agencies to the international agencies turned out to dissolve the single cartel system, ending in not only the dissolution of the cartel, and also in the hegemony of European agencies in 1934. This resulted in national agencies becoming free to contact any global agency they wanted, which created a new way of 1:N relationship. Third era was from 1940s to 1950s when a new hegemony system comprised of big five agencies was established, at the same time the national agencies appeared after the Second World War. The NWICO movement was set up against the imbalance of information flow dominated by the big five criticizing them as ruthless capitalist predators. The fourth period was from when the big five were dissolved in the 1980s to the present day. As the post-NWICO era, this period was instituted by neo-liberal economics of media de/re-regulation, conglomeration and convergence, digitization, commercialisation and competitivisation. The major international agencies survived in a very competitive environment where the cable news networks and the financial news threatened the role of the news wholesaler. The deregulation policies were used to reduce the number of state-supported broadcasting institutions so as to undermine the market for national news agencies. The Internet brought more harsh challenges because it had the power to decrease the costs of access to news and to clients. Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen's (2004) analysis indicates that the possible ways of collaborative networks can be addressed by several criteria: direction of the relationships, complexity of relationships, scope of the market, and audience relationships. Firstly, the issue of the direction of relationships is related to who has the key role i n interactions. If participants in collaborative networks had a 1:1relationship, they interac t bilaterally, but exclusively. But if a certain agency had multiple clients, and those clie nts could not use other agencies 'news information but those of that agency, this relatio n is a unilateral and exclusive one(1:N). Otherwise, all the agencies can contact with ot her agencies to purchase news information. This is a multilateral open relationship(N:N). That is, there may be three possible types of relationships such as bilateral exclusive, u nilateral exclusive, and multilateral open relationship. The second issue is the complexity of the relationship, which can be divided into a simple relation and a complex relation. The former is a traditional one between the wholesale international agencies and the local news retailer. The later is an emerging relation generated by non traditional news wholesalers like the CNN, NYT syndication, or the internet. This relationship is so diverse that it cannot be explained in terms of

- 6 -

traditional wholesaler-retailer contracts. Thirdly, the relationship should consider on the scope of market. The market for news information is expanding beyond the traditional news market into the non media market such as non commercial magazines or non commercial internet news sites. Fourthly, how to connect with audiences can influence the relationship pattern. Traditionally, the news of the agencies used to be given to the audience in an indirect way: wholesaler-retailer-client-audience. But the internet news providers want to detour this hierarchical process by creating direct contact with audiences. 3) Coopetitional relationships These issues of collaborative relationships are connected with how to collaborate and how to compete. The relationships should be established based on these two points. The national news agency should not remain as a retailer restricted within the domestic market. They can stretch their news coverage and market towards the other agencies’ domain, by exploiting the new technological development, and a changing political, economic and cultural circumstances. The concept of coopetition is well matched to resolve this complex situation efficiently, since it tries to take advantages of competitors' success for my success (Kung, Leandoros, Picard, & Schroeder, 2008). In business, naturally, there are competitors, more than one, which means there are always groups of players in business. What is important here is the fact that they may provide complementary rather than competing products and services. Moreover, the modern business is beginning to shape a kind of an ecosystem where several companies collaborate to improve their offers through various ways such as network, alliance, collective strategies, and so on. As seen in collective strategies, the view of the ecosystem is a very efficient approach to understand a complex and ambiguous situation of the market. A company can develop with other partners including its competitors. The long-term success in business involves not only to competing with other firms within the industry, but also to being an active participant in shaping the industry’s future. This way, companies can further their success by pursuing their own way. The real success cannot be achieved by simply doing with the way things currently are. For this purpose, a firm has to start to change the game of business, and needs to construct a strategic framework within which to work. Coopetition theory is provides efficient theoretical grounds for such a framework. Coopetition changes the way you play, as well as the game you play to reap the maximum benefit. Coopetition is the hybrid behavior comprising of competition and cooperation.

- 7 -

Brandenburger & Nalebuff (1996) defines it as combining the advantages of both competition and cooperation into a new dynamic which can be used not only to generate more profits, but also to change the nature of the business environment to your advantage. Also, Dagnino & Padula (2002) stress that coopetition does not simply emerge by coupling competition and cooperation issues, but rather it implies that cooperation

and

competition

merge

together

to

form

a

new

kind

of

strategic

interdependence between firms, giving rise to a coopetitive system of value creation. That is, coopetition emphasizes the increasing importance of the interfirm dynamics. Coopetition focuses on creating a new type of business, not just aggregating the existing competences. This strategy bears the potential to turn out to be a novel managerial mindset to guide interfirm dynamics properly. Coopetition is based on three concepts as argued by Gueguen et al. (2006). First one is the concept of complements. Companies must look for complementary companies, even if they are competitors, as a way of promoting their own resources. The second is the arbitration between the competitive strategies and collective strategies. Companies must identify opportunities in terms of partnerships with certain competitors, without losing sight of the defense of their own interests. The last one is the concept of the mutual role played by participants. It refers to coopetition as being based on the fact that participating companies can be highly diversified overtime. The primary work needed for coopetition, as indicated by these arguments, is to find out what the differences between the participants are. Seemingly, a collaborative relationship is likely to be formed around similarities. However, this way of co-work cannot generate productive outcome, even if they would have the scale economies. A complementary purpose can be achieved between different and multidimensional companies who operate in several areas. The mutual roles of companies, in this vein, are essential. With the mutuality, the reciprocal interactions occur. However, the differences or mutual roles should be resolved or arranged in line with a particular logic in order to establish productive outcomes. That is why the coopetition needs the arbitration. With a simple filing up of heterogeneous assets or resources, participants in coopetition cannot materialize a way towards profitability. Brandenburger & Nalebuff (1996) emphasize on a change of game in business. By expanding on important ideas, they suggest five elements that are essential to achieving coopetition in an effective way, such as: players, added values, rules, tactics, and scopes. To change the game of business means to change the value net. To do this, participants in coopetition have to alter one or more of the five basic elements. Firstly, a participating company can alter the mix of competitors or complementors for its company. Any time the players are in a changing environment, before entering

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into any value net, they should think over "which of the current participants has the most to gain by my participation". Then they find a way to get that player to pay for their participation. It is because the overall market value of the entire net is either worth more or less. This approach is done to identify the degree of the relatedness or interest with other participants in a group of coopetition. Secondly, the element of the added value is related to how much the participants can gain the added value by participating in the new value net of coopetition, Every value net has a total commercial value, which is made up of the sum of the added values of each participant in the value net. Therefore, if a new participant joins the value net, the amount by which the value of the whole net increased is that participant's added value. The objective, in business, is to maximize its own company's added value. Whichever company adds the most value to the value net holds the power. Thus, participants should try to find out what the distinctive value can be gained by participating, and also what additional values they can contribute. The third element is rules. If a participant can change the rules by which the game is played, it can influence who will be most successful. In business, the rules are negotiable. Participants can change the rules at any time. But, they must keep in mind that it works both ways. At any given time, competitors, customers, suppliers or complementors can change the rules as well. They do not necessarily have to follow the same rules as you do. In the marketplace, whichever party has the most power gets to make the rules. It indicates that participants have to transform their own attitudes towards the existing rules, before trying to change the other's rules. In order to do this, it is necessary to discern what the present problems are, and what they wish to change amongst them. The fourth element for successful coopetition is tactics. Tactics are actions players take to shape the perceptions of other participants in the value net. By altering the participants' perceptions, you can change the outcome of the game. Perceptions are shaped by tactics. The game can be changed, inadvertently or deliberately, by changing people's perceptions. Everything you do and everything you don’t do sends signals, from which others form perceptions. The collective sum of those perceptions is the game. Most business is conducted in a fog of uncertainty. Tactics can be used to: clear up the fog, preserve the existing fog, and stir up new fog. This element pays attention to identifying other participants' interests. Finally, participants should recognize the scope or boundary of new value net. In the real world, no value net exists in isolation. Each value net is linked to other value nets through common players, a common location and so on. And each value net can exert influence on other value nets by virtue of these links. Every value net operates in the

- 9 -

context of the bigger picture, and boundaries can be moved, expanded or altered at any time. By understanding how other games influence this game, and the common links that exist between value nets and using them to your benefit, participants can take advantage of any implicit boundaries other parties are using to improve your own competitive position, and change the game. This element is the final benefit that can be acquired with coopetitional participation into the new value net. So, it can be deducted by the results from the rest of other elements. 3. Research Questions and Methodology With Brandenburger & Nalebuff's (1996) analysis on how to materialise the coopetition strategy, this paper can construct several research questions such as: Question 1: How different are news stories of the local news agencies in Asia in their covering regions? Question 2: How different are news stories of the local news agencies in Asia in their themes? Question 1 & 2 are related to the different ways of approaching towards Asian news issues between those agencies. From this, it will elicit what types of added value are possible when those agencies participate into coopetition strategies. Also, it will provide some information about their tactical approaches towards Asian issues. Question 3: How do the local news agencies in Asia deal with Asian stories? This question can reveal some rules embedded in production attitudes of the local news agencies in Asia. Those findings could be suggestive to understand the reality as well as the potential for coopetition among the local news agencies in Asia. Question 4: How diverse are news sources of news stories of the local news agencies in Asia? This question focuses on whether there are possible players for coopetition, and who they are. This paper anticipates that the findings from these questions will help to frame some scopes for the new value net of coopetition among the local news agencies in Asia. In other words, it can identifies how they link to other agencies, how much they exchange what types of news stories, and in what ways.

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Collected Data Frequency

Percent

Yonhap (Korea)

100

12.6

China View (China)

100

12.6

KYODO (Japan)

100

12.6

BERNAMA (Malaysia)

70

8.8

PNA (Philippines)

100

12.6

TNA (Thailand)

30

3.8

PTI (India)

95

11.9

ANTARA (Indonesia)

100

12.6

VNA (Vietnam)

100

12.6

Total

795

100.0

To analyze these questions, using the traditional method of the quantitative content analysis, this paper collected data from the front pages of 9 Asian local news agencies' news sites such as; Yonhap (Korea), China View (China), KYODO (Japan), BERNAMA (Malaysia), PNA (Philippines), PTI (India), TNA (Thailand), ANTARA (Indonesia), and VNA (Vietnam). Data collection was conducted for 10 days from 4 to 13 July in 2009. It collected data from the English edition of The PNA and the PTI, while it used the local language edition of the rest of agencies. Total sample stories were 796 as shown in .

4. Data analysis 1) Differences of interests This research tried to understand the differences in local news agencies' interest towards the Asian area in two points as covering regions and covering themes. shows that most agencies posted stories relating to domestic issues, indicating that they seemingly exploit the internet news sites as a kind of PR tools. Including the ANTARA and the BERNAMA, domestic news stories dominated most sites by taking up roughly 60% of the entire site.

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Coverage in regions Yonhap Total Domestics (n) Domestic (%) Asia (n) Asia (%) C. Asia N. America(n) N. America (%) W. Europe (n) E. Europe (%) S. America (n) Middle East (n) Africa (n) Intern'l Org. (n) Others (n)

40 27

China View 20 15

66%

KYODO BERNAMA

PNA

PTI

ANTARA VNA TNA average

10 8

37 29

32 22

51 30

3 2

13 8

11 8

24 17

74%

75%

79%

68%

60%

80%

62%

76%

69%

4 11% 0 4

1 7% 0 1

1 5% 0 0

4 12% 0 0

0 1% 0 4

6 12% 0 4

0 7% 0 0

1 10% 0 1

1 9% 0 0

2 9% 0 2

10%

5%

4%

1%

12%

8%

0%

10%

1%

7%

2

1

0

0

0

5

0

1

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

1

0

1

0

1

1

1

0 1

0 0

0 1

0 1

0 2

0 0

0 0

0 1

0 0

0 1

0

0

0

1

3

3

0

0

0

1

What is important here is the coverage of Asia and North America. The average ratio of Asian issue stories was 9% of all the stories on front page, while they dealt with North American issue in average of 7%. It implies that the agencies used to pay the significant attentions to these areas. It should be noted that as Asian news agencies, their interest in Asian regions is not so great, compared to North America, in that 2% gap between the two coverages is not so significant to discern. Interesting case is the PNA. It dealt with the Asian issue just 1% out of all the stories, while it covered North American news in 12%. However, the BERNAMA, the ANTARA, the TNA's coverage on the North American was less than 1%. In spite of the relatively frequent coverage on the North America, there was a polarized discrepancy between the agencies. Of the international news published on those sites, the coverage on the OECD countries also revealed a similar pattern of the polarized approaches. Several agencies including the China View, the Yonhap, the PNA, and the KYODO reported more than 50% on the OECD countries' news events, but the BERNAMA and the ANTRA had just a small number of stories on the OECD countries limited about 25%.

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Coverage on the OECD countries and non OECD countries Yonhap OECD (n) 52 OECD % 54.2% Non44 OECD (n) Non-OECD 45.8% % 총계 96

China View 60 60% 40

KYODO BERNAMA

PNA

TNA

PTI

ANTARA

VNA

Total

52 52.5% 47

16 22.9% 54

54 54% 46

14 47 46.7% 49.5% 16 48

25 25.8% 72

44 44% 56

364 46.3% 423

40%

47.5%

77.1%

46%

53.3% 50.5%

74.2%

56%

53.7%

100

99

70

100

97

100

787

VNA

Total (%)

30

95

Coverage in themes NewsAgency Yonhap News Topic1 Military Foreign Relations Civil War Domestic Politics Economy/ Business Science/ Health Education Accidents/ Disasters Crime/Judicial Energy, Environment Human rights

11(11.0) 6(6.0)

China View

KYODO BERNAMA

3(3.0) 4(4.0)

27(27.3) 19(19.2)

5(5.0) 25(25)

18(18.0) 19(19.0)

TNA

12(12)

23(23.0)

1(1.1)

11(11.1)

7(10.0)

11(11.0)

2(6.7)

5(5.3)

3(3.0)

11(15.7)

18(18.0) 4(13.3)

2(2.1)

2(2.0)

17(24.3)

3(3.0)

9(9.0)

6(20.0) 27(28.4)

1(1.0)

9(9.0)

7(7.1)

9(12.9)

3(3.0)

9(9.0) 9(9.0)

6(6.1) 1(1.0)

5(7.1) 1(1.4)

7(7.0) 2(2.0)

3(10.0) 1(3.3)

1(1.0)

3(3.0)

2(2.0)

1(1.4)

2(2.0)

1(3.3)

Culture/Arts

5(5.0)

1(1.0)

1(1.0)

10(10.0) 4(13.3)

Human Interests

3(3.0)

2(2.0)

6(6.3)

3(3.0)

Total

100

8(8.1) 100

99

19(19) 117(14.7) 39(39) 130(16.4)

6(6)

22(2.8)

11(11.0) 17(17.0) 101(12.7) 4(4.0)

5(5.0)

89(11.2)

6(6.0)

2(2.0)

96(12.1) 5(0.6)

15(15)

5(5)

75(9.4)

8(8.0)

8(8.0) 1(1.0)

55(6.9) 15(1.9)

1(1.0)

1(1.0)

12(1.5)

6(20.0)

1(1.1)

10(1.3) 2(2.0)

1(1.0) 1(1.0)

70

23(2.9) 1(1.0)

1(1.4)

Others

26(26) 14(14)

21(22.1) 2(2.9) 2(2.0)

Religion

ANTARA

1(1.1)

16(16.0)

Sports

PTI

1(3.3) 5(5.3) 2(6.7) 18(18.9)

10(10.1)

18(18.0) 24(24.0) 4(4.0)

7(10.0) 9(12.9)

PNA

100

30

14(1.8) 2(0.3)

8(8.4)

7(7.0)

1(1.0)

28(3.5)

95

100

100

794(100)

Themes covered by the agencies are the other indicators which show the differences of local news agencies' interest towards the Asian area. As seen in , their interests were so diverse that there wasn’t a dominant theme covered. Among them, the most frequently dealt themes were foreign relations and the military. Here, the differences between the agencies were evident. The VNA showed the highest interest in the foreign relations, while the China View's coverage on this theme was just 4.0%. It was also the case in the theme of the military. The KYODO and the ANTARA's stories regarding the military reached more than 26%, but the China View, the TNA,

- 13 -

and the PTI showed less interest in that theme by reporting just around 3~5%. 2) Differences in reporting Differences in reporting will reveal that there are some different rules to report news stories. This research examines data of the three categories such as news type, writer, and news tone. News types of the agencies on the international news were typically restricted to straight news . It was hard to find the other types like analysis, special edition, interview, or column, which could tell the analytical approaches. A heavy dependence on straight news without analytical reportings might be caused by the limit in the number of the international news stories. Even so, this level of straight news dependency should be interpreted as the agencies having a strict rule in dealing with international news issues. News type News Agency Yonhap News Type Straight News (n) Straight News (5) Analysis (n)

China View

KYODO BERNAMA PNA

PTI

30

78

ANTARA VNA

93

100

63

80.0%

93.0%

100.0%

90.0%

7

5

3

12

4

31

Analysis (%)

7.0%

5.0%

3.0%

12.6%

4.0%

3.9%

Special issue/edition(n) Special issue/edition (%) Interview (n)

1

2

2

2

7

1.0%

2.0%

2.0%

2.1%

.9%

3

11

3.2%

1.4%

Interview (%)

7

1.0%

10.0%

100

96

Total

80

1

94

TNA

734

94.0% 100.0% 82.1% 100.0% 96.0% 92.3%

Editorial/Opinio n/ Column (n) Editorial/Opinio n/Column (%) Others (n)

11

11

Others (%)

11.0%

1.4%

총계

100

100

100

70

1

1

1.0%

.1%

100

30

95

100

100

795

The second rule can be found in the type of writer of the international news stories. According to , the agencies had an inclination to depend on the other agencies' reportings, which more than 40% of the international news were directly imported from the other agencies. The PTI and the TNA relied on 100% on the other

- 14 -

agencies, and the PNA also reached 98%. But the cases of the KYODO and the China View were exceptional from this trend. The KYODO's international news is entirely written by its own foreign correspondents, and the China View was up to 81%. Another important finding was in regards to the attitudes of the VNA and the BERNAMA. Reporters or editors within the newsroom wrote 97.0% of the VNA’s international news stories. The BERNAMA also heavily depended on their inside newsroom journalists. 85.7% of the international news's authors were newsroom journalists. Writer type News Agency Yonhap China KYODO BERNAMA PNA TNA PTI ANTARA VNA Total View Byline Agency's reporter/ 18 8 60 2 39 97 224 editor (n) 85.7% 2.0% 39.0% 97.0% 28.2% Agency's 18.0% 8.0% reporter/editor (%) Agency's foreign 50 81 100 2 233 correspondent (n) 2.0% 29.3% Agency's foreign 50.0% 81.0% 100.0% correspondent (%) Other agency 30 1 9 98 30 95 61 324 news (n) Other agency 30.0% 1.0% 12.9% 98.0% 100.0% 100.0% 61.0% 40.8% news (%) 10

1

1

12

10.0%

1.4%

1.0%

1.5%

Other newspaper's reports (n) Other newspaper's reports (%) Others (n)

2

2

Others (%)

2.0%

.3%

총계

100

100

100

70

100

30

95

100

100

795

News tone also showed one of the rules of making international news stories . Most news stories took a neutral stance with international news issues. But there were some variations. The average ratio of the neutral stance reached 67.8%. However, the PNA's neutral tone was down to 28%, and its negative tone was up to 54.0, whereas the positive stories were limited to 16.0%. It showed that the PNA had a highly critical stance towards the international news events. Like the case of the PNA, most agencies seemed to prefer the negative stance to the positive one. The TNA's negative stories overwhelmed the positive one 36.7% to 10.0%, and the KYODO also was negative for the international issue by showing 24.0% of the negative stories compared to just 4% of the positive ones. The case of the Yonhap was exceptional in that it took a more positive attitude by 20.0% against 7.0% of the negative stories.

- 15 -

News tone News Agency Yonhap News Tone Positive (n)

China View

KYODO BERNAMA

20

15

4

Positive (%)

20.0%

15.0%

4.0%

Neutral (n) Neutral (%)

68 68.0%

61 61.0%

72 72.0%

64 91.4%

PNA

TNA

PTI

16

3

4

85

16.0% 10.0% 4.2%

23.0%

10.7%

28 16 85 100 28.0% 53.3% 89.5% 100.0%

45 45.0%

539 67.8%

Negative (n)

7

24

24

6

7.0%

24.0%

24.0%

8.6%

Unclear/NA (n) Unclear/NA (%) Total

5

2

5.0%

2.0% 100

100

70

Total

23

Negative (%)

100

ANTARA VNA

54

11

5

28

159

28.0%

20.0%

1

4

12

1.1%

4.0%

1.5%

100

795

54.0% 36.7% 5.3%

100

30

95

100

3) Differences of credit sources Analysis on news credit sources aims to find out how much the agencies deal with news stories diversely. From the findings, it will reveal possible players for coopetition, and who they are. The credit frequency was not even across the agencies. The important point was the frequency of crediting the western agencies like the AP, the AFP, the UPI, and Reuters. The prominent case was the ANRARA, which showed the highest frequency in crediting them by 57%. Most of them were for the APF (42.0%). Next highest crediting agency was the Yonhap, which credited 28.0% of the international stories to the western agencies. Besides these two exceptional cases, most agencies showed significantly low frequency of crediting the western agencies. The KYODO credited just in 3%, the VNA did in 1%, and the China View, the PNA, the TNA, and the PTI never credited them. In regarding with such a low crediting pattern, attention should be paid to the trend in crediting the China View. The PNA did the China View in 68.0% of the international news stories, and the BERNAMA's credit frequency reached 32.9%. There was another trend, in which the agencies across the East-South Asian region kept a pattern of reciprocal crediting, while there were not any evidences that the agencies of the East Asian countries such as the Yonhap, the KYODO, and the China View credited the agencies of the East-South Asian countries. These findings show that there is a changing pattern of using the international news agencies: from the major western agencies to the Chinese agency. They reduced their dependency on the western agencies.

- 16 -

Crediting sources News Agency Yonhap China KYODO BERNAMA View News Credit Sources AP 12 1

PNA

TNA

PTI

ANTARA VNA

Total

2

15

2.0%

1.9%

AP percentage

12.0%

AFP

7

42

1

50

AFP percentage

7.0%

42.0%

1%

6.3%

UPI

1

1

UPI percentage

1.0%

.1%

Reuter

8

2

9

13

32

Reuter percentage

8.0%

2.0%

12.9%

13.0%

4.0%

China View

3

90

23

68

2

1

187

China View percentage KYODO

3.0%

90.0%

32.9%

68.0%

2.0%

1%

23.6%

2

85

1

88

KYODO percentage

2.0%

85.0%

1.0%

11.1%

1.0%

PTI

4

4

63

71

PTI percentage

5.7%

4.0%

67.0%

8.9%

BERNAMA

2

2

BERNAMA percentage ANTARA

2.0%

.3%

6

3

39

48

ANTARA percentage

8.6%

3.0%

39.0%

6.0%

TNA

3

1

TNA percentage

4.3%

27

31

1.0% 90.0%

3.9%

YONHAP

16

4

8

1

29

YONHAP percentage

16.0%

5.7%

8.0%

3.3%

3.7%

Bloomberg

1

1

Bloomberg percentage

1.0%

.1%

Correspondents

35

3

38

Correspondents percentage Local News Sources

35.0%

3%

4.8%

8

12

2

25

94

141

Local News Sources percentage Others

8.0%

12.0%

2.9%

26.6%

94%

17.8%

6

10

13

Others percentage

6.0%

10.0%

18.6%

Ambiguous

1

6

7

Ambiguous percentage Total

1.0%

8.6%

.9%

100

100

100

70

- 17 -

13

2

13.0% 6.7%

100

30

6

2

1

53

6.4%

2.0%

1%

6.7%

94

100

100

794

5. Conclusion Question 1 'How different are news stories of the local news agencies in Asia in their covering regions?' and Question 2 'How different are news stories of the local news agencies in Asia in their themes?' aim to discern the different interests of approaching towards Asian news issues between those agencies. From this, it’s possible find out what types of added value are possible when they construct a coopetition network. From the findings of Question 1 & 2, it seems evident that there are a lot of differences that are exchangeable between the agencies. They have different focal points in terms of covering regions and news themes. Based on these differences, the agencies participating in the coopetition network can develop some added values to their own existing value net. Question 3 'How do the local news agencies in Asia deal with Asian stories?' studies some rules that are applied when they construct news stories including news type, author, and news tone. The agencies strictly stick to a single news type of the straight news. Similarly the news tone is also focused on neutral stance, even if there are some agencies that emphasize negative tones. But the type of writer is more diverse. There are three paths of the writer in such a way which they depend on their own foreign correspondents, newsroom journalists, or other agencies. That is, it can conclude that the rule

of the

agencies in

dealing

with

international news is that the agencies'

correspondents or their newsroom journalists write the international news stories in straight type with a neutral stance, even when they use the other agencies' news stories. But this rule seems somewhat simple in terms of news type and writer type. Question 4 'How diverse are news sources of news stories of the local news agencies in Asia?' examines the possible ways for players to have coopetition, and who these players are. By analyzing the credit sources in the international news stories, it finds out that there is a decreasing trend to credit sources to the western major agencies, like the AP, the AFP, the UPI, and Reuters, while evidently there is a increasing dependency on the Asian major agencies, especially the China View and some cases the KYODO. This change tells that the Asian agencies can retain some significant choices of players in the coopetition network of the Asian news agencies free from the dominant international agencies of the western countries. From these findings, this paper can frame some scopes for the new value net of coopetition among the news agencies in Asia. In other words, it can identifies how they link to other agencies, how much they exchange what types of news stories, and in what ways. Based on the findings, the scope of the coopetition network between the local news agencies in Asia should focus on three points. Firstly, it should strengthen

- 18 -

the trend of increasing the diversity of dependency on the network agencies, that is, the Asian agencies, and of decreasing dependency on the western agencies. Secondly, the rule of coopetition strategy should aim to diversify some points: more various news types beyond the straight news, more diverse writers. Thirdly, the coopetition network tries to increase interests to Asian countries and their issues.

Boyd-Barrett, O. (1977). Media imperialism: toward and international framework for the analysis of media systems. In J. Curran, M. Gurevitch, & Woollacott (Eds.), Mass communication and society. London: Edward Arnold. Boyd-Barrett, O. & Rantanen, T.(2004). Global and National Agencies: the Unstable Nexus, first published (2004) in De Beer, A. & Merrill, J. (Eds.), Global Journalism: Topical Issues and Media Systems, 4th Edition, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Brandenburger, A. M. & Nalebuff, B. J. (1996). Co-opetition: A revolutionary mindset that combines competition and cooperation, New York: Doubleday. Curran, J. (1998). Crisis of public communication: a reappraisal. In T. Jiebes & J. Curran (Eds.), Media, ritual and identity. London: Routledge. Curran, J. (2000). Media and power. London & New York: Routledge. Dagnino, G. B. & Padula, G. (2002). COOPETITION STRATEGY A NEW KIND OF INTERFIRM DYNAMICS FOR VALUE CREATION, Paper presented at EURAM

–

The

European

Academy

of

Management

Second

Annual

Conference - “Innovative Research in Management” Stockholm, 9-11 May 2002. Gueguen, G., Pellegrin-Boucher, E. & Torres, O. (2006). Between cooperation and competition: the benefits of collective strategies within business ecosystem. The example of software industry, EIASM, 2nd workshop on coopetition strategy, Milan,Italy,September14-15.2006. Kung, L., Leandoros, N., Picard, R. G., Schroeder, R. & van der Wurff, R.(2008). The Impact of the Internet on Media Organisation Strategies and Structures, In L. Kung, R. G. Picard & R. Towse (Eds.), The Internet and the Mass Media, 125~148, London: Sage.

- 19 -

Lerner, D. (1963). Toward a communication theory of modernization: A set of considerations. In L. W. Pye (ed.) (1963), Communications and political development. Princeton (pp. 327-350), NJ: Princeton University Press. Mattelart, A. (1979). Multinational corporations and the control of culture. NJ: Humanities Press. Schiller, H. (1976). Communication and cultural domination. White Plains: International Arts and Science Press. UNESCO (2001). Final Report of the Workshop on News Agencies in the Era of the Internet, Paris: UNESCO.

- 20 -

Experience in Business News Flows in Asia: Asia Pulse, Asianet Soo Hyok HAN (Yonhap Infomax Ltd.) Contents 1.

2.

3.

1.

Introduction -

Introduction; Background

-

Aim of the research

-

Scope of research

Asia Pulse -

Introduction

-

History

-

Structure & Management

-

Evaluation – Analysis of news flow

Asia Net -

Introduction

-

History

-

Structure & Management

-

Evaluation – Analysis of news flow

Introduction

Since UNESCO announced the imbalance and asymmetry of news flow between the developed countries and developing countries in Nairobi, in 1976, the gap of news flow has not been shortened. The word of NIICO(New International Information and Communication Order) was told by journalists in the developing countries in the 1970es and 1980es. Asian news people recognized this situation and have tried to remedy this trend with several ways. A good example is OANA(Organization of Asia Pacific News Agencies) formed by Asian news agencies. Some Asian journalists, in 1995, had a common vision to carry pan-Asia news together. Then they gathered several times to launch Asia Pulse with share investment. Those leaders of Asian news firms tried to share their news each other and to remit their news to the news readers by translating the news into their own languages and also by translating the local IR.PR news into English. That is AsiaNet service. In this paper, I examine the development of Asia Pulse and AsiaNet in the perspective of news flow in the world. I try to examine whether these business news projects have achieved the aims, or visions of founders that is to get more balanced news flows with the West.

- 21 -

2. Asia Pulse 2.1. Introduction Asia Pulse Pte. Ltd is a company registered in Singapore, founded by Asian news firms to generate industry-specific news. Its aim was clear; to make money by selling Asian economic news to the outer world. The founders seemed to have affirmation the coming 21st century would be Asian century in terms of economy. I remember they had crystal-cut vision to make an economic news generating company together through gathering the news written by member firms. Its first priority was the news of tender, construction related news announced by each member’s government. 2.2 History It was founded by five Asian news firms in 1996. Those five firms were AAP(Australia), Antara(Indonesia), Nikkei(Japan), PTI(India) and Yonhap News Agency(Korea). Mr. Lee Casey of AAP and Mr. Hyon Sohwan of YNA were the two main founders among the original movers. Five firms invested US$400,000 each to collect US$2,000,000 paid-in capital. It was a company for commercial profit from the very first stage. Later ONA(Oman News Agency) joined the project with USD 400,000 investment. The company suffered to lose some of its initial capital until 1999 due to the economic crisis in 1997. To overcome this crisis the five member firms gave loans to the Asia pulse by US$20,000 each. From the first stage Asia Pulse tried to sell its news to the commercial intelligence services like Reuters, Dow Jones, Facitva, Dialog, and so on. Chris Pash, an Australian journalist, the first CEO of that company endeavored to introduce this new brand to the major database services at that time. The daily management team was mainly Australians in Sydney. In 2000, this company got to break-even point. Since then, it has been generating profits constantly. It returned about U$78,620 to each shareholder through reduction of its capital in 2006. It gave its dividend to shareholders by US$16,667 each. 2.3. Structure and Management Asia Pulse has 6 board members from 6 shareholding companies. Its main office is in Sydney, Australia. The editorial office has been receiving relevant news from news sources mainly in Asia including shareholders, and editing, categorizing the news to be sent to the outer services. It has general manager, marketing director, and business team in addition to the editorial team. The marketing director and business team are responsible for selling the Asia Pulse news to the other information services. Asia Pulse has a rule to open the board of directors meeting four times a year. Board of directors is composed of each representative of each shareholding company regardless of its share portion. Its revenue was U$1,138,176, its profit was U$126,580 in 2008.

- 22 -

(Diagram 1) Current board members of Asia Pulse

The daily editing and management have being done in AAP’s Sydney office from the first stage to the present. That is to save the cost by making use of the facilities in AAP. In addition, the founding fathers wanted to use the geographical and cultural advantage of Australia with the Western Hemisphere. (Diagram 2) Management structure of Asia Pulse

Regarding the news production, Asia Pulse covers more than 50 industries in over 30 countries, with dedicated journalists and analysts across Asia delivering around 300 items of news and analysis, commentary, projects and tenders, industry profiles and company announcements each business day. (from www.asiapulse.com) Currently, 6 editors and writers are working in Sydney office for editing, rewriting, and remitting the edited news to the wholesalers. According to the editor in chief, Mr. Cullive Gulliver, some journalists among the 6 have been generating their own news for remittance. (Based on a telephone interview with him on 19, Aug. 2009)

- 23 -

(Diagram 3) News flow diagram

2.4 Evaluation How can we evaluate this joint venture? Is it successful or not in terms of news flow to the West? To get the answers on these questions, I had some interviews with the current workers in AAP, Yonhap News Agency and old boys who had worked for this project. Based on those interviews, I can get to the conclusion that this project is successful but still less travelled. In terms of news flow from Asia to the West, Asia Pulse is a good case of success because its news has been consumed mainly by the people in the West. According to Mr. Leigh Mackay, the current general manager of Asia Pulse, the biggest user is the US(35%), the second is India and UK(205 each), followed by Singapore and Hong Kong(7% each). Compared to the news flow from the West to the Asia by major economic news providers such as Reuters, Bloomberg, and Dow Jones, the quantity of Asia Pulse is small. As of the second week of August, 2009, the daily average of news generated by Asia Pulse is 304 items. The daily differential or standard deviation is 74 items as shown in the table1. (table 1) News amount (Daily) 10-Aug

11-Aug

12-Aug

13-Aug

14-Aug

Total

Average

S.D

Asia Pulse

296

286

209

415

316

1522

304.4

73.95

Bloomberg

1377

2125

2174

2249

1968

9893

1978.6

351.70

For the same period, Bloomberg generated an average of 1979 news stories a day. This is 6.5 times than the daily average of Asia Pulse. Among the evaluation measures, I want to know how much impact has brought by Asia Pulse to the participants companies. For this, I compared the current numbers of English news generated by Yonhap News Agency to those of 1995. I tried to know whether the English news stories increased compared to 15 years ago. The answer is that the average amount of English news by YNA increased compared to 1995.

- 24 -

(table 2) Changes of English news/English news writers in YNA from 1995 to 2009 1995

2009

English News

60

110

E. News writers

18

26

(remarks: English News desk and English Economic news desk is included, but director of department, vice director and English NK desk is excluded.) 2.5. Conclusion and Suggestions Asia Pulse survives and generates profits. Though Asia Pulse aims to business news, it has not contended the major news vendors like Reuters, Bloomberg, and Dow Jones. Rather, Asia Pulse has tried to find a niche market, by concentrating more on commercial and economic developments, company activities and backgrounds. Compared to Asia Pulse, AFX-Asia, a business news generating company, had tried to concentrate more on day-to-day financial market data and movements and big company activities, competing with the gigantic news providers. Then AFX-Asia shut down. Compared to other major news service, Asia Pulse is still too small. It’s meaningful that Asian news companies invested together to compose a new company together. I want to emphasize the role of AAP to form this joint venture. AAP is geographically next to Asia, culturally next to the West. Making use of this hybrid feature, AAP has been an active role to make and manage this company. 3. Asianet 3.1 Introduction AsiaNet is a PR/IR news service consortium with cooperation of 14 news agencies in the Asia Pacific region. It collects and translates PR/IR materials into English to be distributed in the world(inbound service). AsiaNet also translates each member country’s news into English to be distributed to the outer world(outbound service). Therefore, AsiaNet is an Asian version of PR Newswire or Business Newswire. AsiaNet has contracts with the worldwide PR/IR news distributors such as PR Newswire USA, PR Newswire Europe, CNW Group and News Aktuell. The AsiaNet world network gathers and maintains mainstream newspapers and specialist publications, radio, TV lists for delivery via newswire, fax, email and the internet. A bonus with every release that passes through the AsiaNet system is a vast online exposure on scores of websites and databases. Stories are archived for background, education and contacts. Clients choose single or multiple countries appropriate to them, and the time they wish to distribute their news. They also select a category: It might be general news, high technology, business, health, travel, entertainment, all have specially targeted media points. A key part of the AsiaNet service is to provide media in many lands with a translated version of the client's original copy in a style acceptable for publication. This overcomes cultural and language barriers and guarantees some news-of-the-day consideration by media.

- 25 -

In summary, AsiaNet, through its prominent news partners, arranges for clients' news releases to be distributed full text, unedited and translated where necessary. They are dispatched through AsiaNet's Internet Operations Platform(IOP) to locations and lists reaching a combination of general news and industry-specific media as instructed by the source. AsiaNet can call on experts in all areas of the media to give advice and tailor a media campaign for clients wanting to tap into an international audience. 3.2 History AsiaNet started in 1995 mainly moved by AAP, Kyodo News(Japan), Xinhua News(China), and Yonhap News Agency(Korea). From the first stage, Mr. Lee Casey of AAP and Mr. Hyon Sowhan of YNA were the main movers for this consortium. It has been providing inbound service which is to translate English PR/IR materials into each country’s own language to be distributed in member’s own country. It has been providing outbound service, which is to collect PR/IR materials in each member’s territory to be distributed in the other countries. AsiaNet has an exclusive contract with PRN in 1996. AsiaNet started to generate profits from 1997, (table) History of Revenue Summary Year

Releases

Revenue

Payments*

1995-96

1,396

$910,859

$710,854

1996-97

1,439

$1,231,575

$944,754

1997-98

1,763

$2,095,184

$1,556,217

1998-99

1,831

$1,956,880

$1,398,097

1999-2000

$3,240,873

$2,466,968

2000-2001

2,722 3,513

$4,165,654

$2,820,848

2001-2002

2,662

$2,955,585

$2,094,497

2002-2003 2003-4

2,082

$2,430,021

$1,709,876

2,458

$2,752,853

$2,099,256

2004-5

2,883

$3,366,727

$2,693,132

2005-6

3,115

$3,670,097

$2,756,426

2006-7

3,422

$3,605,799

$2,718,811

2007-8

3,815

$3,923470

$2,937,809

TBA

TBA

TBA

33,101

$36,305,577

$26,909,545

2008-9

TBA

Total

(Updated financial and business statistics are included separately with the Board papers). *No affiliates

- 26 -

3.3 Structure and Management AsiaNet has 6 board of members which are AAP, Yonhap News Agency, Xinhua News Agency(China),

Kyodo

JBN(Japan),

Bernama

News

Agency(Malaysia),

and

Antara

News

Agency(Indonesia). In addition to the 6 board of member companies, there are 8 member companies; United News of Bangladesh, New Zealand Press Association, New China News(Hong Kong), AsiaNet Pakistan(Pakistan), Press Trust of India(India), Philippines News Agency, Infoquest Limited(Thailand), and Vietnam News Agency. AsiaNet covers the Asia region and exchanges news with the PR Newswire. Actually, AsiaNet has contracts with PRN, the worldwide PR/IR agency. (diagram) News Flow in and with AsiaNet

Six Board Cust

Member AsiaNet

ome

PR NewsWire

Customers

rs 8 other Member

AsiaNet has its headquarter in AAP’s building in Sydney. Its board meeting has been held by two times a year. 3.4 Evaluation AsiaNet is not a company, but a PR/IR news exchange consortium by the members. Its legal entity does not matter to generate profits. In the financial aspect, AsiaNet is a more successful case than Asia Pulse. However, in terms of news flow from Asia to the other world, AsiaNet is worse case than Asia Pulse. The reason is AsiaNet has been concentrating inbound news service than outbound news service. This tendency varies according to each member’s situation, but generally, news inflows has been more than news outflows. As it is in the Asia Pulse case, AAP has a great role for AsiaNet. ( 3.5 Conclusions and Suggestions AsiaNet has been more successful in commercial aspect than Asia Pulse as AsiaNet has generated more profits to the member news agencies. But in terms of news flow to the outer world, AsiaNet is worse than Asia Pulse. To the both services, commercial and financial success has been foothold to sustain the news flow to the West.

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If we compare the AsiaNet and Asia Pulse with other pan-Asian news generating services, the two services have more focused on profit generation. For example, Asia Network service composed by independent journalists in Asia has been successful to exchange news in the region as well as to the outer world. But this project has weaker financial base than those two services. Though AsiaNet and Asia Pulse have been successful in business point of view, the amount of news flow to the world has been not satisfied compared to the Western news media. The 21st century is Asia’s century. Asia will be playing more significant role in economy, politics, and cultures. Therefore, AsiaNet and Asia Pulse are good examples to the Asian news companies which want to get ready to catch the prosperous trend. References 1.

Web sites: www.asiapulse.com, www.asianetnews.net

2.

A board meeting report by AsiaNet (Tokyo, 2008)

3.

Chung Youngmoo, ‘Asia Network’s International News Reporting: A Case Study” (Seoul, Sogang Univ. Master’s thesis, 2003) written in Korean. (정영무, ‘아시아네트워크’의 국제보도 연구 (서강대학교 언론대학원 석사학위 논문 2003 년)

4.

김호섭, 정보화사회와 신국제질서 (서울, 정보통신개발연구원, 1992)

5.

Interviews with workers in Asia Pulse, AsiaNet, and Yonhap News Agency

6.

Internal materials on Asia Pulse, AsiaNet in Yonhap News Agency

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2 Asia Journalism Model

Day1: August 28, 2009.

Journalism, Democracy and Public Sphere in Malaysia Dr. Thomas Jayaprakash Yesudhasan*, Khairul Anwar Sajali, Scott Mayau Barber and Lionel Wong Zhin-Seng *Head and Senior Lecturer, Department of Media, Culture and Communication, Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia This paper will look at how the contemporary newspapers (New Strait Times and The Borneo Post) in Malaysia frame political and controversial news in the context of emerging online news media. Malaysia is a multi-racial, multireligious, country made up of a complex mix of 62% Malays, 24% Chinese, 7% Indians, and various other ethnic groups both indigenous and diasporic (The World Factbook, 2008). While terming the Malaysian democracy as ‘semidemocracy’ and electoral democracy, Case (1993:184) argued that ‘malaysia’s pluralistic tensions are intrinsically interesting, it is the overall avoidance of conflict (…) that raises the country’s analytical importance’. However, this situation has transformed and the media intends to recover credibility: The mainstream media, particularly the press, increasingly carry news stories that reflect multiculturalism, diversity, the importance of unity among races, race and ethnic inequality in a very promising manner. Malaysia’s measures to control the media industry rank amongst the most stringent in the world, and key to this dominance is legislative restrictions combined with corporate and bureaucratic control by the government (Brown, 2005, p.40). The Malaysian media is pressured to be biased and virtually silent on issues critical of the government and those deemed sensitive to the general public such as race and religion, or else be harshly silenced. For a decade since, a vibrant alternative media on the internet blossomed, including Malaysia’s first commercial online newspaper Malaysiakini, and a vocal blogging and blogreading community. The contemporary print media, however, in the recent past engaged with intense political developments that revolves around reporting sensitive racial and ethnic inequality issues, highly debatable and controversial issues surrounding the ‘Permatang Pauh’ by election such as sodomy allegation against Anwar Ibrahim, highly sensational reporting of the murder of Altantuya, sex scandals, power transition in the Federal government, liberalization of educational institutions of higher learning in the country (calls for opening up Bumiputras reserved UiTM for all races) and Race Relations Act. This paper argues that the mainstream media needs to recover credibility when bloggers and

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online newspapers such as Malaysiakini are now seen as more credible than they are despite the pressure they receive from the government.

Some understanding of Malaysian media democracy is addressed in order to fully understand how the media legislative laws such as the Printing Press and Publishing Act 1984, Internal Security Act, and also Official Secrets Act affect New Straits Times in their news reporting. Other than that, it is also understood that New Straits Times is partly owned by the ruling coalition party, UMNO – where this will have significant effect on how New Straits Times will report their news. New Straits Times is somewhat pro-government where their representations of the oppositional parties are imbalanced. There are differences when it comes to news coverage, length of news reports and also framing the content when reporting on oppositional parties. Media in Malaysia have grown rapidly in the past twenty five years. In the 1990s, the emergence of new terrestrial, cable and satellite television networks and newspaper aided to the growth of media in the country. However, state control over the media remains tight. In fact, state control has even been strengthened through the ownership of the media by “politicians”, and “politically influential businessmen”. The amendments of laws such as the Official Secrets Act and the Printing Presses and Publications Act have also contributed to the stricter media control (Couldry & Curran, 2003). The media and politics goes hand to hand with each other for the reason that the government use the media as a tool to make sure their works are smooth and in agreement with the society. According to McCargo, journalists are not actors, but speakers. This means that journalists are not actors who are there to work for the government but merely as a “tool” to tell and inform citizens about any government matters. The media, especially the newspaper can act as an agent of stability, restraint or change (McCargo, 2003). It is particularly important for us to analyse how the media represent their stories. How the media portrays their news will have significant impact on the public’s opinion (Brecke, 2000). Newspapers are still being widely circulated around in Malaysia and are still the few of the main sources to obtain news besides the television and Internet. This paper will concentrate on two Malaysian English language newspapers, New Straits Times

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and The Borneo post and critically evaluate how they represent the oppositional parties; further will look at media and democracy in order to understand how the media in Malaysia operate. Started out in 1845 (known as The Strait Times at the time), the New Straits Times is the oldest newspaper still in operation in Malaysia today. The paper started out using a broadsheet format but has changed to the tabloid compact format ending its 159 years tradition of broadsheet format due to the good response from readers. New Straits Times has the reputation of being the authoritative newspaper in the country. According to New Straits Times, the paper has held itself responsible for the well being and progress of the nation. The paper has often been described as “The Newspaper of the Nation”. The New Straits Times are also partly owned by the ruling coalition (Heufers, 2002). UMNO has a substantial share in the NSTP (Hwang, 2003). To understand more about the way how the media works in Malaysia, a thorough understanding of media democracy is essential. Democracy in the context of media means the freedom of the citizens to articulate their views in the public domain. This freedom allows them the opportunity to practice their right to participate in a discussion or debate, offer criticism which will collectively contribute to the common good of a society. In a thriving democratic country, this public dialogue is important to the citizens’ process of decision making. It is in this context that the role of the mass media becomes prominent because they are expected to provide the necessary platform for public discourse (Annuar n.d.). However, in order for citizens to express themselves adequately, it is important that they all have easy and equal access to the supposedly free and responsible media. This however is made impossible due to the existence of legislative control, acts and media ownership. It is important to know what legislative control and acts that are restricting Malaysian newspapers today. First of all, there are laws such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. The act acts as a watchdog for the government that curbs the media to effectively disseminate information. Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 affects the press most in Malaysia (Wang, 2001). This act gives authority to the Home Minister to grant or withdraw printing licenses without obligations to give a reason. This way, the government can control the regulation of media in the country. The renewal of licenses

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is to be made yearly which means that in order for newspaper outlets to continue doing their business, they are reluctant to ‘ruffle the official’s feathers’. Secondly, there is the Internal Security Act (ISA) or also known as Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri. The act was originally amended by the British colonial to perceived threat by the communist party at the time. However, the ISA have been used in a politically-motivated to target peaceful members of civil society that the government perceives to be a threat to national interest and security (Amnesty International, 2003). Anything that is labelled as “official secret” is not to be published in the media. The former chairman of Malayan Bar Council describes the act as antithesis of the freedom of speech and of citizen’s rights to comment on and discuss government political issues (Wang, 2001). In other words, this prevents journalists to do investigative journalism. The public deserves to know what their ruling government is up to but this has been made impossible due to this act. A government cannot be a credible government when it operates in secrecy. In order to further analyse the case, this paper will investigate how the daily newspaper New Strait Times represents the oppositional party in the news. In order to do this, content and framing analysis of the New Straits Times has been carried out. Framing is a theory in the media that focuses on certain events and places them within a field of meaning. Framing can be seen similar to agenda setting but extends more into the essence of the issue at hand rather than just focussing on a particular topic. Framing is then a process whereby communicators act to construct a particular point of view or meaning, with some facts made more noticeable than others. The way the editor of a newspaper frames their news is really important because it has a big influence on how meanings are produced. Other than that, framing of the news is very powerful in determining which issues are important, and which are not (Brecke, 2000). Some issues that are truly important for the public to know are made seem less important as compared to issues that are secondary. According to Kuypers (2002), “...voters learn about an issue ‘in direct proportion’ to the attention given that issue by the press, and voters tend to share what the media defines as important”. Even though the quote states ‘voters’, it can also be applicable to readers in general. This paper will investigate the number of news articles being published about the oppositional parties, the length of the

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articles published, and also the content of the article, how New Straits Times frame the oppositional parties in their news. So how does the Malaysian daily newspaper, New Straits Times, represent the oppositional parties in their news? On the surface, research and analysis done states that there are imbalances in the news reporting when it comes to the ruling party and the oppositional parties in the New Straits Times. Firstly, the number of news articles about Barisan Nasional (BN), the ruling party is far more compared to the oppositional parties. When searching for news article about the ruling party and the oppositional parties in the New Straits Times website gives very apparent results. There are more results when the keyword ‘Barisan Nasional’ or ‘BN’ is entered and results for the oppositions are significantly less. With numbers of articles between the two sides alone, arises a very important question. Is this fair? Barisan Nasional are getting far more coverage than the opposition parties. This means that New Straits Times are selective when it comes to political news reporting. This sets the agenda that the oppositional parties are ‘less important’ as compared to Barisan Nasional. Selective news reporting by New Straits Times means that they are sort of like drowning the oppositional parties with the ruling party making the oppositional party seem less active than they actually are. From here, readers get the notion that oppositional parties are not doing much as compared to the ruling party. Furthermore, the headlines that New Straits Times have selected for the oppositional parties are somewhat negative and in favour of the ruling government, for example in Pakatan Rakyat’s case, an article dated October 14th, entitled “Pakatan Rakyat wasting our time”, was taken straight from the words of the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The headline sounds almost like its undermining oppositional party Pakatan Rakyat’s effort to form a new government. Added to that, there are differences in the length of articles being reported between articles about the ruling party and the oppositional parties, especially those regarding DAP and PAS. The differences in length of articles show that the New Straits Times are paying less attention to the opposition parties. This consequently blocks the readers from having the chance to ‘evaluate’ the oppositional parties as their voices are not heard. According to Kuypers (2002), “... the media do tell more than tell the public of what to think about, they also tell the public about how to think about any given topic”.

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By publishing stories that are short and brief, readers do not get enough information about the oppositional parties and what they are up to. There just is not enough information for the public to digest. Interestingly however there is an exception. It seems that New Straits Times take more prominent figures more seriously. Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the oppositional party Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact) and former Deputy Prime Minister, do sometimes gets more coverage and also lengthy articles from the New Straits Times. This is probably due to the fact that he was part of the Barisan Nasional back in the 1990s. The way that the New Straits Times frame their news content is also very important. Facts remain neutral until framed; how New Straits Times frame the news will affect public understanding of an issue or event (Kuypers, 2002). Further analysis of many newspaper articles reported by the New Straits Times for the oppositional parties usually have indirect ‘replies’ from the ruling party. There is always something that someone from the ruling party said being infused in them. It acts like a subliminal message to the readers indirectly telling them what or how to think about the issue or event. Taking into account the legislative control that Malaysia has on the media and the ownership of New Straits Times especially, it is expected that New Straits Times would be reporting news in this manner. Like many other media in Malaysia, controls are exerted through ownership by some of the ruling coalition’s component parties over major Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil newspapers. UMNO (part of Barisan Nasional) and its close allies own direct or indirect (via holdings and subsidiaries) majority stakes in the New Straits Times as well as other newspapers such as Utusan Malaysia, Business Times, and Shin Min Daily News (Heufers, 2002). Legislative controls such as the Printing Press and Publishing Act 1984, Internal Security Act, and Official Secrets Act all limits press freedom. New Straits Times, like the rest of the mainstream media in Malaysia is bounded by ownership and also the legislative control acted upon them. New Straits Times is very much government-controlled, where information flow is very limited and is usually in favour of the government. This is proved from the way that the New Straits Times have ‘framed’ the oppositional parties in the news are blatantly uneven. The ruling party has

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been getting more coverage than the oppositional parties. Besides that, the length of articles reported for the oppositional parties are considerably shorter than those for the ruling government. This uneven reporting makes the oppositional parties voices unheard. The implantations of subliminal messages from the words of government officials in oppositional parties’ articles indirectly made readers think in the same way. A good example of this specific readership targeting would be an article titled “Syed Hamid confirms Raja Petra’s two-year detention” in the September 24th issue of the Borneo Post which is about the blogger Raja Petra’s controversial case1 (“Syed Hamid confirms”, 2008). Raja Petra was put under arrest under the ISA laws which state that the government can arrest one solely based on a suspicion that one might be involved in an act that the government feels is a threat to national security (Malaysia's Internal Security Act and Suppression of Political Dissent, 2002). Even the internet is now receiving pressure from the government despite the government pledging to spare the internet. Though we’d like to believe that everybody has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the truth is in practice no society practices full freedom; restraints only come in varying degrees (Gunaratne, 2000. p. 2). Now let’s shift our discussion to The Borneo Post which is the largest English language on the island of Borneo. We are looking at four different issues of the Borneo Post, the ones dated September 17th, 19th, 24th and 25th in 2008. The front pages of these four issues have been analyzed based on their news media content. By looking at the earlier two issues, September 17th and 19th, we can see clearly that the main topic of the time was definitely about Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his statement about forming a new government. The Borneo Post in my opinion can be very biased and just by looking at the September 17th issue this is clear. There are four news stories on the front page and all of them are about Anwar and the new government forming statement he made. The stories are mainly to tell the readers that Anwar is a liar and is bribing members UMNO2 to move over to the opposition. The news stories are basically about the same thing just written differently with different headings, such as “A case of the boy who                                                              1

He allegedly wrote articles ridiculing Islam which could arouse anger among Muslim The United Malays National Organisation, a right-wing party and Malaysia’s largest political party, also a founding member of the Barisan Nasional coalition which has been Malaysia’s ruling political party since independence

2

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cried wolf: MP” and “Just political lies, says Pak Lah”, to catch attention of readers. What the stories have in common is that they are all aimed at making Anwar look bad. What is puzzling about this issue of the Borneo Post is the picture that is there has nothing to do with any of the stories on the page itself. The news pieces on the page are all about political issues but the picture present is about how the Prime Minister is aiding the needy and the Prime Minister is the only connection between the pictures and news articles. This seems a little bit unfair to Anwar seeing as how all the articles on the page are set out to make him look bad while the picture presented is making the Prime Minister look like a kind soul. What this information does is create a topic in the readers’ public sphere where Anwar is a liar and the Prime Minister is a kind hearted man. A public sphere, according to Habermas, is the domain in our social lives where public opinions can be formed (Polan, 1993, p. 33) and the opinions formed here are influenced by the content of the news on that one page. The September 19th issue is more or less the same as the September 17th issue in that most of the stories on it, two out of four to be exact, are all out to make Anwar look like the bad guy. The stories are again, basically a repeat of the September 17th issue only with slight differences here and there. The other two stories on the page, both are allocated very small spaces as compared to the Anwar stories, are about a donkey and dropping share prices. Depending on how you look at it these two stories could either be randomly placed or purposely placed as a hidden meaning. Both articles in this issue involving Anwar talk about how he is “a threat to the security and economy of Malaysia” (“Yes, Anwar’s a threat”, 2008) and one of the smaller articles talks about how share prices in Bursa Malaysia3 dropped. This article could have been placed here on purpose to put more emphasis on how the Prime Minister says that Anwar is a threat to the economy. When readers read the front page they will read about Bursa Malaysia’s share price drop and how the Prime Minister says Anwar is a threat to the economy of Malaysia. Readers will make their own connections between the two and whether or not they agree with the Prime Minister does not matter because

                                                             3

The Stock Exchange Market in Malaysia previously known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) dating back to 1930

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in the back of their heads, the readers will have made a connection between Anwar and the drop in share prices. Looking at these two issues it is safe to say that the Borneo Post prioritizes certain news more than others. This prioritization shows us what news the Borneo Post deems most important to their readers (Conboy, 2007, p. 30). What this tells us too, is that the government is regulating news and only shows us what they want us to know and believe in which leads the people to live their lives not knowing the full stories but instead just one side of it, which is the pro government side. Regulation here can be understood as a system of discipline and normalisation, a detailed road in which dominant norms, values and beliefs of society are made clear and issued (Nain, 2003, p. 82). This is true as media has several functions to play in politics and nation building, such as acting as an agent of stability in charge of social and political order, an agent of restraint as well as to help shape political changes in cases of emergencies (McCargo, 2003). The September 24th issue of the Borneo Post is nothing short of ordinary at first glance. The biggest headline is a question about whether fuel prices can be reduced or not and no doubt for the readers this lightens up their eyes. The increase in fuel prices affected the whole nation quite badly and not to mention suddenly so this piece of news is definitely good news to hear. But this could merely be a distraction from a small article on the right side of the page titled “Bar Council disappointed” in quite a small sized text. It is located right below the article about how Raja Petra’s two-year detention is confirmed by Syed Hamid and is ironically about the same issue. It talks about how the Bar Council is disappointed in the government’s decision to detain Raja Petra under the ISA act (“Bar Council disappointed”, 2008). The Malaysian Bar Council, an “independent Bar whose aim is to uphold the rule of law and the cause of justice and protect the interest of the legal profession as well as that of the public (About Us, n.d.), thinks the government made a wrong decision so the Borneo Post definitely has motive for wanting to distract its readers from this little piece of news. And aiding this job of what could possibly be a distraction is another article at the bottom of the page warning or more towards informing readers about the possible danger of dairy products from China containing melamine. So here we have a small

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article about how a Bar thinks the government made a wrong decision and two other articles, one bringing happy news and another bringing slightly worrying news. Both articles are attention grabbing to different readers. Despite this possible attempt at distraction it is still a nice touch on the Borneo Post’s side adding this article about the governments “wrong” decision. The last issue that will be discussed in this paper is the September 25th issue and the main article in this issue is the reduction in fuel prices. Again this seemingly harmless text appears to be just announcing joyous news to readers but if you look beyond the happy news you will notice that the article keeps praising the government. The article mentions how the government made the decision to usher in the Hari Raya Puasa and also how the government hopes this price reduction would lessen the burden faced by the people in making their journey back to their hometown to celebrate the Aidilfitri (“Petrol, diesel price down”, 2008). According to Domestic Trade and Consumer Affair Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad, the average price for fuel now actually allowed the government to reduce the price by seven sen only but the government had given a three sen per litre subsidy to enable the people to enjoy the celebrations. This seems as if the government is telling the people that it made some sort of a sacrifice in order to please the people. Now because of this its as if the people need to be grateful to the government for the reduction in fuel prices. This does not mean that the people should not be grateful about the fuel reduction. Yes they should be grateful but the problem here is that it seems like the government is telling the people to be grateful which is disturbing. People will be grateful themselves without having to be told to be grateful. Most people atleast will be grateful but there, ofcourse, will still be people who will want more than what they are given – which is a further reduction in fuel prices. There will be two different types of people atleast, one that will be happy with what they just got and another who is not so pleased with the way the government is working and feel that they deserve more. Finally, we would like to conclude in this paper that both dailies The Borneo Post and New Straits Times are very biased and pro government in their presentation of selected

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news. It is quite obvious that they only show news articles that put them into a good light while putting the opposition in a bad light. Even when announcing news about fuel price reduction, the government found a way to make it look like they did the people a large favor and the people should be more grateful to them for it. This tells us how the government is trying to shape the mind of the nation by covering up any potential news that could taint their image even though it is safe to say that any mass media too closely connected to the government is more distrusted by the people (Gunaratne, 2000). Though it should be mentioned too that it is not entirely the governments fault for what they are doing. Winning over the hearts of the people is what the government should do anyway; the method they use to win the hearts on the other hand is a whole other story.

References About Us . (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2008, from The Malaysian Bar: http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/bar_council.html Amnesty International – Malaysia: The Internal Security Act (2003). Retrieved September 23, 2008, from http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA28/006/2003/en/domASA280062003en.pdf Bar Council disappointed. (2008, September 24). The Borneo Post. p. 1. Conboy, M. (2007). The Language of the News. New York: Routledge. Gunaratne, S (2000). “Overview”, in Handbook of the Media in Asia. S. Gunaratne (Ed.). New Delhi, Sage, 2000. Hwang, I.W (2003). Personalised Politics: The Malaysian State Under Mahathir. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: Singapore.

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Kitley, P. & Nain, Z. (2003). “Out in front: Government regulation of television in Malaysia”, in P. Kitley(ed) Television, Regulation and Civil Society in Asia, London: Routledge Curzon. Kuypers, J.A (2002). Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues Greenwood: Santa Barbara. Malaysia's Internal Security Act and Suppression of Political Dissent. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from Human Rights News: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/malaysia-bck-0513.htm Mauzy, R. S. (1998). Malaysian politics under Mahathir. New York: Routledge. McCargo, D. (2003). Media and Politics in Pacific Asia”, Routledge Curzon: London Petrol, diesel prices down 10 sen. (2008, September 25). The Borneo Post. p. 1. Polan, D. (1993). The public’s fear; Or, media as monster in Habermas, Negt, and Kluge. In B. Robbins (Ed.), The phantom public sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Syed Hamid confirms Raja Petra’s two-year detention. (2008, September 24). The Borneo Post. p. 1. Yes, Anwar’s a threat, says Masing. (2008, September 19). The Borneo Post. p. 1.

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*Brief Biography: Dr. Thomas Jayaprakash Yesudhasan is a Senior Lecturer and Head of mass communication, Curtin University of Technology, Sarawak, Malaysia. He is the joint winner of ‘Asian Radio Write Award’, 2000 instituted by the Radio Corporation of Singapore (RCS) and Asian Media Information Centre (AMIC), Singapore. He has coconvened an International conference in Malaysia titled ‘Media and Identity in Asia’. He has presented numerous international conference papers in the context of radio and television consumption in Asia. Thomas is a life member of Asian Media Information and communication center (AMIC). Contact Details: Dr. Thomas Jayaprakash Yesudhasan Head and Senior Lecturer, Department of Media, Culture and Communication, Curtin University of Technology, CDT 250, 98009, Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. Ph: +60-85-443842 Fax;+60-85-443950 Email: [email protected]

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™ wœ™—–šŒš XPGw™–”–›•ŽG”œ›œˆ“Gœ•‹Œ™š›ˆ•‹•ŽG–GhšˆG•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆG T j–””–•ˆ“›ŒšSG‹Œ™Œ•ŠŒšSG™Œ“ˆ›–•š—Gž›GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›SG•ŒžšGˆ“œŒSGˆ•‹G ‘–œ™•ˆ“š›ŠG•–™”šG YPGmˆ›–”•ŽG›ŒGŠœ™™Œ•›G—Œ™–™”ˆ•ŠŒG–GhšˆG•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆG ZPGj–”—™ŒŒ•‹•ŽGhšˆ•G•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆ˅šG™–“ŒG•G›Œ™G–ž•Gš–ŠŒ›Œš [PGl•š–••ŽGhšˆ•G•ŒžšG”–‹Œ“G‰ G“––’•ŽGŠ“–šŒ“ Gˆ›G•ŒžšGŠ–Œ™ˆŽŒG ™ xœŒš›–•šaGˈo–žGŠ–•“Š›GššœŒšGˆ™ŒG—–™›™ˆ Œ‹G•G›ŒG•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆfˉ XPG~ˆ›G’•‹šG–G•ŒžšG› —ŒšGˆ™ŒGœšŒ‹G•G”Œ‹ˆ›•ŽG›–šŒGššœŒšf YPG~–G‹‹Gž™›ŒG›ŒG•ŒžšGˆ™›Š“ŒšGfG ZPG~ˆ›Gˆ™ŒG›ŒG—™•Š—ˆ“G—œ™—–šŒšG–G—ˆ •ŽGˆ››Œ•›–•G›–G›–šŒGššœŒšf [PGo–žG›–G‹Œ•ŒG›ŒG™Œ“ˆ›–•š—G‰Œ›žŒŒ•GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›šGˆ•‹G›ŒG”Œ‹ˆf \PG~–Gˆ™ŒGšœ——–šŒ‹G›–G›ˆ’ŒG™Œš—–•š‰“› G•Gš–“•ŽG›–šŒG—™–‰“Œ”šfG ]PG~–šŒG–ŠŒšGˆ™ŒGœšœˆ““ G˜œ–›Œ‹G•G›ŒG•ŒžšGˆ™›Š“ŒšfG ^PGo–žG›–G—Œ™ŠŒŒG›ŒG—™”ˆ™ G™–“ŒšG–G•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆG•Gš–ŠŒ› f

Dqdo|}hg#Fdvhv#dqg#phgld

™ ™ ™ ™ ™ ™ ™

tˆ“ˆ šˆaGw–“Š G–™G’•ŽGŒ•Œ™Ž G—™ŠŒGO|›œšˆ•Gtˆ“ˆ šˆG\XbGoˆ™ˆ’ˆGkˆ“ GZXP }Œ›•ˆ”aGp•›Œ™•ˆ›–•ˆ“G”ˆ™™ˆŽŒGž›Gz–œ›Gr–™Œˆ•G”Œ•GO}•ŒŸ—™ŒššG[]bGkˆ•›™G[XP p•‹–•ŒšˆaGh•›Tw–™•–Ž™ˆGhŠ›GOr–”—ˆšG\[bGzœˆ™ˆGwŒ™”‰ˆ™œˆ•Gkˆ“ GZ`P p•‹ˆaGG}–“Œ•ŠŒG•Gnœ‘ˆ™ˆ›Gz›ˆ›ŒG•GYWWYGO{”ŒšG–Gp•‹ˆG\WbGp•‹ˆGt™™–™G\WP qˆ—ˆ•aGp•‹šŠ™”•ˆ›ŒGˆ›ŒGŠ™”ŒGOhšˆGG[XbGzˆ•’ŒGG]XPG j•ˆaGr‹šG”“’GŠ–•›ˆ”•ˆ›Œ‹G‰ GtŒ“ˆ”•ŒGOwŒ–—“ŒGkˆ“ G\\bGrž•ˆŽ” œ•ŽGZ_P w“——•ŒaGGw–“›Šˆ“GšŠˆ•‹ˆ“G™Œ“ˆ›Œ‹G›–Guˆ›–•ˆ“Gi™–ˆ‹‰ˆ•‹GuŒ›ž–™’G Ow“——•ŒGkˆ“ GGl•˜œ™Œ™G\WbGtˆ•“ˆGiœ““Œ›•G\WP ™ {ˆ“ˆ•‹aGw–“›Šˆ“Gš›™’ŒG•GYWW_Gˆ•‹GYWW`GO{ˆGyˆ›G[`bGtˆ•ˆŽŒ™G‹ˆ“ G\WPG ™ z–œ›Gr–™ŒˆaGj“ˆ•G‹Œˆ›Gˆ›G€–•Žšˆ•GŠ–””Œ™Šˆ“G‹š›™Š›GG Oj–šœ•G\WbGoˆ•Ž Œ™ŒG\WP

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Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#L#

yUxUGXaG~ˆ›G’•‹šG–G•ŒžšG› —ŒšGˆ™ŒGœšŒ‹G•G”Œ‹ˆ›•ŽG›–šŒGššœŒšf ¾ zœŠGˆGˆ™Œ› G–G•ŒžšG› —ŒšGˆšGš›™ˆŽ›SG–—•–•SGˆ•ˆ“ ššSGŒˆ›œ™ŒSGˆ•‹G •Œš›Žˆ›ŒG•ŒžšGˆŒG‰ŒŒ•GœšŒ‹UG ¾ t–š›“ GGŒ”—“– Œ‹G˄š›™ˆŽ›˅G› —ŒG™ŒˆŠ•ŽG›–GˆŒ™ˆŽŒG^]U[LG ¾ oŽŒ™G—–™›–•G–G˄–—•–•˅G•Gqˆ—ˆ•OXYU^LPSGj•ˆGOY_UWLPSGˆ•‹G z–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOYXUWLP ¾ oŽŒ™G—–™›–•G–G˄ˆ•ˆ“ šš˅G•G}Œ›•ˆ”GOYYUYLPGˆ•‹Gqˆ—ˆ•GOX]U^LP ¾ yŒ“ˆ›Œ“ GŽG“ŒŒ“G–G˄•Œš›Žˆ›Œ˅Gˆ™›Š“ŒG•Gtˆ“ˆ šˆO`U`LPSG }Œ›•ˆ”GO_U`LPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOXZUWLP ¾ z›™ˆ›ŒŽŠGŒ”—“– ”Œ•›G–G•ŒžšG› —ŒšGˆ™Œ‹G‰ Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šG™ˆ›Œ™G›ˆ•G Š–œ•›™ŒšG

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#LL#

yUxUGYaG~–G‹‹Gž™–›ŒG•ŒžšGˆ™›Š“ŒšfG ¾ uŒžšG”–š›“ Gž™››Œ•G‰ GŒ”—“– Œ‹Gš›ˆšGGO^[UZLP ¾ uˆ›–•ˆ“G•ŒžšGˆŽŒ•Š GšGˆ“š–GŽ“ GŒ”—“– Œ‹G•GŠ–Œ™•ŽG•ŒžšGGOX^U[LP ¾ oŽŒš›G‹Œ—Œ•‹Œ•ŠŒG–•G•ˆ›–•ˆ“G•ŒžšGˆŽŒ•Š GžˆšG–œ•‹G•G j•ˆGO\[U_LPSGp•‹ˆGO\XUWLPGˆ•‹G}Œ›•ˆ”GO[ZUZLPG ¾ qˆ—ˆ•SG{ˆ“ˆ•‹Gˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGˆ™‹“ GœšŒ‹G•ŒžšGˆŽŒ•Š G™Œ—–™›š ¾ vœ›š‹ŒGŠ–“œ”•š›šGˆ™ŒG™Œ˜œŒ•›“ GœšŒ‹G•Gj•ˆGO^U\LPSGw“——•ŒGO]UWLP ˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGO_UWLPGGG ¾ yˆ™Œ“ G‹Œ—Œ•‹Œ•›G–•G~Œš›Œ™•G•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆG•G‹Œˆ“•ŽGž›G‹–”Œš›ŠGššœŒš ¾ i T“•ŒšGˆ™ŒGˆ™Œ‹G•–›G–•“ G‰ Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šGG‰œ›Gˆ“š–G‰ G”Œ‹ˆ˅šG•›Œ•›–•G– ˆŽŒ•‹ˆT‰œ“‹•ŽG

- 47 -

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#LLL##

yUxUGZaG~ˆ›Gˆ™ŒG›ŒG—™•Š—ˆ“G—œ™—–šŒšG–G—ˆ •ŽGˆ››Œ•›–•G›–G›–šŒGššœŒšf ¾ {ŒG”–š›GšŽ•Šˆ•›G—œ™—–šŒG–G•ŒžšGˆ™›Š“ŒšGšG›–G•–™”G—Œ–—“ŒG–““–žŒ‹ ‰ GŠ™›Š¡ŒGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›Gˆ•‹G“––’GŠ“–šŒ“ Gˆ›Gš–Šˆ“G—™–‰“Œ”šG ¾ {ŒGŽŒš›G—–™›–•G–GŠ™›Š¡•ŽGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›GžˆšG–œ•‹G•Gtˆ“ˆ šˆG OZZUZLPSGw“——•ŒGOZYUWLPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOY^UWLPG ¾ z›™ˆ›ŒŽŠGŒ”—“– ”Œ•›G–G˄•–™”ˆ›Œ˅Gˆ™›Š“ŒšG™ˆ›Œ™G›ˆ•Gˆ——ˆ™Œ•›“ GGG šœ——–™›ŒGˆ™›Š“ŒšG•GŠˆšŒG–Gˆ–™•ŽGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G—–“ŠŒšG ¾ ˄j™›Šˆ“˅Gˆ™›Š“ŒšG–™Gš–Šˆ“G—™–‰“Œ”šGžŒ™ŒG”–™ŒG™Œ˜œŒ•›“ G–œ•‹G•G qˆ—ˆ•GOZYU[LPGˆ•‹Gj•ˆGOYXU\LPG•–›GG•Gš–Gˆ™GˆšG›–G‹Œ“ŒŽ›”¡ŒGG—–“›Šˆ“ –™‹Œ™G ¾ wœ™—–šŒšGžŒ™ŒG”–™ŒGˆ™Œ‹G‰ Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šG™ˆ›Œ™G›ˆ•GŠ–œ•›™ŒšGG

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#LY#

yUxUG[aGo–žG›–G‹Œ•ŒG›ŒG™Œ“ˆ›–•š—G‰Œ›žŒŒ•GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›šGˆ•‹G›ŒG”Œ‹ˆf ¾ oŽŒš›G—–™›–•G–GGŠ™›Šˆ“Gˆ›››œ‹ŒG›–žˆ™‹GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›GžˆšG–œ•‹G•G p•‹ˆGO\\UWLPSGw“——•ŒGO\YUWLPSG{ˆ“ˆ•‹GO\XU[LPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGO[\LP T yŒŒˆ“•ŽG›ŒG—™Œˆ“Œ•ŠŒG–G”Œ‹ˆ˅šG—ˆ™›šˆ•š—GG ¾ yŒ“ˆ›Œ“ GŽŒš›G“ŒŒ“G–Gšœ——–™›ŒGˆ›››œ‹ŒGžŒ™ŒG–œ•‹G•Gtˆ“ˆ šˆGO[YLPS z–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOYZLPGˆ•‹GGqˆ—ˆ•GOXXLP ¾ tŒ‹ˆ˅šGŠ–””›”Œ•›G›–G›ŒGm–œ™›Glš›ˆ›ŒGŒš—ŒŠˆ““ G•GŠˆšŒG–GŠ™ššG ¾ vŒ™ˆ““SG”Œ‹ˆ˅šGˆ›››œ‹ŒG›–žˆ™‹GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G™Œ”ˆ•Œ‹GˆšG•Œœ›™ˆ“GO[^LP ¾ tŒ‹ˆ˅šGˆ›››œ‹ŒG‹‹G‹Œ—Œ•‹G–•Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šGˆ•‹G›ŒGŒŸš›Œ•ŠŒG–GŒ“›ŒG Š–•šŒ•šœšG‰Œ›žŒŒ•G”Œ‹ˆGˆ•‹GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›

- 48 -

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#Y#

yUxUG\aG~–Gˆ™ŒGšœ——–šŒ‹G›–G›ˆ’ŒG™Œš—–•š‰“› G•Gš–“•ŽG›–šŒG—™–‰“Œ”šf ¾ tŒ‹ˆG–œ•‹Gˆœ“›G”–™ŒGž›G™œ“ŒT‰™Œˆ’Œ™šGOY\UWLPG›ˆ•GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G OX_U]LP ¾ h“š–G—ˆ‹GGˆ››Œ•›–•G›–Gš›™œŠ›œ™ˆ“GˆŠ›–™šGˆšš–Šˆ›Œ‹Gž›G›ŒG—™–‰“Œ”šGG ¾ yŒ“ˆ›Œ“ GŽŒ™G“ŒŒ“G–G‰“ˆ”ŒG–™GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›GžŒ™ŒG–œ•‹G•G p•‹–•ŒšˆGO\YU]LPSGtˆ“ˆ šˆGOZ\U_LPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOZ_UWLPG ¾ i–›Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šGˆ•‹G”Œ‹ˆ˅šG—ˆ™›šˆ•š—G‹‹G”ˆ››Œ™G•G•ŽŒ™T—–•›•ŽG ¾ o–žŒŒ™SGˆG˜œˆ™›Œ™G–G›ŒGˆ™›Š“ŒšG‹‹G•–›G‹Œ•› G™Œš—–•š‰“› 

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#YL#

yUxUG]aG~–šŒG–ŠŒšGˆ™ŒG”–š›G™Œ˜œŒ•›“ G˜œ–›Œ‹G•G›ŒG•ŒžšGˆ™›Š“ŒšfG ¾ n–Œ™•”Œ•›G–Šˆ“šGžŒ™ŒG•–›G™Œ˜œŒ•›“ GœšŒ‹Gš–œ™ŠŒšGO–•“ GZ\U]LP ¾ w–™›–•G–Gœš•ŽGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›Gš–œ™ŠŒšGžŒ™ŒGŽŒ™G•Gtˆ“ˆ šˆGO]]U^LPSG w“——•ŒGO]]UWLPGˆ•‹G{ˆ“ˆ•‹GO\^U[LPG—ˆ™›“ G‰ŒŠˆœšŒG–G›ŒGššœŒG ¾ yŒ“ˆ›Œ“ GŽŒ™G—Œ™ŠŒ•›ˆŽŒG–GŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G–Šˆ“šG•Gp•‹ˆSGqˆ—ˆ•Gˆ•‹G z–œ›Gr–™ŒˆG ¾ {ŒG“–žŒš›G“ŒŒ“G–Gœš•ŽGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G–ŠŒšG•G}Œ›•ˆ”Gˆ•‹Gj•ˆSG”—“ •Ž ˆ‰šŒ•ŠŒG–G‹™ŒŠ›Gˆ•‹Gš‰“ŒG—™–—ˆŽˆ•‹ˆGG ¾ o–žŒŒ™SGˆ”–•ŽGˆ““Gš–œ™ŠŒšSG›ŒGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›Gš–œ™ŠŒšGžŒ™ŒG›ŒGŽŒš›G O[_UYLPG–““–žŒ‹G‰ Gš–Šˆ“GŽ™–œ—šGOXZU^LPGˆ•‹G—–“›Šˆ•šGOXWLP ¾ t–š›“ G–œ•‹G‹Œ™š› G•G›Œ™”šG–Gš–œ™ŠŒšG

- 49 -

Uhvhdufk#Ilqglqjv#YLL#

yUxUG^aGo–žG›–G—Œ™ŠŒŒG›ŒG—™”ˆ™ G™–“ŒšG–G•ŒžšG”Œ‹ˆG•Gš–ŠŒ› f ¾ kŒ™š› GG–G—–“›Šˆ“G–—•–•GO–™Gˆ“›Œ™•ˆ›ŒG–—•–•šPGžŒ™ŒGŽ“ G–œ•‹G•G w“——•ŒGOZ`LPSG{ˆ“ˆ•‹GOZ^LPSGtˆ“ˆ šˆGOY_LPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOY[LPGG ¾ sˆŠ’G–G‹Œ™š› G–G–—•–•GžŒ™ŒG–œ•‹G•Gqˆ—ˆ•GO`LPSGp•‹–•ŒšˆGO\U[LPS p•‹ˆGOZLPG—ˆ™›“ GˆšG›–G‹–Gž›G•ŒžšG› —ŒšGˆ•‹Gšœ‰‘ŒŠ›šGG ¾ v‰‘ŒŠ›› G™Œ—™ŒšŒ•›Œ‹G‰ G˄‰“ˆ”•ŽG‰–›Gš‹Œš˅GžŒ™ŒGŽ“ G–œ•‹G•G {ˆ“ˆ•‹GOZ]U\LPSGtˆ“ˆ šˆGOY^UY\WSGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOYXU`LPSG”Œˆ••ŽG ŽŒ™G“ŒŒ“G–GŠ–””Œ™Šˆ“¡ˆ›–•G•G”Œ‹ˆGG ¾ tŒ‹ˆ˅šG—œ™šœ•ŽGœ”ˆ•G™Ž›šGˆ•‹G™ŒŒ‹–”GžŒ™ŒGGŽ“ G–œ•‹G•G p•‹–•ŒšˆGOY[U^LPSGˆ•‹Gw“——•ŒGOX[UWLPGˆ•‹Gz–œ›Gr–™ŒˆGOX[LPG ¾ p•‹–•ŒšˆGˆ•‹Gw“——•ŒG”Œ‹ˆG‹‹Gš›™–•Ž“ Gˆ‹–Šˆ›ŒG˄–™‹Œ™SGœ•› SG ˆ™”–• ˅ ¾ yŒ˜œ™•ŽGŽ–Œ™•”Œ•›G–™GšŒŠœ™•ŽG‹Œ™š› G–G–ŠŒšGžŒ™ŒGŽ“ G–œ•‹G•GG w“——•ŒSGtˆ“ˆ šˆGˆ•‹Gp•‹–•ŒšˆSG™Œ“ŒŠ›•ŽG–•G›Œ™G—–“›Šˆ“Gš›œˆ›–•G ¾ l‹œŠˆ›•ŽG—œ‰“ŠG–—•–•GžŒ™ŒGŽ“ G–œ•‹G•Gj•ˆSGp•‹ˆGˆ•‹Gp•‹–•ŒšˆG

Implications

Frpprqdolwlhv#

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Limitations and Future studies

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Thank you for your attention

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Conflicting Issues portrayed in Southeast Asia News Media by SHIM Doobo (Sungshin Women's University, Korea)

1. Introduction For the second half of the 20th century, South Korea has exerted all of her energies

towards

state

formation

and

economic

development.

Due

to

this

internal-orientation, she could not afford to have interest in other Asian countries. However, the 1997 economic crisis that gripped Asia led Korea to realize not only the reality of the political and economic globalization but also a need to understand her Asian neighborhood. What is more, the Asian fever of South Korean popular culture, which is called the Korean Wave, reversely brought up an interest in Asia among Koreans. In fact, the "discovery of Asia" is a new phenomenon sweeping across the whole Asia. The 10 ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries are strenthening their political and economic cohesion while forming FTAs (Free Trade Areas) with Japan, China, and South Korea. They are now often referred to as the "ASEAN +3" countries. These days, India is also showing strong interest to form economic relations with East Asian countries. While we Koreans have just begun to discuss the futuristic Asian Community, our understanding of Asian media and Asian journalism are too shallow. We have taken it for granted that we consume Asian news which is delivered through the Western media for quite a long time. Against this backdrop, we shall first study the political economic situations of media systems in 9 Asian countries. Then, we shall do content analysis of 2 representative newspapers respectively chosen from these Asian countries. By this, we shall understand how conflicting issues in each society are differently reported and dealt with by supposedly competing newspapers in the countries. Based on this content analysis, we can gauge the press freedom in each country. We

selected 5 ASEAN countries, namely Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia,

Philippines, Thailand, and 3 Northeast Asian countries, namely Korea, China and Japan, and India for our research. Out of the 10 ASEAN countries, we excluded Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, Singapore and Cambodia because these media systems are still under absolute government control and the outlooks for change are not bright. In addition, due to strong government control in these countries, access to information of these media systems were largely limited. We also excluded cases of media systems in Central Asia,

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Mid-East, South Asia, and Oceania region because of the little homogeneity found between these countries and East Asia. We wish to expand our horizon of Asian media by including them in our research projects to be done in a near future. On the other hand, we included India for our study for her strong efforts to connect with East Asian countries and the relative ease in collecting the data of the Indian media.

2. Understanding the Asian media A vast majority of Asian countries were freed from imperialism and colonial status in the mid-20th century. The roads to building nation-states for them were, however, not easy. Asian countries are divided by various religious spectrum ranging from Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam to Christianity, Hinduism, and Shintoism. In addition, a variety of political regimes including communism, liberal democracy, authoritarian democracy and military dictatorship have spotted the history of modern Asia. Many Asian countries are composed of different ethnic groups. In fact, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and many other countries have experienced ethnic conflicts; they are still faced with new elements of such conflicts. In this vein, political powers have restricted civil rights to a certain degree. In particular, the tasks for independence and state building while in economic and social underdevelopment caused the concentration and abuse of power in many countries. In an effort to support economic development and social integration, Asian media

largely

emphasized

media's

responsibility

instead

of

media

freedom.

The

government influences over media systems in most Asian countries are oppressive and absolute. Under the name of national security and social stability, censorship is normalized. Possession of books, magazines and music records perceived as containing the anti-government content is considered as criminal acts.

For an effective control

over the media, the governments enacted repressive laws and also operated media companies directly or indirectly. A theory to support such Asian media practices is "development journalism." According to it, the media are tools of social development, and the main functions and responsibilities of journalism are to help building nation-states and social harmony. Therefore, the concept of news in the developing world should be different from that of the Western world (Diaz, 1999). The scholars and policy makers who advocate the development journalism claim that the mission of the press is to "integrate, not divide" the people (Rosario-Briad, 1986, p. 124). In a similar vein, Ramaprasad and Ong (1990) argue that the media have to provide only the positive news about the government. Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir (1985) argue that the media are simply

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private organizations so that they should not criticize the democratically elected government. He adds that the media should rather obey the government. As such, the idea of "development journalism" became an ideological standard to justify the legal control and oppression over the media (Gunaratne, 1999). Not all of the Asian media practitioners, however, accepted such idea of journalism. According to Romano (1999), most of Indonesian journalists skeptically view "development journalism" and strongly believe that the critical, investigative journalism is going to contribute to the social development in the long run. All in all, however, "development journalism" has strongly affected the practices of Asian media. In this regard, the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s provided Asian journalists with chances to reconsider their existing ideas about the journalism. In particular, they felt sense of shame about not exposing government corruption, which eventually led to the economic crisis; and groped to find lessons from the crisis. Liberalization of political and economic systems in Asia since the 1997 economic crisis, is changing the terrain of the media. State-owned media companies or those which were under strong government influences are being forced to accept market competition. Commercialization of the media is pushing the companies to make every effort to expand the audience base. Information is taking the road to commercialization. And media companies are faced with all sorts of audience demands. Expansion of new markets through globalization and regionalization, and through the development of new technologies of information and communication also means that Asian media companies are faced with harsher competition with global media companies. Crisis can turn into an opportunity. Many countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, are making every effort to develop their country's national media industries and allow foreign investment in media content production in their countries. Indonesian journalists' aspirations towards free press led them to make allegiance with reporters in Thailand and the Philippines, in establishing the South-East Asian Press Alliance in 1998. While the media systems in China and Vietnam are still under the control of the Communist Party, the press there is getting gradually freer with the expansion of the market functions. The Korean media have entered the multi-channel, multi-media era since the 1987 democratic reforms. In addition, the civil governments spanning more than 10 years diversified the press systems. The new media development has made it easier for citizens to have access to the media and information sources. Paradoxically, however, this development lessened the credibility of newspapers, eventually leading to the disbelief in the press on the whole. It is about time to rack the brains to find solutions to the current situation in the Korean press.

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Circumventing the junta: How Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy By Daniel Gawthrop ([email protected]) Master of Arts candidate Faculty of Professional Communication (International/Intercultural Communication) Royal Roads University Victoria, Canada July, 2009 Abstract: Nearly five decades after toppling the last civilian government, Burma’s military leaders continue to rule the once-prosperous Southeast Asian nation by subjecting its population to a litany of human rights abuses. In recent years, the advent of independent media has shed more light on the junta’s brutality while allowing Burmese exiles to expand their pro-democracy activist networks. Independent media’s influence has become all the more important since the ‘Saffron Revolution’ of September 2007 and Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. Research on independent media by Burmese dissidents provides valuable insight for journalists, as well as human rights campaigns, everywhere. Drawing from interviews with seven Burmese exiled media producers based in Northern Thailand, this paper applies network society theory to an examination of how Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy. It concludes that independent media’s editorial independence enhances the public sphere while reducing political fear. Key words: Public sphere, civic culture, network society, independent media, democracy, soft power, external pressures, editorial independence.

INTRODUCTION Nearly five decades after toppling the last civilian government, Burma’s military leaders continue to rule the once-prosperous Southeast Asian nation by subjecting its people to a litany of human rights abuses (Maung Maung Gyi, 1983; Lintner, 1990; Skidmore, 2004).1 The junta, or Tatmadaw, also known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), is one of the                                                              1

 In 1989, Burma’s generals changed the country’s name to the Union of Myanmar. Skidmore (2003) sees “Union”  as the junta’s euphemism for the subjugation of Burma’s many minorities under the army’s control. “Myanmar”  literally translates as “fast and strong“. At the time, the junta—then known as the State Law and Order Restoration  Council (SLORC)—claimed that the new name was ethnically neutral and promoted national unity. While the  United Nations accepted the name change, the Burmese opposition movement does not, and prefers ‘Burma’.  Since usage has become an indicator of one’s political position with regard to the junta, I am declaring a bias here  by using ‘Burma’ throughout. ‘Burman’ refers to the majority ethnic group, ‘Burmese’ to the language and the  country’s various peoples and geography.   

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world’s most successful practitioners of Orwellian totalitarianism. Forced labour and relocation, rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings are facts of life in Burma, but the generals have avoided accountability while preventing the Burmese people from accessing a range of information sources that might reveal the extent of the oppression and encourage collective resistance to it. In the two decades between the August 1988 student demonstrations and Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, the international community has become better informed about human rights abuses in Burma under the military dictatorship. This is largely due to the efforts of exiled Burmese journalists and dissidents (Zaw, 2006; Ball, 2008), and their use of the Internet, cell phone technology, desktop publishing, and other forms of new media since the early 1990s (Maung Maung Oo, 2001; Brooten, 2004, 2006). Although the junta has found ways to suppress information in the wired age (Hachigian, 2002; Kalathil, 2002, 2003; Open Net Initiative, 2005), Burmese exiles in the diasporic pro-democracy movement continue to break down the junta’s firewalls. This has become even more apparent since the “Saffron Revolution” (Talbot, 2007; Wasley, 2007) and Cyclone Nargis (Ball, 2008; Charney, 2009). This paper, based on research conducted as part of a requirement for a Master of Arts thesis in international and intercultural communication, seeks to examine how Burmese exiles use independent media to foster civic culture and promote democracy in Burma. The objective is to shed new light on how Burmese exiles use independent media, thus providing a regional example of alternative public spheres that will not only add to the literature on independent media but also provide valuable insight for independent media producers and other journalists worldwide.

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LITERATURE REVIEW Exploring Burmese exiles’ use of independent media in the context of civic culture and democracy requires an extensive review of literature on five key subject areas: public spheres and civic culture; globalization; network society theory and networked politics; the development of independent media as ‘soft power’ in the struggle for human rights; and the history of independent media in and about Burma. Public spheres and civic culture Research on public spheres and civic culture begins with Habermas (1976; 1989; 1996), who defines public sphere as a network for communicating information and points of view that ultimately help shape public opinion. Bennett and Entman (2001), Dahlgren (2001, 2003), and Sparks (2005) examine the public sphere in a contemporary, globalized context. For Bennett and Entman, the public sphere is comprised of physical or virtual locations “where ideas and feelings relevant to politics are transmitted or exchanged openly”, such as cafes, magazines, and TV talk shows (pp. 2-3). For Dahlgren, the public sphere’s dominant feature—media—is strictly egalitarian: “technically, economically, culturally, and linguistically within reach of society’s members” (2001, pp.35-36). For Sparks, a healthy public sphere grants all citizens equal rights and is consistent with the principles of participatory democracy. Although the philosophical underpinnings of the public sphere are rooted in Western enlightenment theory, these ideas are nonetheless important in the context of Burma because of how they relate to the Habermasian concept of legitimacy: “the worthiness of a political order to be recognized” (1976, p. 182). It is in the tension between the Burmese junta’s lack of legitimacy and the constriction of the

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country’s public spheres that this paper examines the role of independent media by Burmese exiles. Globalization Giddens and Appadurai (1990, 1998) examine civic culture in the context of sweeping changes brought about by the global economy since the late 1980s, particularly ways in which the advance of global communications and the Internet has contributed to the spread of democracy. The added accessibility of information via the Internet meant that, during the 1990s, life for many people in restrictive, non-Western societies was no longer lived as a fixed and determined fate (Giddens, p. 72). The growing importance of the imagination in social life— partly due to the increasing deterritorialization of people, images, and ideas from elsewhere— meant that more people throughout the world were conceptualizing reality “through the prism of the possible lives offered by mass media in all their forms” (Appadurai, 1998, pp. 53-54). The complexity of the new global economy has led to fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture and politics. To explore these disjunctures, Appadurai (1990) looks at the relationship between five dimensions of global cultural flow: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes. Under the global economy, the landscapes of group identity have shifted. Groups are no longer “tightly territorialized, spatially bounded, historically unselfconscious or culturally homogenous” (1998, p. 48). On the contrary: ethnic groups, sectarian movements, and political organizations operate more in ways that transcend specific territorial boundaries and identities. Thus, Thai cities such as Chiang Mai, Burmese refugee camps, and Thai-Burma communities straddling the border can be said to represent a confluence of ethnoscapes and mediascapes: geographic concentrations of ethnic culture and informational

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sources which, combined, contribute to independent media’s ability to foster civil society networks and develop civic culture within the Burmese diaspora. Network society Network theory connects the political, social and economic realities of globalization with corresponding technological change of the era. For Castells (1996; 2000a; 2000b; 2001), network theory is at the heart of communication theory because it opens up the possibility of seeing convergence, multimodality, and interactivity in the relationships between technology, politics, culture and ethnicity (Rantanen, 2005, p. 143). In the network society, the new communication system would radically transform space and time (Castells, 1996). IT networks would flourish because they operated in the space of flows, “a new spatial form characteristic of social practices that dominate and shape” this new network society and is characterized by “the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows” (1996, p. 412). The space of flows was made up not only of electronic circuits and information systems but also of territories and physical spaces “whose functional or symbolic meaning depends on their connection to a network” (2000, p. 696). Bennett and Entman (2001) see mediated communication as serving a number of important functions in the contemporary public sphere. In addition to providing good or bad information, it offers “engaging or stupefying” perspectives on social issues, stimulates conversations between friends and strangers alike, and provides a range of “political, scientific, and socially authoritative or dubious sources” on social issues that audiences are free to accept or reject (p. 5). Bennett (2003) explores some of the ways in which digital communication networks have shifted the political goalposts in favour of resource-poor players by offering strategies that lie outside the conventional arena of electoral and special interest politics.

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Independent media, soft power, and human rights Downing (2003), Mayo (2005), Coyer (2005), Dahlgren (2003), and Gillmor (2004) have all looked at the development of independent media and the Internet’s role as a new media tool for social justice movements and human rights campaigns. While the Zapatistas of Chiapas in 1994 were the first social movement to make a global impact using the Internet (Mayo), the Independent Media Centre (IMC)—to which the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” protests against World Trade Organization meetings gave birth—has since become the template for online global activist networks (Downing; Dahlgren). Coyer looks at the various independent media centers that were established in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy in the year after the Seattle protests, as well as others that appeared in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria, Israel, Palestine, Russia and India.2 Gillmor and others have raised concerns about independent media’s uneven track record, due to the lack of editorial supervision and centralized control over what gets posted. However, researchers tend to agree that IMCs in general have played a positive role in emerging global civic cultures. First, as Downing notes, they serve as an alternative public sphere to that of mainstream media, often in close relationship with political and social movements—but without seeking hegemonic influence over these movements. Dahlgren describes how IMCs provide important critiques of mainstream media, while Coyer summarizes how IMCs uphold the principles of editorial independence and, due to their participatory nature, tend to be more democratic than media created by corporate interests.

                                                             2

 By 2005 there were more than 120 IMCs throughout the world. 

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Nye (2004) would argue that these qualities make IMCs, and independent media in general, agents of soft power. As non-state actors, independent media producers are a dramatic example of how the nature of power has changed in the global information age. Nye sees politics in this era as partly “a competition for attractiveness, legitimacy and credibility” in which “the ability to share information—and to be believed—becomes an important source of attraction and power” (p. 31). Nye defines soft power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments” (p. X); it rests on “the ability to shape the preferences of others” (p. 5). Independent media producers from diaspora communities in particular have been able to take advantage of the Internet to wield soft power. Digital technologies enable large numbers of people who live far away from their native lands but have shared histories to form large virtual communities with ties to other like-minded networks (David Bollier, in Nye, p. 92). While traditional power politics is often about whose military or economy wins, Nye—citing two Rand Corporation consultants—concludes that politics in the information age “may ultimately be about whose story wins” (p. 106). In this political game, governments compete not only with other governments but with organizations and non-state actors (NGOs, independent media) to build up their own credibility and undermine that of their opponents. Independent media and Burmese exiles Western communications theory, which looks at civil society through a liberal democratic lens, poses a problem when discussing democracy, human rights, citizenship, and “soft power” in the context of Asian authoritarian dictatorships. In Burma, as in other Southeast Asian countries, concepts such as human rights and citizenship are historically non-existent. Burma also poses a unique dilemma for exiled independent media producers and other overseas

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dissidents: unlike other “plugged in” exiles who seek democracy from abroad for their countries, Burmese dissidents are exiles from a rogue state whose guardians have no legitimate claim to power. Piper and Uhlin (2004) examine the network society and civic culture through a strictly Asian lens. Although the concepts of human rights and citizenship have little cultural relevance in Southeast Asian history, they note that a new type of citizenship has evolved in countries from the region that have histories of struggle with colonialism, independence and authoritarianism (p.14). The “8.8.88 Generation” of student activists in Burma, embracing this concept of citizenship, saw democracy and human rights as prerequisites to a healthy public sphere. Krebbs (2001), in a project to examine the degree of “cyber-empowerment” among Burmese dissidents, was the first to measure the impact that new media were having on Burma’s pro-democracy movement by the end of the 1990s. Comparing media coverage related to the “8.8.88” student revolt with that surrounding the eleventh anniversary of that event and another series of pro-democracy protests in September 1999, Krebbs found that the period between the Internet’s emergence in 1991 and the protests of 1999 had seen a significant shift in overseas public discourse about Burma. Not only were civil society groups and NGOs using the Net to put added pressure on the regime, which had previously been impervious to foreign media infiltration, but by 1999 the Internet was also providing access to far more primary sources of information—and in less time—than had been possible in 1988. Troester (2001) looks at the contributions of overseas civil society organizations and NGOs such as the Washington-based Free Burma Coalition, The Burma Project (part of the Open Society Institute, established by George Soros), The Burmanet News, the Civil Society for Burma, and Freeburma.org. These organizations serve as sources of information that would

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otherwise be unavailable or inaccessible to people inside Burma; they also serve as advocacy and lobbying devices (the Free Burma Coalition, for example, claimed to have forced up to forty international organizations to stop doing business with the military government). Kalathil (2002) examines how the information revolution has amplified the ideological power and cohesion of diaspora communities, highlighting the growing relevance and visibility of these groups worldwide. Choosing the examples of Burmese, Chinese, and Middle Eastern online communities as “forces of soft power in their own right” (p. 352), Kalathil singles out the Burmese networked diaspora for having combined with transnational civil society to produce “tangible results” in the public sphere. The Free Burma Movement’s decision to expand its membership and include people who had never been to the country boosted its campaigns through the use of listservs, web pages and e-mail petitions, allowing it to ‘shame’ major U.S. corporations such as PepsiCo and Apple Computer into pulling their businesses out of Burma. Kalathil and Boas (2003) acknowledge the all-encompassing power of the junta to exert total control over the telecommunications sector and the use of the Internet inside Burma. In Open Networks, Closed Regimes, their chapter on Burma suggests that the SPDC wants it both ways: on one hand, the junta generals want to prevent individuals from gaining access to the Internet, in order to quell dissent; on the other, they need the Internet to be ‘free’ enough to help the business climate. Hachigian (2002) looks at the consequences of severely restricting public use of the Internet in one-party states. In a networked society, she argues, “those hostile to a regime can acquire new capabilities because the Internet allows anonymous, fast, borderless, and relatively inexpensive communication....Virtual public spaces where many can communicate simultaneously can also be politically significant in a one-party state” (p. 42). Hachigian takes a

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market-oriented view of the junta’s dilemma: by forbidding public access to websites hosted abroad, she says, the junta is shooting itself in the foot by reducing its access to global market information and capital flows.3 Brooten (2006) examines Burma as a multi-ethnic state in the context of pursuing independent journalism in an environment of political violence. The emergence of Burmese independent media players such as The Irrawaddy, Democratic Voice of Burma, Burma News International (BNI), and Internews (the latter a training centre for Burmese exile journalists) has raised the question of objectivity in reporting: should reporters in conflict situations strive to be neutral observers, or should they serve as facilitators in conflict resolution? Brooten, in exploring this question, notes that Burmese exiled media are not ‘outsiders’ to the communities they cover but interested parties. This creates expectations for both the political opposition organizations they cover and the international donors who fund them. Ball (2008) uses first-person accounts by unnamed reporters from the Mizzima News Agency—a member of BNI, which is included in this study—to bear witness to both the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The accounts reveal the moment-by-moment conditions under which reporters and photographers met with sources, exchanged information, and filed their stories and photos to be shared with a global audience. These stories, and the photos that accompany them, are a testament both to the bravery and resourcefulness of the Mizzima staff and to the ways in which new media have radically altered the conditions in which opposition media can operate inside Burma since the student demonstrations of 1988.

                                                             3

 The years following this article’s publication have not reinforced Hachigian’s argument, as the SPDC has remained  content to abandon the West and concentrate on building its commercial relationships inside Asia. 

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METHOD The primary research involved a field study of Burmese exiles working for independent media, specifically in-person interviews with seven subjects based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The subjects were chosen for their experience with independent media and their status as dissident exiles who left Burma following the August 1988 demonstrations and before the Saffron Revolution protests. The seven participants represent four independent media organizations. One subject was interviewed for each of The Irrawaddy, Burma’s best known opposition newsmagazine; Democratic Voice of Burma, a satellite television network run out of Oslo; and Internews, a training agency that works to empower local media worldwide . Four interviews were conducted with subjects from Burma News International (BNI), an independent ethnic media group. One was with an administrator of the organization and the others were with journalists representing BNI members: the Kachin News, a multimedia organization representing the Kachin people; the Shan Herald Agency for News, a web-based news source for the Shan people; and the Kantarawaddy Times, a website catering to Karenni people in Kayah state.4 Taking the diachronic data results of the interviews, I used paradigmatic analysis of the separate narratives to identify common themes between them and map the results accordingly. Given that the interview subjects are dissident exiles, I recognize that their narratives are both enabled and constrained by their particular geographical and socio-political location. However, each of the seven narratives is significant because of what it tells us of the possibilities within a specific social context (Chase, 1994). Ethical considerations were of utmost importance in conducting the interviews, gathering the data, and analyzing the results. A project about Burma                                                              4

 Of the seven interview subjects, six were male. Three were ethnic Burmans, two were Shan, one Karenni and one  Kachin. All but one were born in 1967 or later. Two of the subjects identified their religious affiliation as “inactive”  Catholic, one as “strong” Baptist, one as “moderate” Baptist, and one as Buddhist. Another subject did not answer  the religion question while the seventh did not complete a biography chart. 

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that is entirely concerned with democracy and technology issues requires heightened sensitivity. For this reason, several details that arose in the interviews which were deemed to pose potential safety risks were excluded from the study.5 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Interviews with seven Burmese exiled media producers revealed common themes suggesting that independent media’s editorial independence has contributed to reducing political fear while enhancing the public sphere in Burma. All subjects spoke of the challenges of maintaining their editorial independence in the face of external pressures. These pressures—by no means limited to SPDC bullying—also come from donor organizations that fund independent media, from rebel army leaders or democratic opposition representatives who presume the allegiance of all non-junta media, and from neighbouring countries that are trying to forge closer trade relations with Burma in the guise of “constructive engagement” but are wary of confrontational coverage (Zaw, 2006). Despite these pressures, all seven subjects said their organizations have maintained their editorial independence to this day. External pressures – the opposition Apart from the SPDC and its military predecessors, the parties that have used fear and intimidation the most in order to influence news coverage of Burma have been members of the opposition movement, including rebel armies. Opposition groups often assume that exiled media are partisan in their editorial stance and that reporters will toe the party line. Journalists who fail to do so are often threatened, says The Irrawaddy’s editor, Aung Zaw:

                                                             5

 Because the work of all subjects exists on the public record, each participant was willing to have his or her real  name used. Due to safety concerns, however, some subjects provided fewer details about family members for the  personal biographies that were recorded before the interviews. 

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If you are closer to the border area....you got problems with all these big guys, because there’s too much pressure. I know that BBC [Burma] reporters are there, or DVB reporters who are based in Mae Sot. To many from these military armies, they’re old friends who are political opposition. They put them under pressure and if they put something about corruption or killings or landmines, there will be big problems. You never know, people will disappear. Two ethnic media representatives from the BNI told me how they fell out of favour with the dominant ethnic rebel armies of their region after publishing critical articles. Not long after Nawdin Labai and a few colleagues set up the Kachin News Group in Laiza, a town in the Kachin-controlled area of the Burmese border with China, a power struggle occurred within the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). When the KNG reported it in their online news service, the report angered KIO leaders so much that Nawdin and his colleagues were forced to flee Laiza for their lives and set up new offices in India. Said Nawdin: Actually, we want democracy in the Kachin community, and in the organization. That’s why we tried to cover it, you know? Because a lot of people think it’s a trick, to write about and criticize the KIO. But we tried to. But one result was that we cannot have headquarters at the China border, so that’s why we moved our headquarters to India. Some place to hiding, you know? Targay Sayreh Soe, assistant editor of the Kantarawaddy Times, recalled how he followed in his father’s footsteps by going to work for the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). After he left the party to help set up the Times news service, relations with the KNPP remained friendly until Targay and his colleagues ran a story about KNPP landmines: We often report about the conflict between the KNPP and the ceasefire groups. When we report we are not their advisor. We really want to report independently. Our staff was called by the KNPP after we have reported on landmine of KNPP. They don’t want to see that kind of story reported. Because the war, the international, they are against. They don’t want the landmine story.

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The Burmese independent media producers I spoke with said that despite these external pressures they continue to assert their editorial independence. As part of its policy against political bias, The Irrawaddy forbids staff from belonging to any Burmese opposition group, and the magazine balances articles critical of the junta with negative stories about the political opposition. Burma News International requires formal independence from any opposition organization as a requirement for membership.6 And both the DVB and Internews train journalists to ensure that their stories cover all sides of contentious issues and do not shrink from revealing scandals involving the junta or the political opposition. This approach has boosted the credibility of Burmese independent media organizations.

Credibility reduces fear The credibility that results from editorial independence becomes a form of moral authority from which Burmese exiled media can position themselves within the public sphere inside Burma. Four of my subjects gave examples of how their media outlet has used this power. For Toe Zaw Latt, Thailand bureau chief of the satellite television network Democratic Voice of Burma, critical coverage by the DVB can force junta authorities into action where the same coverage by a lesser-known, or opposition-biased media, might not: One time, a dam nearly broke and the government didn’t do anything. We [DVB] reported it and the next day there were immediate inquiries about that. Sometimes there is immediate action, because of media, the next day they follow up. They’re really scared of independent media.....                                                              6

 Mu Laing Thien, the BNI administrator, told me that the BNI did not yet have a member organization from Karen  state. However, it was currently meeting with one organization to assess its eligibility as an independent media  source—the chief criteria being that it was not formally connected with the Karen National Union. 

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BNI’s administrator, Mu Laing Thien, told me that Narinjara, a BNI member news services that covers Arakan state, once uncovered a scandal involving an SPDC official’s mistress. When the official found out that reporters were investigating him, he tried to have the story suppressed. But Narinjara ran the story anyway, and he was demoted: MT: Narinjara is very well known in the community in Arakan state. When they see Narinjara they know. Even though it’s illegal in Burma, they are very known, like the reporters. They find that people are willing to talk. Maybe they do have some credibility in their community. So when you ring them, “this is the Narinjara Group”, and people know....Among the locals, it’s popular. So they have more power. They are regarded as the BBC. The BBC is quite well regarded in Burma community. The same is true in Kachin state with respect to the Kachin News Group. Even KIO leaders who once threatened Nawdin and his colleagues for exposing a power struggle within their organization rely on the KNG for important information: NL: What’s happening with the Kachin people, the KIO, they don’t know what’s happening in their organization. If they want to know they have to check our website. So that’s why I think the media work is so important. The current situation in Burma, so many ethnic groups and everything.....Because of you know the Number Two....He contact me, and ‘Your website, your reviews are good, you have a lot of good news.’ Aung Zaw has used his own and The Irrawaddy’s credibility to establish contacts with retired junta generals and even a few anonymous, high-level sources within the current SPDC leadership. Reportage of his conversations with 80-year-old Tun Tin, a general in 1988-89 who served briefly as prime minister, and his phone calls to an anonymous senior military officer who works closely with SPDC chair Than Shwe, serve to demystify the junta, to humanize the military leaders as complex individuals who defy stereotype. Aung Zaw says he comes away from these conversations convinced that the junta will never give up power. But he also finds a disturbing degree of earnest patriotism in their sense of civic duty. However limited in diplomatic value these conversations may be, the credibility that grants Aung Zaw

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access to senior or retired junta officials allows him to provide more nuanced, complex portraits of military leaders that offer valuable insight into the Tatmadaw mindset. Such demystifying reportage reduces the distance between the powerful and the powerless, which in turn reduces fear both for reporter and audience. Enhancing the public sphere A stated position of editorial independence enhances the public sphere. Being obliged to no authority or organization liberates independent media to serve the public good in any manner they see fit. In Burma, independent media have enhanced the public sphere by bearing witness to cataclysmic events—even saving lives in the process—and by increasing political literacy. During the Saffron Revolution, and in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, organizations such as DVB and Mizzima had reporters and photographers on the ground inside Burma, ready to transmit messages to the outside world at a moment’s notice. After Nargis, DVB satellite images of the carnage were sent around the world. Before long, the donations came pouring in. Recalled Toe Zaw Latt: TZ: Once we were able to put the images out, a lot of private donors—Burmese took risks, to give donations. We saved a lot of lives—actually that’s government job. We repeated what’s true, what was going on. At that point the government said it’s around 20,000 [deaths from the cyclone]. From that point we said “It’s around 100,0007. These are the witnesses, this is how bad it is. Then slowly the government admits. And people become aware. Even overseas Burmese sent a lot of donations. We saved a lot of lives, we feel very happy about it. We do our job.

                                                             7

 The final toll of Cyclone Nargis was estimated at nearly 150,000 dead or missing and 2.5 million homeless and in  desperate need of care (Charney, 2009). 

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Since the Saffron Revolution, political literacy has increased among the younger generation inside Burma. Despite an apparent rise in materialism among urban Burmese youth, Internews grant officer and media trainer Ronald Aung Naing notes that more young people are becoming politically savvy as a result of independent media’s work: RAN: My sense before 2007, the younger generation is not aware of information. Most of them are in an entertainment world because of globalization and information technology. There’s a lot of entertainment trends in Burma.….What happened in 2007 was that the monks and students movements happening inside. And people saw that and they could not get any information about this from the media inside. Only the things they could get from the outside media, like mainly radio and one TV station run by Democratic Voice of Burma. So they understand that the only accurate information is coming from outside. Political literacy in a healthy public sphere leads to a higher degree of skepticism about official news sources. Mu Laing noted that the accuracy of information coming from DVB and Mizzima during the Saffron Revolution and after Cyclone Nargis only reinforced public cynicism about state-run television news. The SPDC’s TV coverage of the cyclone aftermath was a failed public relations exercise: enough alternative sources were available to confirm that the army’s response to the crisis was criminally negligent—a fact that could not be whitewashed with staged photo ops of uniformed army officials handing out bags of rice. CONCLUSION Since 2007, the Burmese people have been exposed to the possibilities of independent media like never before. The work of Burmese exiled media has countered political and cultural isolation within Burma by building bridges across ethnic divides. Much of their success in this endeavour can be attributed to their policy of editorial independence. By maintaining their integrity as independent media, Burmese exile media producers are contributing to Burma’s public record in a way that reduces fear and enhances the public

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sphere. These dissidents thus serve as a kind of moral barometer for the same general public whose political literacy they are working to increase. REFERENCES Appadurai, A. (1998). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 295-310. Ball, J., ed. (2008). Come rain or shine: A personal account of Burma, the 2007 uprising and Cyclone Nargis. Chiang Mai: Mizzima News Agency. Bennett, W.L. (2003). Communicating global activism: Strengths and vulnerabilities of networked politics. Information, Communication & Society, 6, 143-168. Bennett, W.L. & Entman, R.M. (2001). Mediated politics: An introduction. In Bennett, W.L. & Entman, R.M. (Eds.), Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy (pp. 1-29). New York: Cambridge University Press. Brooten, L. (2006). Political violence and journalism in a multiethnic state: A case study of Burma (Myanmar). Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30, 354-373. Castells, M. (2001). The internet galaxy: Reflections on the internet, business, and society. New York: Oxford University Press. Castells, M. (2000). Toward a sociology of the network society. Contemporary Sociology, 29, 693-699. Castells, M. (1996). The information age: Economy, society and culture. Volume I: The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Charney, M.W. (2009). A history of modern Burma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chase, S. E. (1994). Narrative inquiry: Multiple lenses, approaches, voices. In Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S., (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 651-673). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Coyer, K. (2005). If it leads it bleeds: The participatory newsmaking of the independent media centre. In de Jong, W., Shaw, M., & Stammers, N. (Eds.), Global activism, global media (pp. 165-178). London: Pluto Press. Dahlgren, P. (2003). Net-activism and the emergence of global civic cultures. Unpublished manuscript, European Doctoral Summer School in Communication and Media,

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University of Westminster. Dahlgren, P. (2001). The public sphere and the net: Structure, space, and communication. In Bennett, W.L. & Entman, R.M. (Eds.), Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy (pp. 33-55). New York: Cambridge University Press. Downing, J.D.H. (2003). The IMC movement beyond the west. In Opel, A. & Pompper, D. (Eds.), Representing resistance: Media, civil disobedience, and the global justice Movement (pp. 241-258). London: Praeger. Eng, P. (1998). A new kind of cyberwar. Columbia Journalism Review, Sept/Oct, 20-21. Entman, R.M. & Bennett, W.L. (2001). Communication in the future of democracy: A conclusion. In Bennett, W.L. & Entman, R.M. (Eds.), Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy (pp. 468-480). New York: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, A. (2003). Runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives. New York: Routledge. Gillmor, D. (2004). We the media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Habermas, J. (1996). Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (Rehg, W., trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society (McCarthy, T., trans). Boston: Beacon Press. Hachigian, N. (2002). The internet and power in one-party east asian states. The Washington Quarterly, 25, 41-58. Kalathil, Shanthi & Boas, T.C., eds (2003). Open networks, closed regimes: the impact of the internet on authoritarian rule. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kalathil, Shanthi. (2002). Community and communalism in the information age. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, IX, 347-354. Krebbs, V. (2001). The impact of the internet on Myanmar. First Monday: Peer-reviewed journal on the internet, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1800/1680. Retrieved from source on 9/8/2008.

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Lintner, B. (1990). Outrage: Burma’s struggle for democracy. Darby, PA: Diane Pub Co. Maung Maung Gyi. (1983). Burmese political values: The socio-political roots of authoritarianism. New York: Praeger Publishers. Maung Maung Oo. (2001). Burma’s IT dream. The Irrawaddy, May. Mayo, M. (2005). Global citizens: Social movements and the challenge of globalization. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Nye, J.S. (2004). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs. Open Net Initiative. (2005). Internet filtering in Burma. Country study. Retrieved from www.opennetinitiative.net/burma on 10/16/2007 Piper, N. & Uhlin, A. (2004). New perspectives on transnational activism. In Piper, N. & Uhlin, A.(Eds.), Transnational activism in Asia: Problems of power and democracy. London: Routledge. Rantanen, T. (2005). The message is the medium: An interview with Manuel Castells. Global Media and Communication, 1, 135-147. Skidmore, M. (2004) Karaoke fascism: Burma and the politics of fear. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Sparks, C. (2005). Media and the global public sphere: An evaluative approach. In de Jong, W., Shaw, M., & Stammers, N. (Eds.), Global activism, global media (pp. 165-178). London: Pluto Press. Talbot, D. (2007). Burma’s internet crackdown. Technology Review. October 03, 2007. Retrieved 04/27/2008 at http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19474. Troester, R. (2001). Using the internet for peace in isolated Burma. Peace Review, 13, 389-394. Wasley, A. (2007). Only connect. Index on Censorship, 36, 52-58. Zaw, A. (2006). Burmese reporters in exile confront different risks. Nieman Reports, Summer, 23-25.

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3 Continuities and Changes in Asian News

Day1: August 28, 2009.

The International Conference on News Flows in Asia

Organized by Korean Society for Journalism & Communication Studies on 28 -29 August, 2009

The Newspaper Crisis in Japan

Toshiya Nakamura, Ph.D Professor Faculty of Global Communication Studies University of Nagasaki

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Abstract Newspapers are in crisis on a global scale; Japan’s newspaper publishers that have been known as a giant are also in adversity. Diffusion of the new media is altering how people consume the news. Readership of newspapers in Japan is in a continuous downward trend. Also, digital technologies challenge Japan’s newspapers to reconsider their way of news flows, production and distribution. Additionally, the global economic crisis that emerged since last year prompted Japanese major industries to reduce their advertisement on newspapers. Accordingly, financial states of newspaper publishers were influenced because of reduction of advertisement incomes, and some major publishers, including Asahi Shimbun, one of the most influential national dailies, went into the red for the first time. Thus, newspapers are confronted with the strongest challenge in decades and are forced to grapple with restructuring. This paper firstly reviews the crisis with which Japan’s newspapers are now faced. It then analyses the factors of difficulties both in the long and short terms, by highlighting demographic trends and changing behaviour of news consumption. The article also illustrates newspaper publishers’ restructuring efforts in terms of news production and distribution. By doing so, the paper discusses the prospect whether and how the newspaper industry might overcome the crisis.

Key words: newspaper, new media, Japanese media

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Introduction Japanese newspapers are in crisis; they have been caught in sweeping rise of new technology on one hand, and the economic downtrends in a decade after the burst of the bubble economy on the other. On top of that, the US financial crisis in 2008 eventually accelerates the deterioration of the financial status of the newspaper publishers. The financial crisis also affected Japan’s economy severely and sent it into a recession. While not at the epicentre of the crisis, Japan’s exports have been hit hard by the slump in global demand, and aggravated by sharp appreciation of yen. Japan contracted 12.1 percent in real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008. The industrial output also registered decline for five consecutive months since September 2008 with drastic decrease of minus 10.2 percent in January and minus 9.4 percent in February 2009 (Nihon Keizai Shimbun 30 March 2009). The economic downturn has led major companies to reduce their advertising costs in the second half of 2008 and after. Accordingly, Japan’s newspaper publishers suffer from advertisement revenue that is one pillar of their revenue structure besides sales of newspapers. In this way, the U.S. financial crisis and the subsequent global economic slowdown have accelerated the newspaper crisis in Japan as in many countries. The magnitude of the crisis is manifest in the red figures of some newspaper publishers that were firstly registered in the midterm earning in 2008. Three out of the Big Five, the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun, have posted net losses for the first time in the first half of fiscal 2008. For example, the Asahi Shimbun registered the net loss of 10.3 billion yen in April to September 2008, down from 4.7 billion yen in net profit in the same period of the preceding year (Sankei Shimbun 22 November 2008). It was the first loss since the publisher’s disclosure of

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midterm earning in September 2000. The Asahi posted also an operating loss of 500 million yen in the April-September period in 2008, down from an operating profit of 7.4 billion yen in the same period of the preceding year. Moreover, sales decreased 4.4 percent to 269.8 billion yen, booking a fall in sales for the fourth consecutive first half. Sankei Shimbun also logged the net loss of 1.9 billion yen in April – September 2008 in comparison with the net profit of 100 million yen in the same period of the preceding year (FujiSankei Business i 28 November 2008). While the global economic crisis should affect the newspapers relatively in the short term, influences posed by the new technology may be lasting rather in the longer term. This has long-lasting double effects on newspaper sales through readership decrease and a shift of advertisement from newspapers to Web sites. Several books were published in 2000s to try to analyse these phenomena (Aoki, Nisshō et al. 2003; Inokuma, Tateo 2009; Kawachi, Takashi 2007; Utagawa, Reizō 2005; Yukawa, Kakushō 2006). Also, various articles are increasingly focusing on the critical state of the media (Iketomi, J. et al. 2008; Nakajima, Junichirō et al. 2009; Nikkei Business 2007a). Drawing upon the literature, this paper discusses the media crisis in Japan both in the long and the short term. For this purpose, it firstly identifies the current media business environment and the aspects of the newspaper crisis. It then discusses some factors that caused the crisis. Further, it reviews several measures taken by the publishers in terms of new technology and cost restructuring, by highlighting the cooperation between national and local newspapers. By doing so, the paper attempts to present what the future of the newspapers in Japan will be.

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The Structure of Japan’s Newspaper Industry Japan is regarded as a newspaper giant for several outstanding records. First, Japan’s newspaper circulation per 1,000 adults registered 624.9 copies, being the third highest in 2007 after Iceland with 882.6 copies per and Denmark with 647.4 copies (World Association of Newspapers 2008). In a worldwide comparison, it was followed by Sweden

with 601.4 copies, Norway with 580.3 copies and Hong Kong with 569.5 copies. In Asia, they are followed further by Singapore with 509.9 copies, Macau 491.0 copies and Korea with 409.2 copies. Second, Japan’s top newspaper publishers have positioned in top three in the world ranking of circulation numbers. The Yomiuri Shimbun leads the world in the number of newspaper circulation with over 10 million1, and it is registered in the Guinness Book of Records (Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations 2009). The Asahi Shimbun is the second in the world with a circulation of more than 8 million, followed by the third ranking Mainichi Shimbun with 3.8 million. With other national dailies of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun with circulations 3.1 million and 2.1 million respectively as of the latter half of 2008, they are called as the Big Five. Besides them, there are four regional newspapers, namely Chūnichi Shimbun, Nishi Nihon Shimbun, Hokkaido Shimbun and Kahoku Shimpō. Moreover, each prefecture has generally one local newspaper publisher as will be elaborated later. This huge readership of Japan’s newspapers has been sustained by the home delivery system, the nationwide network of distributors exclusive to each newspaper publisher (Kawachi, Takashi 2007: 21-29). The distributors usually deliver morning papers to households before sunrise and evening papers before sunset. Of overall subscriptions, home deliveries account for about 94.3 percent in Japan, compared with

1

Those circulation numbers are only for the morning editions of the papers.

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75.6 percent in the U.S., 86 percent in Iceland and about 28 percent in France in 2006 (World Association of Newspapers 2007). These data demonstrate how strongly Japanese readership of the newspapers become used to subscription instead of buying the papers at newsstands. In addition to huge readership, newspapers publishers are influential through their subsidiaries and affiliating radio and TV broadcasting companies. Japan’s newspaper publishers generally own the largest stocks in affiliated TV and radio broadcasters. The major newspapers formed media groups with their affiliating radio and TV broadcasters, in which they have the largest stocks. For example, the Asahi Shimbun owns 35.9 percent of TV Asahi, the Yomiuri Shimbun owns 22.94 percent of Nihon TV, and Nikkei owns 33.3 percent of TV Tokyo as of November 1, 2008 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2008). The Mainichi Shimbun used to have stocks in Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), but the Mainichi was forced to sell most stock in its financial difficulties in 1970s when it had faced with management crisis. In the case of the Sankei Shimbun, it is affiliated to a TV broadcaster of the Fujisankei group; the Fuji Television is owns 40.3 percent of the Sankei Shimbun. Japanese newspaper publishers have been owned privately, mostly by founders’ families in order to avoid intervention from outside. Thus, there has been little change in their stock ownership except the case of TBS – the Mainichi Shimbun for the past several decades throughout the postwar period. As profitable companies with mass readerships, the papers have seen no need for restructure until recently.

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The Aspects of the Newspaper Crisis The rosy picture in the Japanese print media, however, has gradually changed since the mid 1990s. After the total revenue of all newspaper publishers reached its highest of 2,529.4 billion yen in 1997, it contracted by 12.3 percent to 2,218.2 billion yen in the fiscal year of 2007.2 The decline in both sales and advertisement revenue contributed to this decrease. The sales revenue decreased by 2.3 percent to 1.24 trillion yen in the fiscal 2007 after it peaked at 1.29 trillion yen in 1998. The sales reflected gradual decrease in readership of newspapers. The data shows that the total daily newspaper circulation both of morning and evening editions peaked at 72.7 million in 1996, and has been decreased by 5.9 percent to 68.4 million in 2007 (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association 2008a). Another pillar of the revenue, the advertising income, has fell more drastically by 27.1 percent from the peak of 912.7 billion in 1997 to 665.7 billion in the fiscal year of 2007. The decline in revenue from advertisement has accelerated the deterioration of the financial situation of the media companies. The advertising revenue in 2008 for all four of the traditional media — newspapers, magazines, radio and television — marked the first drop in five years. According to the statistics released by Dentsu, the nation’s largest advertisement agency, total advertisement revenue fell 4.7 percent to 6.69 trillion yen in 2008 (Dentsu 2009). Newspapers took the worst decrease, tumbling 12.5 percent from 946 billion yen in 2007 to 828 billion yen in 2008. Moreover, major Japanese corporations consider further decreasing advertisement spending in the media (Iketomi, J. et al. 2008). If the recession will be prolonged, it is expected to further discourage large corporations from investing in huge advertising outlays. The long term downward

2

Since 2002, the research period has been changed from the calendar year to the fiscal year.

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trends in readership and advertising income together with sharp drop of advertisement revenue in 2008 is a premonition of the serious newspaper crisis.

The Cause of the Crisis What is the cause of the newspaper crisis? It is related with Japan’s demography and economy of the times as well as the advent of new technology. Let me firstly look at social and economic data. The demographic data shows that Japan faces the longerterm challenges of a rapidly aging society. After Japan enjoyed the second baby boom in 1971 – 74, its fertility rate has decreased until it hit the lowest record with 1.25 in 2005. Although the fertility rate has slightly increased up to 1.34 in 2007 and is believed to have risen further in 2008, people aged 65 or older continuously increased from 12.1 of Japan’s total population in 1990 to 22.1 percent in 2008, establishing another new record (Prime Minister’s Office of Japan 2009). The government’s forecast warned that the productive population, that is those aged 15 to 64, will decline by nearly half from 81.6 million in 2009 to 46 million in 2055 if the current low rate continues. In addition to the contracting population, Japan’s economy has suffered from low growth since the beginning of 1990s. 1990s is often referred as ‘the lost decade’ after the burst of the bubble economy, contrasting to the 1980s, in which Japan had enjoyed the extraordinary economic boom. The ten-year average of Japan’s real GDP growth in the fiscal years of 1991 – 2000 recorded as low as 1.15 percent, and it also registered negative growth of minus 1.5 percent in the fiscal year of 1997 (Prime Minister's Office of Japan 2004). The dismal growth record more or less continued in the new century with another negative growth of minus 0.8 percent in the fiscal year of 2001. The stock index also has highlighted these economic downturns. The Nikkei index that peaked at

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38,950 yen in January 1990 fell drastically down to 7,603 yen in April 2003, retreating to the similar level as in early 1980s. In tandem with a depreciation of the yen, expectations about Japan’s economic recovery among foreign investors toward the Koizumi reform helped the index to recover to 18,262 yen in July 2007. Thanks to structural reforms initiated during the Koizumi government, Japan’s economy recovered to grow moderately but continuously with the rate above 2 percent from the fiscal years of 2003 onward (Prime Minister's Office of Japan 2008). The moderate growth in 2003 – 2007, however, has been wiped out because of the global crisis as mentioned earlier. The newspaper crisis is also related to the diffusion of the Internet in the mid 1990s. The Internet is an inexpensive and pervasive medium to transmit the news swiftly on a global scale. What kind of influences did the Internet have on the newspapers? If the time used for reading newspapers is compared to the one for browsing Web sites, the survey conducted by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association demonstrates that the percentage of those who read newspapers every day (66.5 percent) overwhelmingly surpassed the Internet users who browse every day (39.2 percent) in 2007 (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association 2008b). The survey is conducted biyearly with 6000 people aged 15 to 69 years old. At first sight, the data looks much favorable to newspapers. If compared with the 2001 data, however, the degree of the newspaper crisis can be projected. The 2001 survey shows that the percentage of those who read newspapers every day counted 69.6 percent, while the Internet users who browse every day was 21.3 percent (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association 2002). While the every-day-newspaper-readers decreased by 2.9 percent from 2001 to 2007, the Internet users jumped by 17.9 percent in six years. If this increasing ratio will continue, it is assumed that Internet users will quickly catch up with newspaper readers.

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In addition, the same data categorized by age highlight that younger generations under 20s are increasingly are attracted to the Internet than to newspapers, and that the older generation read newspapers enthusiastically. In the age between 15 to 19 years old, 66.5 percent of them browse the Internet every day, while 36.9 percent read newspapers every day. In the age category of 20s, those who browse the Internet every day occupy 63.4 percent in comparison with 34.1 percent of the newspaper readers. The Internet users and newspaper readers vie favourably in the age of 30s. There those who read newspapers every day accounts for 53.8 percent, while 55.6 percent of the generation browse the Internet every day. The percentage of the every-day-newspaper-readers is very high in the older generations of 40s, 50s and 60s. The older the readers are, the more of them read newspapers every day. Those who read newspapers every day accounts for 70.8 percent in the 40s, 80.2 percent in the 50s, and 86.1 percent in the 60s. These generations also use the Internet frequently. In the age category of 40s, nearly half of them (48.5 percent) use the Internet. In the 50s, 24.0 percent of them browse the Internet every day, while 10.7 percent of the 60s also browse the Internet. As a matter of course, the current generation will get older as the time goes by. In two decades from now, the percentage of the every-day-newspaper-readers will inevitably be marginalized. If the ratio of the every-day-newspaper-readers will remain as it is, the high percentage of those who read newspapers every day will be observed only in the age category of 60s. The new technology challenges the traditional media that have enjoyed the monopolies on communication information to the public. Portals to the Internet, such as Yahoo Japan!, Infoseek, or livedoor, provide with inexpensive site, on which their users can explore various news from different news providers for free. They function as alternative ‘newspapers’ in cyberspace. These portals have become dominant brokers in

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the field of news distribution, who do not charge commissions or subscription fees. The fact that there are a large number of media providing free news content has changed the economics of the media. Online readers are accustomed to obtain information on the Internet for free of charge. In the digital environment that most information is given away gratis, free provision of information appears to have become already part of Internet culture. In other words, people have free access to the content created by newspaper publishers. This might have contributed to decrease of newspaper sales. Moreover, the new technology challenges newspapers in the advertising revenue. From the view point of advertisers, an online advertisement is much cheaper than a newspaper advertisement. A single one page newspaper advertisement on the Big Five can cost 30 million yen, while an online advertisement in the form of either banner advertisement or of text advertisement for one week long would cost less than its one tenth (Nikkei Business 2007b). Some advertisers believe that the Internet advertisement can better target their prospective customers with personalized approaches. Major Japanese companies increasingly inclined to diversify their channels of advertising, if not to shift from newspaper advertisement to online advertisement. Statistical data prove the gradual shift to online advertisement. According to the survey by Dentsu, Internet advertisement jumped 16.3 percent to 537 billion yen in 2008 (Prime Minister's Office of Japan 2008). The problem is online advertisement revenue has not grown to cover up the loss in newspaper advertisement revenue yet (Dentsu 2009).

Struggles to Survive In the changing environment of news provision and distribution, a question arises whether Japan’s newspapers can survive the current crisis. In order to secure a healthy

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financial state, the media companies theoretically should make efforts to increase sales on one hand, and to decrease expenditure on the other. Accordingly, newspaper publishers have endeavoured to review their cost structure and to experiment with some countermeasures for survivals have accelerated since 1990s. They have attempted to cut costs wherever possible, while almost all newspapers have gone online in a bit to generate another stream of income. Furthermore, they have embarked on cooperation among other publishers for the sake of cost restructuring. This section will elaborate some of these efforts for survival.

Newspapers in Cyberspace In response to the advent of the new technology, the newspapers have increasingly gone online. While young people are increasing disinclined to read newspapers, they are attracted to Web sites as elaborated earlier. The newspaper publishers have thus embarked on integrating the Internet into their operation. According to the annual survey conducted by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, 104 news organizations are operating 200 Web sites by January 2009 (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association 2009b). 3 All of the Big Five have launched new electronic newspaper service and published their articles on their online editions as early as in mid 1990s. These web sites attract millions of monthly page views. For example, the page view of Yomiuri Online reached 6.4 million and Asahi.com 5.4 million (Survey by NetRatings cited in Nikkei Business 2007a). These figures, however, is far less than 20.2 million page view that Yahoo News Japan attracted in the same month. 3

The survey was conducted as of January 1, 2009, questioning 113 member newspapers and

news agencies and received 87 responses.

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However, generating income from the news content will not be easy in the current digital environment of news distribution in cyberspace. As discussed earlier, an attempt of charging for access to online version of newspapers will inevitably be a challenge to the above mentioned free information culture. Currently, only a few business-oriented newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are charging partly for online access. In Japan, no traditional newspaper except some alternative ones charges for online access. As the contents are provided by the newspapers in cyberspace for free of charge, they do not generate additional income. On top of that, as the income from online advertising is far less than their advertising income on the printed papers, the loss in their printed advertisement has not been covered by the Internet advertisement revenue. Newspapers had no choice but to go online. Neither creative content nor online advertisement, however, has yet promised a healthy business environment to the publishers. This is dilemma shared by newspaper publishers not only in Japan, but also all over the world. All has a keen interest in devising a healthy business model that increases their income from their contents. Mr. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, is reported to have revealed intentions to start charging for online content from general interest newspapers such as the Times of London (The Financial Times 17 May 2009). But the question is how to realize it. He reiterated that he wanted to make people pay for access to his news websites by the middle of the 2010 fiscal year, which ends next June (Reuters cited in The New York Times 6 August 2009). So far, there are some markets, in which the newspaper publishers do charge for online access; they are archives databases of past articles and the ongoing newspapers on the mobile Internet. First, as many as 50 newspaper publishers have provided their articles to online databases by January 2009 (The Japan Newspaper Publishers &

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Editors Association 2009b). Before the advent of the new technology, the past newspapers have been stored in public libraries and users have free access to them. The publishers can now generate income from each article in their digital archives whenever users access and download it. The second use of their creative content as an archived article in the databases is one of the areas, in which the publishers will have chances of new incomes because of new technology. News market may exist on the mobile Internet, in which the so-called ‘official sites’ provide various creative content for a small amount of a monthly fee. In Japan, cell phone providers provide official portals, for in which various institutions can set up the ‘official sites (Kōshiki Saito)’ and upload their creative content upon approval by the cell phone providers. The Asahi Mobile Station, for example, is one of such official sites that charges monthly fee of 315 yen, and that provides general news from Asahi Shimbun, sport and entertainment news from Nikkan Supōtsu, and video news from TV Asahi in cooperation with affiliated broadcasters (Asahi Shimbun 2008a). In other words, the mobile Internet has a different culture in terms of charging for creative content from the PC Internet in Japan. The mobile Internet services have potential for increasing revenue of media companies. On the other hand, people know from experiences that they pay for creative products for various reasons, although they are provided for free in some places. People may buy a DVD of a particular film, even if the film will be on TV or on the Internet for free one day. They also buy books although they can read them in the local library without any charge. Thus, one should not rule out the possibility of chargeable markets for the news on the Internet.

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Reviewing High Cost Structure Newspaper publishers have reviewed their expenditure and endeavoured to cut costs from various sides. Unlike in the U.S., reducing staff through ‘layoff’ has not been a common measure for cutting company costs in Japan. The Sankei Shimbun, however, announced de facto layoffs on the ca. 100-person editorial side in January 2009 in a form of voluntary retirement, targeting staff aged between 40 to 50 years old (Sankei Shimbun 2009). Although there has been no public announcement from other publishers, the employment in the industry as a whole diminished substantially in a decade. According to the survey conducted by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, the total number of employees in the newspaper publishers and news agencies decreased by 18.5 percent from 58,380 to 47,899 in the decade from 1999 to 2009 (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association 2009a). One salient trend is observed in regard to the evening editions. They have become target of discontinuation in the current environment. In Japan, newspapers companies usually publish morning and evening editions on weekdays, especially in big cities. A role of evening editions is to provide news that occur after the morning editions’ deadline in the midnight of the day. Thus, their primary quality lies in swiftness of the reporting. The Internet technology provides government, companies and other institutions with opportunity to release information on their Web sites regardless of ‘deadlines’ of newspapers. The speed of information distribution through the Internet technology made the swift reporting for evening editions irrelevant as the notion of ‘deadlines’ does not exist in cyberspace. In fact, swiftness has long been obsolete if compared with radio and TV broadcasting. Nevertheless, the publishers have been producing evening editions as they have been generating profit through advertisement space there. The recent economic slowdown made it difficult to collect

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advertisement for evening editions, and only the cost of printing and delivery surpasses the revenues. Accordingly, more and more newspapers including the Big Five have abolished their evening editions. The decrease in advertising revenues has led to abolish evening editions in some newspapers. For example, Sankei Shimbun abolished its evening edition in Tokyo as of 1 April 2002, resulted in becoming a first national daily that publish only morning editions (Sankei Shimbun 8 November 2001). Mainichi Shimbun followed suit and abolished issuing evening editions in the area of Hokkaido at the end of August 2008 (Mainichi Shimbun 13 May 2008). Local newspapers increasingly discontinue issuing the evening editions. A local newspaper in Akita prefecture, Akita Sakigake, announced ‘an integration of morning and evening edition’, that was de facto discontinuation of evening edition from October 2008 (Akita Sakigake 2008). It reduced the monthly subscription fee by around 2 percent from 3007 yen to 2950 yen, while it increased some pages on the morning edition. The paper ascribed the decision to increase in newspaper production cost such as paper price increase and sales and production costs (Akita Sakigake 2008). Another local newspaper in Kagoshima prefecture, Minami Nihon Shimbun, also announced abolition of its evening editions from March 2009 (Sankei Shimbun 1 December 2008). No one will be surprised if more evening editions will be abolished in the future.

Business Cooperation among Newspapers There have also been attempts to cut overheads through cooperation or tie-up with other newspaper publishers. A surprising business tie-up was realized among some dailies of Big Five, while cooperation between national and local dailies started very recently.

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An unprecedented move was observed among major newspaper publishers in 2007. Three of Big Five, the Yomiuri, the Asahi and the Nikkei, formed an organization called Nikkei-Asahi-Yomiuri Internet Business Partnership in October 2007 (NikkeiAsahi-Yomiuri Internet Business Partnership 2007). Subsequently, it opened a joint Web site named ‘Allatanys’ in January 2008, in which users can compare front page news, general news and editorials of the three newspapers free of charge. The new business entity announced that the web site successfully achieved the initial aim to attract monthly page view of 4 million (Asahi Shimbun 2008b). Also, newspaper companies have begun to integrate and share distributors with their rivals: the Asahi and the Yomiuri agreed to cooperate in sales (Asahi Shimbun 2008b). The moves has attracted attention in a sense that any cooperation among Big Five has barely observed in the postwar Japan. However, doubts are casted before long on a success of this experiment whether it can make profit (Nikkei Business 2007b). In addition, search engine technology provided by Google and others has already altered flows of information; People do not necessarily go to Web sites of the ‘official’ newspapers to obtain news. Search engine assists the Internet users to find specific news topics on various kinds of Web sites ranging from the ‘official’ Web sites of the newspapers to a variety of blogs. By using search engines, one can view all the news related to one’s interest on the browsers of own personal computers as a glance. The technology seems to make the newly launched joint Web site irrelevant to a certain degree. Cooperation has not been limited to the Big Five, but some national and local newspapers started to work together as well. As the Big Five and local newspapers are generally competing for subscribers in non-metropolitan areas, such cooperation has been rare nationwide until recently. However, the global financial crisis in 2008 gave an

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impetus for some of dailies to cooperate not only in operational fields of printing and transportation, but also in the editorial domain. One of the most recent moves that have attracted a close attention is an announcement of the cooperation in printing between the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the Big Five, and the Niigata Nippō. The Niigata Nippō is a local newspaper covering Niigata prefecture that lies about 320 kilometers north of Tokyo. Both publishers jointly announced that they agreed that the Niigata edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun will be printed at the printing factory of the Niigata Nippō from autumn 2010 (Yomiuri Shimbun 15 July 2009). Both parties said that they are under further consultation on shared transportation of newspapers. From the side of the Niigata Nippō that circulates 494 thousands as of the latter half of 2008 (Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations 2009), the printing of about 70 thousands additional newspapers will increase its revenue. From the viewpoint of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the measure will save time, distance and cost of newspaper transportation from the printing factories to its distribution agencies. The transportation in the winter season will also be eased and more stabilized than before as long-distance transportation have been vulnerable to weather factors such as heavy snow. In addition, the agreement brings the Yomiuri a more favorable news production environment than before, as it allows the newspaper to prolong its production deadline. In regard to printing and transportation, local newspapers generally have a clear geographical advantage over national newspapers, as they print their newspaper within the same prefecture. While national newspapers have to keep transportation time from the far-located factory to each deliverer, local newspapers used to enjoy later news deadline than nationals to include more important news that may emerge in the midnight. If the local version of any national dailies will be printed at nearer sites, local

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and national newspaper stands in equal footing in regard to editing deadline. In this way, the cooperation will positively affect the production of the Niigata edition of the Yomiuri, as it currently prints the edition not in Niigata, but in the neighboring Gunma and Fukushima prefectures, For the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Niigata Nippō is the fourth local newspaper publisher to form the similar cooperation agreement in printing of its local editions. The national daily has established cooperation in printing with the Fukushima Minyū, a local newspaper in Fukushima prefecture since 1948, as elaborate later. It has cooperated with the Ibaraki Shimbun, a local newspaper in Ibaraki prefecture since 1998 and with the Tokachi Mainichi Shimbun, a local newspaper in Hokkaido since 1999. Moreover, the Asahi Shimbun, another Big Five, follows the suit of the Yomiuri. It also started to outsource the printing of its eastern Hokkaido edition to the Tokachi Mainichi Shimbun since March 2008 (Asahi Shimbun 21 March 2008). Furthermore, a new type of business cooperation of in Japan’s newspaper publishers industry was announced in May 2009. The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Fukushima Minyū, a local newspaper in Fukushima prefecture, started editorial cooperation as of 1 June, 2009 (Yomiuri Shimbun 1 June 2009). The new cooperation is noteworthy as it is not in the field of printing or transportation, but at the editorial level. According to their announcements, both publishers exchange articles reciprocally; The Yomiuri Shimbun receives information on local municipalities and administration as well as local festivals and events, while the Fukushima Minyū obtains information on the central government and administration. This makes another epoch in cooperation among national and local newspapers that are competitors in nature. Why did the national and the local newspapers agree to cooperate at the editorial level?

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One reason lies in circumstances specific to the Fukushima prefecture, in which the headquarters of the Fukushima Minyū is located. In Fukushima prefecture, which lies at 316 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, there are two local newspaper publishers unlike most prefectures in Japan. In order to control the press, the government had issued the policy of the so-called ‘one-newspaper-per-prefecture’ that limited the number of the newspaper publishers to only one in each prefecture during the World War II. As the result, multiple newspapers in a prefecture were united, and some newspapers were suspended in order to reduce the number of press as specified. As the local newspaper structure of ‘one-newspaper-per-prefecture’ formed during the war remained more or less after the war as well, most prefectures have only one local newspaper publisher by now. In the case of Fukushima prefecture, the Fukushima Minyū had been suspended under the government control in 1941 before it was revived after the war in 1946 (Fukushima Minyū). Since then, the rival of the Fukushima Minyū has not been national dailies, but another local newspaper, the Fukushima Minpō, which enjoys the top in the subscriber ranking in Fukushima. As of the latter half of 2008, the Fukushima Minyū with ca. 201 thousands subscribers follows the rival, the Fukushima Minpō, which has around 302 thousands subscribers (Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations 2009). The Big Five are far less competitive as the Asahi has ca. 75 thousand and the Yomiuri has 73 thousand only (Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations 2009). Under these particular circumstances, competition over subscribers in Fukushima prefecture is not as simple as in other prefectures. As two local newspapers compete mutually, cooperation between a national and a local could be an option. A circulation of 274 thousand of the Fukushima Minyū and the Yomiuri, if added, may compare favorably with 302 thousand of the Fukushima Minpō.

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In addition, the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Fukushima Minyū historically have kept a unique, long-standing, close relationship that would be unusual in other prefectures. Both papers have formed and sustained a business tie-up in the fields of printing, procurements and (non-newspaper) business since 1948, two years later after the revival of the Fukushima Minyū. This may have served as a basis, on which the cooperation has developed into the editorial level. The above move was, in other words, an advancement of their cooperation from ‘operational’ to ‘editorial’ level. The move raises a question of how it affects the news flow in terms of newspaper production. The exchange of news between those publishers will modify the current news production and also has a significant implication to production of local newspapers. Local newspapers generally receive national and international news mostly from the news agencies of the Kyodo News and the Jiji Press Service that they have contracted, although they have branch offices in Tokyo or other major cities to cover national news. Their overwhelming strengths lie in local and community level news as they have more branches and local offices with a large number of staff writers and correspondents widespread in the respective prefecture than those of the news agencies and national dailies have. The business agreement between the Fukushima Minyū and the Yomiuri Shimbun adds slight but salient alteration to the previous news flow and production for both parties. The Fukushima Minyū adds another news source on the central government and administration in addition to news from the news agencies. On the other hand, the cooperation allows the Yomiuri Shimbun to enrich its Fukushima edition with local information more in depth that will be received from the Fukushima Minyū. By being complementary mutually, the agreement appears to be most beneficial equally for both sides.

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Is this business cooperation an independent case that emerged between a national and local newspaper? If not, what kind of implications would it have toward the whole newspaper industry? I argue that the event should be analyzed in connection to the fact that some national dailies have been acting as a de facto news agency since the end of 1990s. For example, the Yomiuri Shimbun started to transmit its news to local newspapers in 1997. By 2001, the number of local newspapers counted 14 local and community newspapers (Yomiuri Shimbun 31 March 2001). This is not an exceptional case, but the Asahi Shimbun also has been providing its news to various local and community newspapers. It started to transmit its news and images to some local newspapers in 1998, counting four newspapers by 1999 (Asahi Shimbun 16 July 1999). On the basis of these accumulations, the year 2009 is marked by the crucial development, the above discussed advancement of national-local cooperation into editorial level. Beside the Yomiuri – the Fukushima Minyū editorial cooperation, the Asahi Shimbun also started to transmit its news and photos to the Tokachi Mainichi Shimbun in January 2009 after it outsourced the printing of eastern Hokkaido edition to the paper in March 2008 (Asahi Shimbun 16 December 2008). In the case of the Asahi – the Tokachi Mainichi cooperation, it took as less as nine months for the cooperation to develop into editorial level. The case highlights an extraordinary speed of the progress. In the current critical state of the newspaper industry, more endeavors to connect between national and local newspapers could not be denied. If such efforts may further expand the scope of the news exchanges, and if more and more national-local alliances may be formed, the current news flow may eventually alter to a larger extent, involving the flow of the news agencies.

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Concluding Remarks The paper looked at Japan’s newspaper crisis that had kept step with the economic downturn in a decade after the burst of the so-called ‘Bubble economy’ in 1990s. The adversity coincided with the swift diffusion of the Internet, which only altered the way how people consume news and brought less expensive possibilities of advertising. By being confronted with the strongest challenge in decades, newspapers are forced to grapple with various kind of restructuring. The financial crisis that happened in the US eventually expedited the process of restructuring efforts by Japan’s newspaper publishers. The discussion in this paper has shown that Japan’s newspapers are not yet able to find an effective and profitable business model under nowadays circumstances and to escape from the business style of the older days, in which newspaper sales and advertising revenue had increased under growing economy and mounting population. Under the declining economy, the readership decrease and the advertisement revenue reduction have only deteriorated the financial situation of Japan’s newspaper publishers despite various countermeasures taken so far. As advertising remains a cyclical business, it is believed further growth is likely when the economic outlook improves. The progress of the digital technology, however, will further go ahead and the newspapers are destined to cope with it no matter how the advertisement revenue will recover. Devising a healthy business model that will pay for maintaining the newsroom is urgently required.

The weak financial state of newspaper publishers has made some groundbreaking restructuring methods inevitable. The paper discussed some cooperation among both national and local newspapers, which have been observed increasingly in a

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couple of years. The traditional national and local newspapers will remain influential for some time to come. However, it can not be ruled out that newspaper publishers will be merged in the long run, if these kinds of cooperation increase and if they will advance. Moreover, speculation has already begun about whether Japanese media industry might eventually face with industrial restructuring as a whole. As discussed earlier, demographic data suggest that absolute number of news consumers is shrinking in the long term. If suppliers surpass the demand, industrial restructuring is a natural consequence regardless of the industrial kind. Japan's newspaper publishers that have been noted for its large scale in worldwide comparison are now at the critical crossroads. They are assumed to continue their attempts for survival from various aspects by all possible means. Under these circumstances, further development of the business model of newspapers should be researched meticulously, in order to find whether and how newspapers in Japan can overcome the crisis and under what kind of the business model they will survive in the digital age.

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'Sankei Shimbun ‘Chōkanshi’he (Sankei Shimbun to be 'Morning paper')'. Sankei Shimbun. 8 November 2001. 'The Asahi logs the first loss'. Sankei Shimbun. 22 November 2008. Sankei Shimbun. 2009. 'Announcement on voluntary retirement'. . Consulted 1 May 2009. 'Media's want to break free'. The Financial Times. 17 May 2009. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. 2002. 'Survey on the nationwide media usage and evaluation in 2001'. . Consulted June 30 2009. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. 2008a. Nihon Shimbun Nenkan (Japan Newspaper Almanac), Tokyo: Dentsu. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. 2008b. 'Survey on the nationwide media usage and evaluation in 2007'. . Consulted June 30 2009. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. 2009a. 'Number of employees in the newspaper publishers and news agencies'. . Consulted 30 June 2009. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. 2009b. 'Survey on electronic and broadcasting media by newspapers and newsagencies'. . Consulted 30 June 2009. 'News Corp may change for web nws; basts Amazon'. The New York Times. 6 August 2009.

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Changes and Continuities in Media System in Post-Democratization – the Japanese Case Seongbin Hwang (Rikkyo University, Japan)

１

Introduction

This study aims at investigating and comparing how the media system of Japan has been transformed since her democratization after the defeat of WW2. In Japan, the fundamental change occurred after its defeat of World War two. During the occupation by GHQ, pre war authoritative structure was broken and restructured according to Western models and value. In 1950, post-war three radio rules were enacted including the Broadcast Law. Under this law, NHK, originally founded as a national broadcasting monopoly, was transformed as public service broadcasting to be supported by public. Furthermore, Commercial broadcasting was also allowed. Since then, Japan has developed a full range of commercial media system to be called one of the most media-saturated societies in the world. The mass media including has been considered by Japanese public as the most influential group in the society and especially NHK has been the dominant, and most trusted, source of political information for the citizen. At least in terms of media system and policy, Japan is close to the liberal model of the West’s. However, many problems have persisted in this region: Public service broadcasting is in a crisis; political pressure on the media persists; journalism performance is often weak; media pluralism is at risk or politically polarized and so on. Particularly mentioning is the relations to the politics. In Japan, it has been witnessed that the governments have exerted its power so strong not only allocating channels for broadcasting and determining who can actually broadcast but also regulating the content in a complex and complicated manner. In this presentation, I would like to dwell on why authoritarian traditions have persisted in media system of a Far Eastern democracy despite the fundamental institutional transformations. Special focus will be on the relation between the media and political system as well as the cultures in Japan because it is a result of complex relation of the organization and processes of the media and their relationship with politics.

2. The formation of the system (1) The nationalistic origin Japanese Broadcasting traces its origins to the Tokyo Broadcasting Station, which aired Japan's first radio transmission on March 22, 1925. Tokyo Broadcasting was established with a license from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications along with two other radio stations in Osaka and

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Nagoya. During his address at the broadcasting station’s opening ceremony, Governor Shinpei Goto described the aims and roles of broadcasting. “The first is the provision of cultural equal opportunity” (radio would demolish the borders between city and country, age group, and social class. And it would be provide the benefits of the radio wave universally and equally); “the second is the reformation of life in the home” (conventionally, entertainment had been sought outside the home, but families now had more family time and could experience a new form of home entertainment based on radio); “the third is the socialization of education; and the fourth is the speed of economic functions.” The Goto address has been accounted as the principles of broadcasting since its morality and abstractness, though it lacks the social function of radio as journalism1. However, the three radio stations were then incorporated under government charter in August of 1926 as Nippon Hoso Kyokai, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. The most important for the new-born national broadcaster was the live broadcasts of the special programs aired to celebrate the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito in November, 1928. After establishing a second radio network in April of 1931, NHK became more involved in current events, providing newspaper-format news programming and coverage of the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Three years later NHK began broadcasting school lessons, as part of a national effort to standardize the country's educational curriculum and extend learning to remote areas. However, with the rise of militarism in Japan, NHK, as well as other media, eventually fell under the control of the government. Through the late 1930s, NHK gradually lost its impartial tone and soon was dominated by imperialist rhetoric. It was through the network that Japanese public opinion was effectively galvanized against European imperialists who, it was charged, had colonized Asia. (2) The dual system of NHK/commercial broadcasters: continuities from the pre-war era On August 15, 1945, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration. When Emperor Hirohito addressed the nation and announced the surrender of Japan to Allied forces in August of 1945, he did so over NHK. It was the first time anyone but a small circle of advisors had ever heard his voice. The Occupation Forces’ General Headquarters (GHQ) issued instructions on freedom of speech and the press, as well as a press code and a radio code for Japan, emphasizing rules for the media of newspapers and broadcasting. No longer under the control of the government, NHK broadcasted important news to the Japanese people about the occupation, the formation of a new government, and the establishment of new laws. One of those new laws, enacted in June of 1950, was the Broadcast Law, replacing the pre-war Radio Telegraph Law.

See 津金澤聡廣『現代日本のメディア史の研究』ミネルヴァ書房、一九九八年、一二頁。 And also for about “the shadow of the newspaper company” in the process of making the speech, see 竹山昭子『ラジオの時代』世界思想社、二〇〇二年、二六－三三頁。

1

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Under these new laws NHK was transformed as a special corporation under the direction of a board of governors. This law laid out special provisions designed to guarantee the impartiality and journalistic integrity of NHK, so that it could never again be used as a propaganda device. the Radio Regulatory Commission was established. It also clarified the legal basis for commercial broadcasters, allowing the first commercial broadcasters to begin service in 1951. Thus the Japanese broadcasting industry had entered a new era, one with NHK supported by receiving fees and with commercial broadcasters funded by advertisement revenue. The new broadcasting system had two fundamental changes: one is the dual system of NHK/commercial broadcasters and the other is the Radio Regulatory Commission. First, it was decided that the broadcasting system in the post-war era would have two supporting pillars, the ‘national’(kokuminteki, 国民的) broadcaster providing the full benefit of broadcasting to everybody in Japan, and commercial broadcasters, which would enhance broadcasting culture through individual creativity and ingenuity2. On September 1, 1951, CBC Radio (JOAR) gave its first broadcast. This was soon followed by broadcasts from NJB (present Mainichi Broadcasting), ABC Radio (present Asahi Broadcasting Corporation) in Osaka, RKB Radio in Fukuoka (present RKB Mainichi), KBS Kyoto, and Radio Tokyo (present TBS). According to the Broadcast Law, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) was established with the goal of providing broadcasting receivable throughout Japan (Article 7). Under it, the Board of Governors determines NHK’s management policy and guides its administration (Article 13). NHK shall exert all possible efforts to satisfy the wishes of the people as well as to elevate the level of civilization (Article 14, Section 1). Tetsuro Furukaki, NHK’s president at the time, stated: “NHK employees must not forget the quest for true democracy. This courage will refresh NHK’s organization, renewing it, and making NHK trustworthy in the eyes of the people of Japan.” Also important is the logic as below, which was expressed by then President.

It was heard that the protection to NHK is too much, though, what is the protection to NHK? It should mean the protection of the public broadcasting aiming only at the entire nation's benefits, and the protection of the people (Kokumin; 国民). It is a verily ridiculous idea that the protection of the people is too much. Public interest should be given priority. That is the spirit of the new Constitution3. （the President Furugaki’s address） 第七回国会衆議院電気通信委員会議事録第一号、昭和 25 年 1 月 24 日、20 頁。清水幹雄 「放送の自律性の確保をめぐって－国会における「放送の公共性」論議の変遷（昭和 22 年 から昭和 35 年まで）」『放送研究と調査』1997 年 5 月号、22－35 頁より再引用。 3 日本民間放送連盟編『民間放送 10 年史』1961 年、33－35 頁。これに対する反論は、 「電 波の独占こそ非民主的ではないか、それが官僚権力の支配、干渉を招く基であり、何が公 共的であるかは放送内容で決まる問題である」などの主張であった。以上、津金澤、前掲、 2

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The introduction of private broadcasting was intended as part of a series of guarantees of pluralism, as a barrier to the monopolization of political power by any single force as can be found in the following testification by an officer in CIC. However, the commercial TV stations are now affiliated to one of the major newspaper groups, and they are subject to strict administration guidance on the production of programs including the content of a program, stage-direction and editing, since the MIC, a central government agency under the influence of the ruling party is the responsible authority to update their licenses. In recent days, the MIC has been picking up minor mistakes of such TV stations and frequently issues “written reprimand” as an administrative punishment, but, to be in line with the principle of freedom of report, the MIC should be more moderate and humble. Under the current circumstances, independence of each commercial TV station from administrative bodies and politicians has been hindered and as a result, the monitoring function on the intervention of the power within all the commercial TV stations is generally weakening. Secondly, despite strong resistance from Japanese officials, Denpa Kanri Iinkai (Radio Regulatory Commission=RRC；電波監理委員会) was established in 1950 by the order of the occupation force to free broadcasting in Japan from totalitarian and militaristic principles, and to realize democratic administration. The RRC was modeled after the Federal Communications Commission (FCO which administrates broadcasting in the United States. Under this commission, the budget plan of NHK was explained by the commission to the Diet, which prevented an intervention from politics. In effect, this commission had a fundamental significance in terms of broadcasting governance in post-war Japan in that the commission should be the main actor who oversees the compliance of the Broadcast Law as shown in the following. The Broadcast Law embodies three basic principles: 1) assurance of the maximum availability of broadcasting and benefits of broadcasting for the citizens, 2) assurance of freedom of expression through broadcasting by guaranteeing impartiality and integrity in broadcasting and its autonomy, 3) and assurance of the broadcaster’s contribution to a healthy democracy by clarifying the responsibilities of the entities engaged in broadcasting. (The Broadcast Act Article 1) The law regulated broadcasters so that they would promote the public welfare and strive for the sound development of broadcasting. In article 3, ‘Freedom in Compilation of Broadcast Programs’ is stipulated as following. Article 3 (Freedom in Compilation of Broadcast Programs)

1983、238－243 頁を参照。

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Broadcast programs shall never be interfered with or regulated by any person without legally authorized powers. Article 3-2 (Compilation of Broadcast Programs for Domestic Broadcasting, etc.) (1) A broadcaster shall, in compiling broadcast programs for domestic broadcasting, adhere to the following items: (i) Shall not disturb public security and good morals and manners; (ii) Shall be politically impartial; (iii) Shall broadcast news without distorting facts; (iv) As regards controversial issues, shall clarify the point at issue from as many angles as possible.

The RRC, however, existed for only two years and two months. The RRC was abolished with other independent commissions at the 13th Kokkai (Diet) which was the first National Diet since Japan regained its sovereignty.

3. Operation of the system The Japanese media operate in an environment where free speech is guaranteed by the law and the Constitution, and where there is no “overt” censorship. However, the program, aired in January 2001 on NHK, concerned a citizens’ tribunal held in December 2001 on Japan’s responsibility for the ordeal of the ‘comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army during the war has not been the case. What happened in the program? The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal, which took place in Tokyo from December 8-12, 2000, was set up by NGOs from Japan and six other countries to judge Japan's military sexual slavery (the "comfort woman" system), which is said to be wartime sexual violence on the largest scale in the 20th century. Based on testimony from victims, Japanese veterans, and expert witnesses, and evidence submitted by teams of prosecutors from each country, the Tribunal heard the indictments of the two Chief Prosecutors. And then, the panel of four Justices handed down a verdict which found Emperor Hirohito guilty of, and the State of Japan responsible for, war crimes and crimes against humanity. For the first time, Emperor Hirohito, the Supreme Commander of the Japanese Imperial Army during the war time, had been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the hands of global civil society. While this event was reported and broadcast widely abroad, there was little coverage in the domestic media. Over 300 representatives of the media from around the world came to the Tribunal,

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however of that number, only one-third were from Japan. It wasn’t covered by any of the commercial broadcasters in Japan, and it warranted only a short mention in Japan’s most liberal newspaper, the Asahi. This gap between the attitudes of the foreign and domestic media is reminiscent of wartime suppression of freedom of the press, Given the circumstances, NHK’s decision to devote one program for this Tribunal in its four-part series on war responsibility in January of 2001 was remarkable. NHK was the only broadcaster to touch the tribunal. However, the outcome was not the expected program. Here is the process in which the documentary had been changed.

Subcontractor Documentary Japan took its detailed proposal for the program to VAWW-NET in October, 2000. As of January 1, 2001 the title was “Sexual Violence by Japanese Military in WW2. On January 15, the crew filmed their commentators, including University of Tokyo professor Takahashi Tetsuya who asserted that the international legal community believed Japan to be liable for crimes against humanity despite post-war treaties. On January 25, the film had been completed, and the title altered slightly. The new title, “Japan’s Military Wartime Sexual Violence,” was published in the television listings. The approved script contained the verdict, the aforementioned commentary by professor Takahashi, the testimony of the comfort women, the testimony of the former soldiers, and the judgments that the sex slave system was a crime against humanity and Emperor Hirohito was guilty of war crimes. On January 27, outraged rightist groups stormed into the NHK offices. Soon after, additional editing began. A revisionist historian, Hata Ikuhiko, was brought in to add his commentary, claiming that comfort women were prostitutes and there was no evidence to back up their testimony. The original historian, Takahashi Tetsuya, was called in to answer additional questions, including whether he felt that the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. (He said yes.) Up to this point, the script was not altered not that much. Still, the documentary was 45 minutes long. However, on Jan. 29, the chiefs of two NHK divisions in charge of broadcasting and Diet affairs had instructed further alterations after a special preview meeting. It was after they, the two senior NHK officials, met with Abe Shinzo, who was then deputy chief Cabinet Secretary. In the meeting, according to Abe’s statement which was made in public after the producer’s whisle-blowing, Abe had urged the public broadcaster to alter the program because he felt its contents were biased, claiming as below.

“Because I was told that the mock trial was going to be reported in the way that the organizers wanted it to be, I looked into the matter. I found out that the contents were clearly biased, and told (NHK) that it should broadcast from a fair and neutral viewpoint, as it is

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expected to.”4

In the result, Japanese soldier testimony, survivor testimony, and the guilty verdict against the emperor had been cut and replaced by an explanation of the mechanisms of the tribunal in which the narrator was much more critical of the tribunal than in the original script, saying that some viewed it as a “kangaroo court”. There was no mention of the Tribunal’s official name, or of keywords such as “the Japanese military,” and “the system of sexual slavery.” There were no scenes shot inside the hall where the Tribunal was held, sponsoring organizations were not mentioned, nor were there any comments from the sponsors. When it was aired on television on Jan. 30, it was 40 minutes long and had a new title with no reference to the Japanese military: “Questioning Wartime Sexual Violence.” Court Decisions VAWW-NET Japan sued NHK, DJ, and NHK Enterprises 21, Inc. in July of 2001, for a violation of its trust by broadcasting an entirely different program without prior explanation in response to right-wing pressures. In 2004, the Tokyo District Court ordered DJ to pay 1 million Yen in damages to VAWW-NET Japan, claiming it “gave wrong expectations about the program to the NGO, when the subcontractor had no authority to determine its content.” However, the lower court had not found NHK or NHK Enterprises liable on the grounds that they, as broadcasters, were free to revise their programs. However, In January 2007, the Tokyo High Court reversed the lower court ruling, ordering NHK and the two production firms to pay a combined 2 million yen because they failed to give VAWW-NET Japan prior to explanation about the alterations. The court said that although broadcasters have the right to edit their programs, the plaintiffs had firm grounds for believing the program would be in line with the organizers’ intention to hold the mock trial(模擬裁判). Also the Tokyo High Court acknowledged NHK changed the content of the program after taking politician’s remarks into account more seriously than necessary. According to the decision, the facts are these.

Anxious to avoid any adverse impact by the program on the budget, NHK leadership sought explanatory meetings with the politicians. Given the context and content of the words, they took the politician’s remark to be “fair and neutral” …more seriously than necessary and, guessing the intent(behind the words), they attended a prescreening with the goal of producing a program that would not offend anyone, giving repeated and direct instructions for revisions.

However, it concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the politicians in question had said anything concrete or made suggestions pertaining to the program in question that 4

“Japan: NHK censored TV show due to ‘political pressure’, The Japan Times, January 14, 2005.

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exceeded the bounds of general opinion. In response to this judgment, the plaintiff declared its victory and the politicians emphasized that it was proved they did not intervene at all. The only loser, NHK appeals the case to the Supreme Court. In June 2008, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling, ruling the three media firms were not obliged to produce the TV program in accordance with the plaintiffs' expectations because broadcasters have the right to edit their productions freely. It added that it is generally recognized by the public that TV programs are altered from their original form as broadcasters edit them. Thus the trust and expectations the plaintiffs had for the program NHK aired are not subject to legal protection. The case has been put forward by a civil right group demanding NHK for compensation for being deprived of the right to see the original program they expected to see. The reason NHK and its subsidiaries committed these violations, the plaintiff charged, was external intervention, first by right wing groups, and then by the lawmakers. NHK, as a defendant, denied political intervention and appealed to a genuinely precious democratic principle: their “freedom to edit” (編集の自由) in the Broadcast Law, Article 3, “freedom to compile a broadcast program” (放送番組編成の自由). So being in deliberation by the courts were the plaintiff’s expectation rights to the broadcaster and the broadcaster’s duty to disclose on the one hand, and the broadcaster’s editing rights on the other. In a sense, the Supreme Court ruling might be expected. The High Court judgment approved the plaintiff’s expectation right and ordered NHK to compensate referring to NHK’s politically vulnerable inclination. However, even those critical of NHK and supportive of VAWW-NET worried that the latter’s appealing to “expectation rights” and “duty to disclose” were potentially threatening to freedom of expression.

5

Considering such concerns, the Supreme Court’s presiding judge,

Justice Kazuko Yokoo, said legally protecting the trust and expectations of people who become the subjects of broadcast productions will lead to the restriction of press freedoms. Ironically, this case demonstrates how the very concepts designed to protect media freedoms can be used to further stifle public debate. The main response to the Affair from the ruling party was to shift the focus of debate from the question of political intervention in NHK to the question of the “fairness and balance” of the documentary “Questioning Sexual Violence in War”. NHK claimed that all the changes were the result of normal editing. Even though there is no dispute about the fact that last minute alterations were made to the content of the program, and that senior NHK officials met Abe and discuss the contents of the program, the Supreme Court didn’t mention whether NHK considered Abe’s remark seriously and did not shed light on the relationship between the top management officials and the producers in editing the program.

5

Norma Field, “The Courts, Japan’s ‘Military Comfort Women,’ and the Conscience of Humanity: The Ruling in VAWW-NET Japan vs.NHK”, JapanFocus.

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Media Coverage When the VAWW-NET sued NHK and its subsidiaries, still the affair could not collect the domestic media’s interest. However, after the Asahi broke the news of The NHK affair, the rest of the media embarked on a feeding frenzy. On January 12, 2005, the Asahi reported that NHK apparently caved in to the demands of two conservative politicians and drastically revised a 2001 program dealing with sexual violence in World War 2. On the following day, Mr. Nagai Satoru, the producer of the documentary, had come forward to state that the program had been altered in response to pressures by the two politicians. He said, “We were ordered to alter the program before it was aired. I would have to say that the alteration was made against the backdrop of political pressure. …(People involved in the production of the program) opposed the revisions, but we were told to do it under orders.” Also he declared that prior to the whistle-blowing, he demanded that NHK’s legal compliance panel pay attention to whistle-blowers’ pleas to probe the incident as a possible violation of the broadcasting law, which bans external interference with broadcasters. NHK has categorically denied the report, saying there was no political pressure whatsoever. NHK said in a protest letter to the publisher hat it has demanded that the Asahi correct the story, claiming that the Asahi distorts the facts to suggest we altered the program in response to political interference.6Furthermore, at a press conference on 19 January, NHK fiercely denied this allegation, saying the Asahi’s reports were based on a misinterpretation of facts and Nagai’s comments consisted of misunderstandings based on hearsay information and groundless assumptions. However, it admitted that the executives met Abe Shinzo one day before the program was to be aired and were told by him that the public broadcaster should make the program “fair and neutral”. Nevertheless, it argued that in order to maintain justice and impartiality, it was a neutral decision to exclude materials that lack sufficient evidence and add opinions of historians who were critical to the mock trial. Meanwhile, at the press conference NHK’s Director-General of Broadcasting made a further statement in which he informed that it was “normal practice” for the broadcaster to “explain” its future schedules and the content of particular programs to key politicians before the programs went to air. The following is the exchanges of words as in NHK websites.

Q: On briefing politicians on the content of a program before its broadcast? (Comment by Akiyoshi Sekine)

NHK’s annual budget and operating plan require the Diet’s approval. The members of the National Diet represent the public, and thus NHK has the duty to explain explicitly its operating plan to both the ruling and the opposition parties, securing our impartiality “Japan: NHK Closes Ranks against Asahi, Whistle-Blower”, Japan Times, 15 January 2005. 6

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and neutrality. It is regrettable that our meeting with Diet members was so rashly associated with political pressure.

7

(In 2009, the committee of the Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization said NHK should cease the practice of explaining program content to senior government officials before broadcasts. Their action endangered independence and autonomy, which are of utmost importance for a public broadcaster.)8

In a series of the statements by NHK, it emphasized that they were not summoned by Abe, instead they went voluntarily, so the conversations should not constitute the political intervention, and accordingly there was no violation of either Article 3 of the Broadcast Law or the NHK charter on Ethics and Performance. However, the rest of the Japanese media tended to report the story, not as a contest between journalistic independence and political intervention, but rather as a contest between two corporate rivals, NHK and the Asahi. Therefore, the controversy had deviated into the issue whether the report of the Asahi is accurate or not. This crucial issue has never been clarified and people forgot about this incident. The following can be an example.

Almost a month has passed since The Asahi reported that a special program aired on NHK four years ago featuring a "women's international tribunal of war criminals"--a mock trial--had been altered due to pressure from two Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker. Either The Asahi or NHK is lying, but which one? This matter affects the credibility of all media. These two leading media organizations are urged to investigate and verify whether the program was altered, thereby settling the case.9

Meanwhile, the Asahi published a feature article reviewing its own report, concluding as below.

“It has been confirmed that many [NHK] staff members in charge of the program took instructions from [NHK] officials concerning the modification of the program, to be ‘interference by politicians. …Asahi’s reports on the controversy were intended to “raise questions about the distance between the public and politicians.10

The Yomiuri criticized that the Asahi repeated its assertion as if to switch the focus on the 7

See the NHK’s website; http://www.nhk.or.jp/pr/english/toptalk/soukyoku_e/s_e0501-2.htm The Asahi, April 30 2005. The Yomiuri, February 11 2005. 10 The Asahi, July 25 2005. 8 9

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argument, saying, “The crux of the matter is the distance between as a public broadcaster and politicians”, “For us, this stance is more like a self-serving support for the Asahi’s own argument.” 11

According to the Yomiuri, the heart of the controversy over the Asahi report should be whether

details of the article focusing on NHK’s alleged modification of the program were factual. Many of the weekly magazines also took the decision that it would serve their political advantage to shift critical scrutiny away from the relationship between the government and the NHK, and towards an attack on the Asahi, thus boosting sales while simultaneously earning further credit with their confidential sources of information within political and bureaucratic elite. The resulting journalism acts out the “guard dog” role with the enthusiasm of an underfed Rottweiler12. The same can be said to commercial TV stations. In the report on the Tokyo High Court decision on the case where NHK sabotaging its “comfort women” program, the fact that Tokyo High Court recognized that NHK altered its draft program before the program was finalized under the pressure of some politicians was not accurately reported, but the report was deviated to give an impression that the court did not recognize the direct impact from the politicians.13

4. Concluding Remarks The Tribunal was an event organized by a NGO with a specific political agenda. While it was acceptable for NHK to make a program about the Tribunal, it was unacceptable for the conservative politicians and the rightist groups. Then they demanded that NHK, as a public broadcaster, should abide by the fundamental principles of fair and balanced reporting. However, this seemingly reasonable demand for “fair and balanced journalism” raises major problems when it is applied, not across the board to all programs, but to an individual program. Also it should be reminded that the rest of the media concentrated more on attacking the Asahi for reporting the whistleblower’s revelations than on addressing the question of the NHK’s independence from political interference. It would be easy to castigate NHK for its handling of the situation; however, the political culture is also important factor in considering this issue. When Japan’s progressives faltered from the 1990s, the result was not an upsurge of centrist thinking. Instead, one extreme on the political spectrum strove to implant its one-sided version in support of state honor. Revisionism called for “normal Japan” to revisit its past in order to fine pride, rejecting centrist thinking in line with international 11

The Yomiuri, August 5 2005. See http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tessa-Morris_Suzuki/2305. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Free Speech-Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, The Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK affair”, Japan Focus. 13 Japan Federation of Bar Association, ALTERNATIVE REPORT TO THE FIFTH PERIODIC 12

REPORT OF JAPAN

ON THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL

RIGHTS, December 2007.

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verdicts. Under this political atmosphere, what happened in the program prevailed among the entire society in Japan. “It is acceptable to discuss the suffering and to empathize of the women, only if you show the suffering of Japanese at the hands of others as well.” That is the fair and balanced way.”

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The Dynamic Performance of Indonesian Private Television Broadcasting Journalism, Public Sphere and Power in the Mediated Democracy of Post-New Order Indonesian By Mr. Ahmad Nyarwi, BA (Hons), MA1 Abstract: Currently, Indonesian broadcasting journalism has been transforming as a pivotal (f) actor of Indonesian democracy. There are two important phenomena in the Post New Order Soeharto. First, the most important phenomena are the transformation of broadcasting performance of Indonesian private television broadcasting journalism from authoritarian regime to democratic regime on mediated democracy. Second, the concentration of ownership and television media networking, commercialization and tabloidization trends have been dominating on Indonesian private television broadcasting journalism. It also implicated on media logic of Indonesian private broadcasting journalism. This paper will examine on four important things. First, how is the transformation of the broadcasting performance of Indonesian private television broadcasting journalism from authoritarian regime to democratic regime on mediated democracy? Second, how is the influence of the concentration of ownership and television media networking, commercialization and tabloidization pattern on Indonesian broadcasting journalism? Third, how far the changing concept from public community to mass society of Indonesian mediated democracy? Fourth, how is the changing of power relation among Indonesian private television journalism pattern, citizen and government in the democratic system Post New Order Indonesia? Based on theoretical concept and by using the quantitative and qualitative method, I will explain some practical, social and theoretical implications. Key Word: Performance of Indonesian Private Television Broadcasting Journalism, Public Sphere, Power, Mediated Democracy and Post-New Order Indonesian

I. The Indonesian Broadcasting Television from Old Order Soekarno to Post New Order Soeharto: Moving From “Guided Democracy” to Authoritarian Regime and to Democratic Regime. The broadcasting television have been emerging in Indonesian since Old Older Seokarno. The history of Indonesian broadcasting television starting from the “special project” of the first Indonesian President Mr. Soekarno. This “special project” was to build the Indonesian broadcasting television as a supporting the show of force of Asian Games 1 Lecture of Undergraduate Program and Graduate Program, Department of Communication Science and Media Studies, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta Indonesia. Email: [email protected]/ [email protected]. Mobilephone number: +6281387110170.

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IV in Jakarta. At august 1962, The Government Television of Republic Indonesia (TVRI) was born. It is the first broadcasting activity had begin from with the power station 100 Watt, firts broadcasting activities also being conducted for eighth Indonesian Independent Day’s celebration from the President Palace. After these broadcasting event, Indonesian being a fourth Asian of which have television broadcasting after Japan, Phillipiness, and Thailand2. In the 1950-1960s, Soekarno had experimented the “parliamentary democracy”, and in the 1960-1965s, Soekarno then realized the “guided democracy”. The guided democratic regim, laid the Soekarno as the Great Leader of Indonesian Revolution. The Government Television of Republic Indonesia (TVRI) had developed under Soekarno’s guided democracy. So, almost of the content of broadcasting television used by government as a “political tool of state propaganda” to strengthen the political integration after colonial period. In the Old Older, broadcasting television as a part of Indonesian mass media also had used by Soekarno as a political tooll of nation and character building. Indonesian broadcasting had used by Old Older Soekarno to mobilized Indonesian citizen to support the “unfinished revolution project”. After Old Older Soekarno, Indonesian Presidency take over by General Soeharto because of 1965’s political revolution of which called G30/S/PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). This blood controversial revolution resulted the PKI and it’s political under bow as a political victim. From “the parliamentary democracy” until “the guided democracy”, Soekarno had supported the political power of PKI. So, this controversial political also impacted on the political career of President Soekarno. General Soeharto had deligitimized the President Soekarno whose supported the political power of PKI. Soeharto got the strong political power and legitimacy because of his political proganda to genociding the PKI and thier political under bow. Soeharto’s political legitimacy also supported by student movement in 1966, Indonesian military and also technocrat and some of social, economic, cultural and political scientist of Indonesian Universities. Soeharto Regime declared the “New Order” as an order to build “new Indonesia” of which concern on national development with out the communist party (PKI). This policy also impacted the all of aspect of political policy, including in the television broadcasting policy. All of the infrastructure of Indonesian broadcasting also take over by Agus Sudibyo (2004), (Political Economy of Media Broadcasting) Ekonomi Politik Media Penyiaran. Yogyakarta: LKiS Publication. Page. 279.

2

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military apparatuse whose being loyalist of Soeharto and being used as a “political propaganda” to delitimize the Soekarno Presidency and political infulences of PKI in Indonesia. Since the Old Order Soekarno until the New Order Soeharto, TVRI growth as one of the national television broadcasting network around Indonesian teritory. TVRI also had many local television networking almost in each province of Indonesia (e.g, TVRI of DI Yogyakarta, TVRI of East Java Province, TVRI of Nort Sumatra and etc). As a governance institution, TVRI coorndinated under Department of Information of which controlled by Soeharto and his special assistant of Presidency—Mayor General Ali Murtopo and his colleagues3. The first decade of New Order Soeharto, television broadcasting had constructed by political regime as of “agent of development”. In this period, the rule of Indonesian television broadcasting produce their as based on “development news” perspective. The pattern of news production always contain the “success story” of state’s development and state policies of national economy, sosial, cultural and political stability. In these period, the Indonesian television broadcasting also being called as an“agent of government” of which being used to promote the government policy and to support the development policy. After second decade of Soeharto Presidency, the Indonesian broadcasting transformed more democratic. In the third decade of New Order Regim Soeharto, broadcasting television had growth as a “partner of government”4. The changing paradigm of Indonesian broadcasting—from an “agent of goverment” to a “partner of goverment” because of deregulation policy of President Soeharto. Facing the 1990s, the are deregulation policy of national economy of Soeharto Regime. Goverment started to adopt the decentralization and liberalization policy of national economy. It also impacted on television industry. Government had issued a new policy for private broadcasting television licensing. Even though, almost of the private broadcasting television licensing awarde to the “Cendana Family” (Soeharto Family) or the “Circle of Cendana Connection” (The Business Circle of Soeharto Family). The development of Indonesian broadcasting always influenced by historical moment. According to Ishadi SK(1999), there are two historical moment of history of Almost of them are the top leaders of”military intelligent officer” back ground who had supported along the “success story” of military career of General Soeharto. 4 Ishadi SK (1999), The Prospect of The Business of Information in Indonesia (Prospek Bisnis Informasi di Indonesia). Yogyakarta : Pustaka Pelajar. Page.228. 3

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Indonesian private television. First, the biggest historical moment is the “open sky policy” of New Order Soeharto in the 1987. Second, the other moment is the deregulation television policy based on the Decree of Minister of Information No.111/1990. Based on these Decree, the Indonesian private television broadcasting had transforming for four years later. First, after the deregulation policy, there are five private television broadcasting had been seen by Indonesian citizen: RCTI, SCTV, TPI, ANTV and INDOSIAR. Second, Indonesian private television also could conduct broadcasting activities around national space because of supporting from Palapa Satellite and television transmitter. Third, after three years of broadcasting private television, the house production industry also had growth in capital city of Jakarta and in the industrial city of Surabaya. Fourth, the time of broadcasting also added: from 12 hours/day to 16-18/day or 24 in the special event5. According to Ishadi SK (1999:236-237), there are third reason of governance to open their private television licensing for broadcasting in Indonesia. First, there are strong public opinion movement of Indonesian society to build an alternative goverment television networking (TVRI) because of state monopoly and domination. Secondly, there are strong opinion movement of Indonesian entreprenewr and business owner of banking and trade whose need the private television to promote (or to advertise) their products and services. Private broadcasting television being needed because of TVRI prohihibited their space for promotion of products and services. Third, the will of President Soeharto to build the new television broadcasting as social and political education. Based on these reason, the government than give private television licensing to RCTI, INDOSIAR, ANTV, SCTV, LATIVI (currently transform its name as TV ONE) and TPI. For first periode, TPI (Indonesian Education Television) produce their news content and program to supporting national education. INDOSIAR also specified to produce their news content and program to supporting the rural development. While the broadcasting television as an “agent of development” and as a “ partner of government”, there are many kinds of state interventions. State apparatuse always control, not only in the television licensing, and capital power but also they always control the content of news and programs of broadcasting television. In this period, the state power and President Soeharto being main (f)actor for the survivility of each Indonesian

5

Ibid…Page. 181-182.

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broacasting television6. The domination of state power and Soeharto family produces the wave of democratization of which supported by Indonesian NGOs/CSOs, academician, student association, labour association and middle class of Indonesia. Since the 1997-1998, the Asian Crisis rised up around Asian countries. This crises also impacted to Indonesia. The domination of State Intervention by Soeharto being requested among Indonesian reformist and democratic actors. Almost of them conclude that The Soeharto Regime must be falled. In May 1998—also called “The May Revolution 19987”—the democratization movement had spread in many big city of Indonesia. The people power—in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Solo and Surabaya—and almost in the capital city of Indonesian province—went down on the street and asked Soeharto resign from Indonesia Presidency. People power movent also asked the The House of Indonesian Representative(DPR/MPR) to falling the Soeharto Regime. While the “May Revolution 1998” event, the Indonesian private broadcasting television facing the contradiction. Based on economic perspective, almost of the Indonesian private broadcasting television had owned by “Soeharto Family” and “Cendana Circle”. But, based on political perspective, the owner can’t controlled the content of broadcasting television to support the sustainability of Soeharto Regime. The content of news and programs had moving silently to support the democratic movement agains Soeharto Regime. The news gathering and news production always covered the Anti-Soeharto’s student demonstration in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and many capital of Indonesian province. The Indonesian private television also had been broadcasting the live event and talk show of which invited the reformist and democratic actor in the producing public opion to delegitimize the Soeharto Regime8. In May 21, 1998 Soeharto stated that he resigned from Indonesian Presidency. Then, B.J. Habibie—as a vice president—rised up as the third Indonesian President.

See Hermin Indah Wahyuni (2000), Television and State Intervention : The Political Context of Public Policy of Television Broadcasting Industries (Televisi dan Intervensi Negara: Konteks Politik Kebijakan Publik Industri Penyiaran Televisi). Yogyakarta : PT Media Pressindo. 7 See Dedy N. Hidayat (Eds) (2000), Press In The “May Revolution”: The Falling of Political Hegemony (Pers Dalam Revolusi Mei, Runtuhnya Sebuah Hegemoni). Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2000. 8 See Ishadi SK, (2002), The Dynamic Discourses of News Room of RCTI, SCTV and INDOSIAR: Critical Analysis of News Production Processess Facing The Fall of Soeharto’s Government in May 1998 (PraktekPraktek Diskursus Di Ruang Pemberitaan RCTI, SCTV dan INDOSIAR: Analisis Kritis Proses-Proses Produksi Teks Berita Menjelang Berakhirnya Pemerintahan Soeharto, Mei 1998). Un publish Doctoral Desertation for Post-Graduate Program, Departement of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia, Jakarta (Desertasi pada Bidang Studi Ilmu Komunikasi, Program Pasca Sarjana, Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, Universitas Indonesia. Tahun 2002. Tidak diterbitkan). 6

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Eventhough he called as “the political son of Soeharto”, B.J. Habibie had been adopting the principles the democratic values. the Habibie Regime had been supporting the democratic regulation project of Indonesian mass media industries. Under the Habibie Regime, The Goverment and DPR issued the Freedom of Press Law No.40/1999. Based on these regulation, there are freedom of expression, public opinion and freedom of press. Since the fall of New Order Soeharto—from the Habibie to Gus Dur—many private Indonesian television had growth in Jakarta. There new private television: Metro TV, Trans TV, TV-7 (then changed their name as Trans -7 after toke over by Trans Corporation), and Global TV become new comer of private television industry. The democratic movements to change the Indonesian broadcasting also rise up among Civil Society, Political Party and House of Indonesian Representative (DPR/MPR). The reformations of broadcasting regulation become one of main project of Indonesian democracy. This processes resulted the Indonesian Broadcasting Law No.22/2002. The Indonesian private television also transformed their broadcasting journalism’s performance as a fourth estate of democracy.

II.

The Transformation of Indonesian Private Broadcasting Performance: Between Freedom from, Freedom of and Freedom For. After the post New Order Soeharto, the Indonesian private broadcasting television

have been transforming as a democratic actor. One side, the dynamic performance of Indonesian broadcasting television have been influencing by the changing of political economic structure of the re-organizing power of the capital and state. While the process of re-organizing power, Indonesian private broadcasting television being a main field of “Soeharto’s family” and “cendana circles” (cronies of Soeharto’s families). The other side, the democratic actor of Indonesian democracy—NGOs/CSOs, the reformist political elite, professional journalist, the Indonesian association of journalist television, the association of independent journalist and etc—had tried to re-regulate the Indonesian broadcasting television of ownership of which did not dominated by “Soeharto’s family” and “cendana circles” (cronies of Soeharto’s families). The democratic actor of Indonesian democracy did not have power to intervene the capital power of Indonesian private broadcasting television of which owned by “Soeharto’s family” and “cendana circles” (cronies of Soeharto’s families).

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The contestation between two kind actors above still happen since 1998-present, as well as the David Croteau and William Hoynes’s opinion (2000). According to David Croteau and William Hoynes(2000), said that there is the tension between structure and agency as it applies to media and the political world9. Broadcasting television industries was being a main field of contestation because of their strategic position in the democratic era. It is related to David Croteau and William Hoynes (2000) statement who argued that there closes relationship between mass media and political elites: a politics of image, the decline of political parties and mediating institutions and publics as spectator. This relationship between political forces and the media raises important questions about the limits of “free speech,” the impact of economic interests, and the appropriate role of governance10. As a fourth estate of Indonesian democracy, Indonesian private broadcasting performances have been influencing by the implementation the concept of “freedom from”, “freedom of” and “freedom for”. The concept of “freedom from” is the concept of freedom values whose have by media institution come from state, and capital. The freedom from had earned by the Indonesian media industries after Post-New Order Regime, because of no state control and state intervention. But, the biggest problems are the Indonesia mass media industries still do not free from the capital control and capital intervention because of media also the business institution. In the practices of industrial activities, the domination of logic of capital accumulation always had restricted the scales of freedom from of each media industries. The concept of “freedom of” refers to the freedom values of the internal organization of media industry. Each of Indonesian media industry have different scales of freedom while managing their sales and marketing, news gathering and news producing and also their target of market penetration. Each media policies impacted to the scales of freedom of their professional media industries and their journalist. Some time, their freedom of media industries was scarcity because of business interest or political interest. But, some time, their freedoms of media industries also have been encouraging by media organization management to inspire their professional media industries and their journalist to increase their innovation and core competition. It called “the pseudo freedom of” because this freedom values used as instrument of logic of capital accumulation. Thus, 9 David Croteau and William Hoynes(2006), The Business of Media : Corporate Media and The Public Interest. Thousand Oaks, California, London, New Delhi: Pine Forge Press. Page.77.

10

Ibid…Page. 230-237.

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almost of the freedom of media industries has still ambiguity and being camouflage because of the intervention of business owners. The concept of “freedom for” refers to the freedom values of media industry to transform and to gain the main goal of their media performances of which being dedicated to serve the public interest. Freedom for refers to the out come of the media performance while broadcasting programs or presenting their news coverage to serve the public interest. The public interest referrers to many indicator of public goals. For example: is the freedom for of each media supporting the democratic process or not? Is the freedom for of each media results the benefit for the public: politically, socially, culturally and economically? Ideally, media as four estate of democracy have the freedom from, freedom of and freedom for, including private broadcasting television. But there is no ideal situation for private media broadcasting because of the intervention of the business interest and some times political interest. The contestations of state and capital interest always also have influencing the practices of freedom from, freedom of and freedom for. These processes also depend on their structure of political economy of media and media performance. We need more discussing the freedom from, freedom of and freedom for of the private television broadcasting because of some important thing. First, the rise of television industry has been taken over the central position among modern Indonesian and Asian family. According to George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli(1984), television is a central system of storytelling. Its drama, commercials, news and other programs bring a relatively coherent world of common images and messages into every viewing home. People are now born into the symbolic environment of television and live with its repetitive lessons throughout life. Television cultivates from outset the very predisposition that affects future cultural selections and uses. Transcending historic barriers of literacy and mobility, television has become the primary common source of everyday culture of an other wise heterogeneous population. Television provides, perhaps for the first time since pre-industrial religion, a strong cultural link, a shared daily ritual of highly compelling and informative content, between the elites and all other publics11.

11 George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli(1984), Charting The Mainstream : Television’s Contributions To Political Orientations, in Doris A. Garaber(1984), Media Power in Politics. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc. Page…..119.

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Second, the contestation paradigm of television broadcasting—between market model and public sphere model 12 —always have been influencing the performance of Indonesian private television broadcasting. The principal differences between these two approaches, demonstrating that the market and public sphere frameworks have been provide distinct perspectives on fundamental media questions13. One of the most telling differences between these two approaches is their divergent ways of envisioning the audience. The market model views the audience as a market of consumers both of the media products and the goods and services presented in the accompanying advertising. In the public model, the audience is not conceived as a market, nor are individual members of the audience seen simply as consumers. Instead, the audience is perceive as a public, who according to Ien Ang, should be “reformed, educated, informed as well as entertained—in short “served”—presumably to enable them better perform their democratic right and duties”. The market model view of the audience is certainly the predominant, perhaps the only serious, perspective within the media industry. Third, the domination of market-driven journalism has been influencing the construction of the scale of freedom of Indonesian private broadcasting television. This trend related with John H. McManus’s (1994) statement that whether operating in local television, newspapers, radio, news magazines, or network TV, at the heart of market journalism is the logic of the marketplace14. As the name implies, a marketplace is where people come to buy and sell goods and services. Markets are said to increase everyone’s happiness because no one would engage in an exchange unless he or she valued what was gained more than what was given up. After the trade, everyone should be better of. According to John H. McManus (1994) private broadcasting television among the most important are these six related characteristics: the quality and value are defined by consumers, rather than producers or government, the kinds of responsiveness to consumers, self correction, constant motivation to excel, efficient allocation of society’s resources and freedom of choice. Based on assessing the performance of Indonesian private television broadcasting, these trends have been raising since 2004 Indonesian Election and 2009 Indonesian Election. Substantially, the Indonesian private television broadcasting seems hard This concept refers to David Croteau and William Hoynes’s (2006) proposition as well as I will describe bellow. 13 Croteau, David and Hoynes, William (2006)….Loc….cit…page.38-40. 14 John H. McManus (1994), Market-Driven Journalism: Let The Citizen Beware?. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Page.4-5. 12

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difficulties to maintain their freedom from: state, political parties and capital interest, freedom of: in their media organization and their professional media or journalist and freedom from: to fulfill the public interest, public information, public need, and public good.

III. The Transformation Indonesian Mediated Democracy and Public Sphere: The Rise of Spectacle? In the last decade, Indonesian broadcasting television industries becomes a main

medium of representation of public interest. Since the 1999 Indonesian Election, 2004 Indonesian Election and the last 2009 Indonesian Election, Indonesian broadcasting television industries growth as playing actor in the constructing of political events. In Indonesian Case Post New Order Soeharto, the development of modern democracy and modern political, social and cultural institution have been influencing and determining by the mass media industries. Thus, modern democracy never exists without broadcasting television because of their important rules to mediated public interest and public lives. The meaning of the complex term mediation has changed over the centuries, but there are consistent themes to these meanings. According to Grossberg, Wartella, Whitney and Wise (2006) there are four different ways that the term gets used, and all of them are relevant to the study of communication 15 . First, according to Webster’s New World Dicionary, Third Collegiate Edition, a medium is “something intermediate…a middle state….an intervening thing though which a force acts or an effect is produced. “ A very old and commonsensical sense of the term is “to occupy a middle position or intermediary, “as in interceding between adversaries in an attempt to reconcile a dispute. So, the first definition of mediation is interceding or coming between. A Second sense of mediation contrasts the mediated with the immediate or the real. This sense implies that that which has been mediated has been biased or shaped by the mediator and can be contrasted with immediate, objective information. The third sense of mediation is a more modern sense that combines these two meanings. Mediation is the space between the individual subject and reality. That space is a space of experience, interpretation, and meaning. In other words, this definition of mediation implies that our notion of reality is always shaped by these things (experience, interpretation, and 15 See Lawrence Grossberg, Ellen Wartella, D.Chales Whitney and J.Maccgregor Wise (2006). Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publication.

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meaning), which come between one’s self and reality. The fourth sense of the term mediation refers to a formal relationship that connects previously unconnected activities or people. In this sense, mediation refers to how message are transmitted from one person to another. Grossberg, Wartella, Whitney and Wise (2006) also had proposed that the notion of communication is complex because it embodies all four of theses senses of the term mediation: reconciliation or intercession, the difference between realities and an image or interpretation of reality, the space of interpretation between the subject and reality and the connection that creates the circuit of the communication of meaning. At large space of interaction since New Order until Post New Order Soeharto, broadcasting television always have been producing the circuit of the communication of meaning of Indonesian democracy. The strong power of broadcasting television also impacted on the formation of new Indonesian public sphere. Mass media industries always had constructed many discourses and distributing the public information in the public sphere.

What is the meaning of public sphere?

According to McQuail (2005) In general the public sphere refers to a notional “space” which provides a more or less autonomous and open arena or forum for public debate. Ideally, the access to the space is free, and freedoms of assembly, association and expression are guaranteed. The “space” lies between the “basis” and the “top” of society, and mediation takes place between the two. The basis can also be considered to be the private sphere of the life of individual citizens; while the political institutions ate the centre or top are parts of the public life16. McQuail (2005) said that there are the close relationship between media, civil society and the public sphere. He proposed fifth important things. First, a civil society is free, democratic, non-oppressive and lawful. Second, a civil society has a developed public sphere. Third, the public sphere provides a space between state and private citizen for other social formations and voluntary action. Fourth, the mass media are an institution of the public sphere, providing for discussion and debate and for the circulation of information. Fifth, civil society with a healthy public sphere stands opposed to a mass or authoritarian society. The public sphere always being needed to facilitate the public debate and democratic discourse among citizen. There is also adequate democratic political process, 16

Dennis McQuail, 2005, Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage Publication Ltd. Page.181

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provision for justice and protection of human rights. According to McQuail (2005) Habermas’s account of the rise of democracy, historically the first version of the public sphere or space was represented mainly by the eighteenth-century coffee house or debating society, where active participants in political life met, discussed and formed political projects. An important role was to keep check on government by way of informed and influential public opinion. Habermas was generally somewhat pessimistic about the consequences for democracy in modern times since the public was more likely to be manipulated by the media than helped to form opinions in a rational way. McQuail, (2005) said that in fact, positive expectations concerning the role of the media in the public sphere have mainly been expressed in relation to new media or have emerged in the form of criticism of the declining journalistic standards of mass media. McQuail (2005)—quoted James Carey’s opinion—in a scathing critique of contemporary journalistic tendencies, raises the troubling question of what becomes of journalism if it ceases to care about its democratic role. He writes: “without the institutions or spirit of democracy journalists are reduced to propagandists or entertainers“(Carey, 1999:17). Carrey also (1999) goes on to remark that “journalism can be destroyed by forces other than the totalitarian state; it can also be destroyed by the entertainment state”17. The problem of the domination of market-driven journalism also produces several corrosive effects on the public sphere. David Croteau and William Hoynes (2006) argued that in particular, several of the media’s characteristics are often cited for their corrosive effect on the public sphere18. First, drama: the news media tend to focus on dramatic stories, such as scandals, to attract reader and viewers. Second, the negativity: the nature of news results in an emphasis on stories that have a “negative” tone. More broadly, the news seems to focus on shocking, disturbing and sometimes depressing events, such as conflict, crisis and disasters—and rarely gives citizens a sense that there are practical solutions. Third, events instead of issues: the format of the contemporary news media— especially broadcast media—lends itself to coverage of spectacular events, not enduring issues. Brevity and drama often seem to be the watchwords of media coverage. What readers and, especially, viewers experience is a parade of isolated incidents full of dramatic images. Fourth, personalities instead of policies: the media often focus on personalities, not policies. It is easier to deliver drama though the personal lives of public figures or the 17 18

Ibid…Page.182. David Croteau and William Hoynes (2006)…Loc…cit….217-221.

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personal tragedies of victims. This human interest approach has a place in journalism, but it has displaced more substantive analysis and examination of public policy and social issues. Fifth, fragmentation and Superficiality: the news media’s coverage of events tends to be fragmented and episodic, with little depth or context. Again, because of the type of media formulas often used, news can be little more than a series of isolated events. The news spotlight wanders across the landscape, briefly illuminating certain events before moving on to the next ones. Sixth, lack of relevance: the news media often do not address the concerns of average citizens, focusing instead on “insider” politics and economic information for the investor class. This result is likely to be further alienation and disengagement from the public life. Seventh, strategy over substance: a great deal of political news focuses on the “game” of politics, highlighting the strategic actions of various public figures. This emphasis on political strategy, calculation, and tactics generally diverts attention from the substance of political actions and policies. In sum, the news media generally address people as consumers and spectators, not active citizens. Review on the Indonesian private television broadcasting performance seventh’s indicator above—was being practiced. The performance of Indonesian private broadcasting television had shown the lack of political education, public information, public interest and public need. Almost of them involved—with different scales, directly or indirectly—as a partisanship of state, political parties and capital interest. It can bee seen on the performance of Indonesian private broadcasting television during covering the Indonesian election (e.g. 2004 Indonesian election) 19 . Their professional media or journalist also influences by spin doctor networks of political consultants, and also determined by Indonesian elite agenda and state agenda—not public agenda20. Indonesian citizen during the national and local election was seen as consumers of political candidate and political parties.

19 Seee Stanley (Eds) (2004), The New Style, Old Performance: Content Analysis on The Indonesian Broadcasting Television of Political Campaign Event, June 1- July 1, 2004 (Cara Baru Pola Lama : Pemantauan Televisi Selama Masa Kampanye Pemilu 1 Juni – 1 Juli 2004). Jakarta. Unpublished Monograph by Institute Studies of Information Flow (Monograf 3, 2004. Institut Studi Arus Informasi dan Koalisi Media Pemantau Pemilu, Jakarta. Tidak diterbitkan). See also Stanley (Eds) (2004). 20 See Ahmad Nyarwi, The Changing and Challenging of Indonesian Political Communication and Political Marketing Performances Facing the Indonesian 2009 Election. Paper For Presentation of AMIC Conference. New Delhi, July, 13-16, 2009.

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Since 2004 Indonesian Election, some of Indonesian celebrities also reach out their position as a member of House of Representative21. They always use the political marketing strategy to mobilize their political image and also use the private broadcasting television as a main medium of their political public relation. There is new “celebrity styles” of Indonesian political cultures of which adopted not only by celebrity, but also adopted by the other politician. And almost of the Indonesian broadcasting private television also always have been presenting political elites or political candidate as a celebrity during the news program, talk show and entertainment program.

IV. The Changing Concept of Public : From Public Community To Mass Society The transformation the concept of public—from public community to mass society— had influenced by the transformation of the interaction of mass media industries and its society in modern democracy. The private broadcasting television also faces the hard problems related the unfinished meaning and unfinished interpretation of “public interest”. The changing of the structure of modern society also constructed the many kinds of transformation of social, cultural and economic relationship of society. The modernization of the infrastructure of telecommunication and globalization of communication relation, urbanization of cross border and nations, types of Diasporas of society’s culture, and the structuring of modern public institution had impacted the public community. In the long time and large space it has been causing the changing concept and interpretation and also definition of the public. Grossberg, Wartella, Whitney and Wise (2006) argued three defining the meaning of public 22 . First, public defines as the not-private, that which goes on in the open, observable by and accessible to others, as in “open to the public”. Second, public defines as general, pertaining to or emanating from all citizens, as in public interest or public opinion. Third, public defines as communal, or governmentally owned or regulated, as in public television or public utilities.

See Ahmad Nyarwi, “From Celebrity to Politician : Celebrity Politics and the Changing of Political Popular Culture Post-New Order Soeharto”. Paper presented at International Conference, Gender and Power in Southeast Asia. September, 24-29, 2007. Organized by Faculty of Social Science, National University of Malaysia (University Kebangsaan Malaysia) and SEASREP-Philippines. 22 Lawrence Grossberg, Ellen Wartella, D.Chales Whitney and J.Maccgregor Wise (2006). Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi : Sage Publication. Page.384-394 21

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Grossberg, Wartella, Whitney and Wise (2006) said that public implies openness, community, citizenship, discussion, debate. And the relationship between media and public can be discussed on several levels by reference to these terms. Public and level: as individuals, as aggregates, as members of organized groups (special interest groups and virtual communities) and as citizens. What is the meaning of mass society? W.Russell Neuman (2001: 301) said that a mass society is characterized by homogeneity of mass population and the weakness of interpersonal and group life. According to Mc Quail (2005) the concept of mass based on four characteristic: large aggregate, undifferentiated, mainly negative image, lacking order or organization and reflective of mass society23. W.Russell Neuman (2001: 301) said that since the turn of the century the rapid urbanization and industrialization of Europe and the United State has resulted in fifth social formation 24 . First, the decline of family life—the nuclear family replaces the extended family: family members spend less time together; children attend large; centralized, anomic school systems; working mothers may be absent; television watching replaces family conversation. Second, the alienating workplace—mobility from job to job and isolating work conditions in large organizations make both the workplace and work associates less important to the individual. Third, the decline of local community— dispersed suburban areas are separated from central, integrating cultural institutions of the city give residents little sense of community. Fourth, the weakening of religious ties— although the majority of people may identify themselves as religiously affiliated, such affiliation is nominal and participation is irregular or nonexistent. Fifth, the weakening of ethic ties—over time ethnic communities blur into a massified urban landscape. Sixth, the decline of participation in voluntary associations—the lack of the group life further weakens the individual sense of identity and connectedness (Fromm, 1941; Riesman, 1950; Kornhauser, 1959; Bell, 1992; Giner, 1976; Beniger, 1987). The changing concepts from public community to mass society in the neo-liberal context also have been challenging the professional journalist’s interpretation of public interest. According McQuail, 2005: 182-183) a basic premise of the public journalism movement is that journalism has a purpose that it ought to try and improve the quality of civil life by fostering participation and debate. Schudson (in McQuail, 2005) describes it as Mc Quail, (2005)….Loc…cit…Page. 4. W.Russell Neuman (2001), The Impact of the New Media, dalam Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page.301.

23

24

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bases on a “trustee model” rather than a market or advocacy model. Schudson (1998:136) proposed that in the trustee model, journalist should provide news according to what they as professional groups believe citizens should know”. In Schudson words, “The journalists are professionals who hold citizenship in trust for us”. Ideally, the professional journalists drive the Trustee model of journalism styles. But, in practices, the trustee model always had dominated by market model and advocacy model. The transformation public concept to mass society concept has been resulting many problems and challenges in the Indonesian mediated democracy, especially on the power elite, citizen, public sphere, media and government relation. Since Post New Order Soeharto (quoted McQuail, 2005) it is being hard to realize a third set of ideas about mass communication—that the media could be a potent force for public enlightenment, supplementing and continuing the new institutions of universal schooling, public libraries and popular education25.

V.

The Political Economic Structure of Indonesian Private Broadcasting. The dynamic of Indonesian private broadcasting during the democratic regimes

have been facing the barriers of their political economic structure. Its relevant with the Dennis McQuail(2005) opinion. According to Dennis McQuail, (2005: 41) the relation between media and society had influenced by a material, a political and a normative or social-cultural dimension 26 . The central to the political dimension is the question of freedom and control. The main normative issue concerns how media ought to use the freedom they have. The dual rules as social/public institution and business institution always determines the political economic structure of Indonesian broadcasting industries. Indonesian political performance after the fall of New Order Soeharto have been determining by broadcasting journalism industry, especially private broadcasting industri. There are two major, private broadcasting journalism industry in Indonesia. First, is private radio broadcasting journalism. Second, is the private television broadcasting journalism. Based on structural perspective, the dynamic of Indonesia radio and television broadcasting journalism determined by the structure of media industry: media ownership, 25 26

McQuail (2005)….Loc…cit…52. Ibid….Page…41.

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power relation of internal and external organization, human resources, networking pattern—local, national and international—and broadcasting regulation. Each factors— directly or inderectly—always have been influencing the product and performance of Indonesian broadcasting journalism. To enhance their business corporation, almost of the Indonesian radio and television broadcasting strengthen their business as business networking or concentration. Two type of business strategy being practiced by each Indonesian media industries since 1990s. The choice of the model depend on capital power, their market segmentation, and their human resources. There are two model of business networking strategy. First, ownership networking model. Secondly, the broadcasting networking model. First, the ownership networking model is the major trend of Indonesian private radio broadcasting. In the 2006, based on Persatuan Radio Siaran Swasta Nasional Indonesia/PRSSNI, there are 845 distributed in almost Indonesian regions. From thse total private radio, 222 radio (26.3%) had owned by radio networking corporation. And the biggest radio networking radio corporation in Inondiesa is Citra Pariwara Prima (CPP) Radionet. This corporation had 40 radio networking oround Indonesian region27. Table 1 The distribution of Indonesian private radio broadcasting ownership Networking Radio Group Mugi Rekso Abadi (MRA) Rajawali Media Group-Surabaya Gajahmada Group Rajawali Group-Lampung Pentas Group Mersi Group Kartika Group Masima Media Investama Cipta Pariwara Prima (CPP) Radionet Suzana Radionet Arbes Network Smart FM Network Mayangkara Radionet Ramako Group Rajawali Citra Mandiri (RCM) Radio Network

Total of Member 10 3 3 4 4 4 3 14 40 12 9 6 5 5 9

Eriyanto(2008), The Ownership of Media Concentration and The Potential Impact on Public Sphere (Konsentrasi Kepemilikan Media dan Ancaman Ruang Publik). FISIPOL UGM, Yogyakarta : Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik. Volume 12 No. 2 November 2008

27

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Volare Group ( Kalimantan Barat) 14 Bens Group 9 Nirwana Group 9 El Victor Group 2 Group Trijaya / Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) 6 Lita Sari Group 3 Bonsita Group 24 Kidung Indah Selaras Suara (KISS) Group 6 Kardopa Group 8 Alnaro Group 4 Smart FM Group 6 Total 222 radio Source: Eriyanto (2008), Data from PRSSNI, 2006; Pantau and Cakram Magazine, Special Edition Radio Networking (Edisi Khusus Jejaring Radio) Second, is the broadcasting networking model. After the Post New Order, the broadcasting networking model also used by some private radio and television to enhance their business corporation. For example, the 68H Radio have been joining cooperation with almost local private and public radio around Indonesian regency and municipalities’ level. Currently, 68 H Radio has 230 member of networking local radio station and they are always rely 68H broadcasting content. The second kind of Indonesian private broadcasting industry is the private television industry. After the Post New Order Soeharto Indonesia, there are 11 private television industries and one public television has been broadcasting their programs around Indonesian territories. Indonesian private television broadcasting has also emerging with monopolistic and concentration business networking. Since a decade post New Order, there are many take over and synergy’s policy omong Indonesian private television. This process results the media concentration. Indonesia, Metro TV, SCTV, RCTI, TPI, Global TV, ANTV, TV One, Trans 7 and Trans TV are the private Indonesian television of which has national broadcasting exposure area. RCTI, TPI, and Global TV owned by Kelompok Bimantara or Media Nusantara Cipta. ANTV and TV-One owned by Kelompok Bakrie or Visi Media Asia. Trans TV and TV-7 owned by Kelompok PARA-KKG. There are just thee national private television: SCTV, METRO TV and INDOSIAR still running their television business without networking.

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Table 2 The Main Group of Indonesian Private Broadcasting Television Kelompok Televisi Anggota Jaringan Televisi Kelompok Bimantara (Media Nusantara 3 (RCTI, TPI, Global TV) Cipta) Kelompok Bakrie (Visi Media Asia) 2 (ANTV-TV One) Kelompok PARA-KKG 2 (Trans TV-TV7) Total 7 buah Source: Tempo Magazine, 26 November 2006 in Eriyanto (2008) Advertising revenues also a main factor of which influencing the competition among Indonesian private broadcasting television. From the total of advertising revenues, there are three group of Indonesian private television—Bimantara / MNC, Bakrie dan PARA Group—of which reach out 64.5% from the total of advertising share revenues. These three groups of Indonesia private television also reach out 61.4% audience’s share of Indonesian television. For the future, there is impossible thing that INDOSIAR, METRO TV and SCTV strengthen their self in each group or join together on a one group. It is being predicted that INDONESIAR will being joining with PARA Group of which have Trans TV and TV 7. Table 3 Advertising Share Revenues of Indonesian Private Television’s networking Television Networking/Television Business’s Group

Advertising Revenues Total (in Share (%) Billion Rupiah)

Audience’s Share (%)

Kelompok Bimantara (Media Nusantara Cipta) 4.100.903 26.6 31.9 Kelompok Bakrie (Visi Media Asia 2.122.239 12.3 13.8 Kelompok PARA-KKG 3.720.429 24.1 17.2 Total 9.943.571 64.5 61.4 SCTV 1.915.377 12.4 16.8 Indosiar Visual Mandiri 2.138.854 13.8 17.6 Lainnya 1.471.407 9.3 4.2 Source : Eriyanto (2008), Adopted from Media Scene (2006) and Indonesia Media Guide (2005)

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The tables above describe the pattern of Indonesian private media concentration— TV and Radio—and the pattern of advertising share revenues. Based on the pattern of media concentration and ownership and also of advertising share revenues of Indonesian private broadcasting television, there is lack of democratic values. The media concentration always impacted on many important thing of which determines the freedom and control of private broadcasting journalism. It is relate with David Croteau and William Hoynes (2000), statement on the effect of concentration28. There are four main effects: the effect on media control and political power, the effect of media ownership and content diversity, the effects on mass media for profit, and the impact of advertising industries. The networking pattern and concentration of ownership also impacted on media organization, media management and also the pattern and culture of Indonesian private television broadcasting journalism. Freedoms of expression always have been driving the mode of production of Indonesian television industries. Based on democratization perspective, Indonesian private broadcasting television had growth as pivotal actor to enhance the freedom of expression and free mediated of Indonesian contemporary political issues. But, based on economic perspective, there is no democratization processes of Indonesian private television because of concentration of ownership, and the domination of market-driven journalism.

VI. The Potential Conflict of Interest: Between State, Capital, and Public Interest. Indonesian private television industries have been challenging facing the conflict of interest between state, capital and public interest. The different perspective between state, capital and public interest results the different expectation of those element to the private television industry. The state always expects that television industry have been supporting the state’s public policy, national development and strengthen the nation-state’s imagination among citizen. The capitals always try to use the television industry as economic power to gain their maximal profits. The public interest always expects that television industry can fulfills the public interest on the democratization of public need, public information and public good.

28 David Croteau and William Hoynes (2000), Media/Society: Industries, Image and Audience. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publication Ltd. Second Edition. Page.48-75.

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In the real daily lives, there is contestation and conflict of interest between state, capital and public interest. According to Croteau, and Hoynes (2006), the media’s role in facilitating democracy and encouraging citizenship has always been in tension with its status as a profit-making industry. Mediating between these two has been the government whose regulations (or lack there of) have fundamentally shaped the environment within which the media operate. The tension of conflict of interest between state, capital and public interest caused by the type of whose dominated model of each media industry. According to Croteau, and Hoynes (2006), there are two major model of which contested of media industry: the market model oriented and public sphere model oriented29. Each of them depends on the differences of nine characteristic: how are media conceptualized, what is the primary purpose of the media, how are audience addressed, what are the media the media encouraging people to do, what is the public interest, what is the role of diversity and innovation, how is regulation perceived, to whom are media ultimately accountable and how is success measured. There are the different of nine characteristic between market model oriented and public sphere model oriented as well as decribed on table bellow.

Table 4 Summary of Media Model No Indicators 1. 2. 3.

29

How are media conceptualized ? What is the primary purpose of the media? How are audience addressed ?

Market Model Oriented Private Companies selling products Generate profits for owners and stockholders As Consumers

Public Sphere Model Oriented. Public resources serving the public Promote active citizenship via information, education, and social integration As Citizens

4.

What are the media encouraging people to do?

Enjoy themselves, view ads, and buy products

Learn abouts world and be active citizens

5.

What is the public interest?

Whatever is popular

Diverse, subtantive, and innovative content, even if not always popular.

David Croteau and William Hoynes(2006).Loc…Cit.. Page. 38

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6.

What is the role of diversity and innovation?

7.

How is regulation perceived ?

8.

Innovation can be a threat to profitable, standardized formulas. Diversity can be a strategy for reaching new niche markets. Mostly seen as interfering with market processes Owners and shareholders

Innovation is central to engaging citizens. Diversity is central to media’s mission of representing the range of the public’s views and tastes. Useful tool in protecting the public interest.

To whom are The public and goverment media ultimately representatives. accountable? 9. How is success Profits Serving the Public interest. measured ? Source: Adopted from David Croteau and William Hoynes(2006), Media, Markets and The Public Sphere, dalam The Business of Media : Corporate Media and The Public Interest. Thousand Oaks, California, London, New Delhi: Pine Forge Press. Page. 38. Croteau, and Hoynes (2006), said that the two—the market and the public sphere models—provide different lenses for seeing and evaluating recent developments in the media industry. The market model frames a great deal of public discourse about the media industry and is the only language with any currency in the media business itself, but whenever critics or citizens complain about the performance of mass media, public sphere concerns are likely to be present30. The kinds of model of which referred by each of Indonesian broadcasting television impacted the performance of social relation of each media institutions. There are three types of social relations31 : First, the relationships between institutions, for example, the interaction between the media industry and the government. Second, the relationships within an institution, which involve the interaction of individuals occupying their institutional roles and positions—for example, the relationship between screen writer and the head of a motion picture studio. Third, the relationship between institutions and individuals, who are always part of larger social groups—for example, the use of media products by audiences or readers. The performance of the social relation of each media institution also impacted on three pairs of questions about structural constraint and agency32: First, the relationship between institutions: it is concern on how do non media social structures, such as Ibid…. Page..38-40. David Croteau and William Hoynes (2000)...Loc...cit. Page. 20. 32 Ibid…Page. 22-23 30 31

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government and the economy, affect the media industry? How does the media industry influence non media social structures? Second, the relationship within an institution: this level concern on how does the structure of the media industry affect media personnel (and indirectly media products)? How much do media personnel influence the media products (and indirectly the media industry)? Third, the relationships between an institution and the public: this level concern on how do the mass media influence the readers (audiences) of media messages? How do readers interpret and use media messages? The main question is how to support the public interest at all of types of the performance social relation of each media? McQuail (2005) said that the difficulties of handling the public interest concept are inextricably connected with its significance. McQuail (quoted Blumler, 1998:54-5) proposed three key points33. Firsts, just as in the case of government, there are questions of authority as well as of power: “In communications, the media are similarly paced. The justification for their freedoms, their wide-ranging roles in society, politics and culture, and their place in regulatory orders depends ultimately on the public interests presumed to be served thereby. In short, the power of the media, like that of government, has to be used in a legitimate way, which is not far removed from the notion of responsibility. Secondly, Blumler argues that “a certain transcendent quality attaches to the notion of the public interest. It is different from and, in policy terms, superior to particular interests. This entails a longer-term perspective, in which the claims of successor generations and the future of society are included as well as people’s immediate needs. Thirdly, “notions of the public interest must work in an imperfect and impure world”. This means inevitable tension, compromise and improvisation according to circumstances. McQuail, 2005 (quoted Held, 1970) also has described two of the main versions of what constitutes the public interest and how its content might be established34. One is a “majoritarian” view, according to which the issue should be settled by reference to the popular vote. In the case of media this would tend to equate the public interest with “giving the public what it wants”, pleasing the majority of consumers in the media market. The opposing view is called “Unitarian” or “absolutist”, since the public interest would be decided by reference to some single dominant value or ideology. This would lead at best to a paternalistic system in which decisions about what is good are decided by guardians or 33 34

Dennis McQuail( 2005)...Loc….cit…. Page..160. Ibid…Page.165.

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experts. Between the free-market version of the public interest and the paternalistic model, there are alternative, but none offers clear guidance. Ideally, to serve the “public interest” is the main goal of media performance in the mediated democracy. Even though, there is still many controversial interpretation of “public interest”.

McQuail (2005) proposed the main public interest criteria and

requirements 35 . There are: freedom of publication, plurality of ownership of media, diversity of information, opinion and culture, support for public order and the security of the state, extensive (near-universal) reach, quality of information and culture available to the public, adequate support for the democratic political system (public sphere), respect for individual and general human rights and avoiding harm and offence to society and individuals. All of them are the normative values of which very difficult to be realized by Indonesian private broadcasting television. But, each media industry always requested their moral duties to fulfill the public interest based on those main criteria and requirements. As a public institution the broadcasting televisions—and radio—are still generally licensed and have limited political freedom in practice, partly because of their privileged access to scarce spectrum space and partly because of their believed impact and power to persuade. But they are also often expected to use their informative capacity to support the democratic process and serve the public good in other ways. Even so, the current trend is for market forces to have a greater influence on the conduct of broadcasting than either political control or voluntary social responsibility 36 . Based on this condition, each country—including Indonesia—considers and need to regulate the broadcasting television—and radio—to protect the public interest and to support the democratization processes. There is new regulation policy of Indonesian broadcasting after the post New Orde Soeharto. In this period, government and House of Representative (DPR) had issued the new regulation policy of Indonesian broadcasting. The Indonesian goverment issued the new broadcasting law : Broadcasting Law No.32/2002. This broadcasting law becoming “broadcasting regulation of new democratic regime”. In the first years, almost of the element of Indonesian democratic actor being confident that this regulation to support the democratization of Indonesian media industries. Based on this regulation, there is small 35 36

Ibid…Page 166. David Croteau and William Hoynes(2006), Loc..cit….Page.42

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space of state intervention. But, this regulation produced by “the former of the Soeharto political circle(Cendana Family and Cendana Circle)” conspiracies to re-regulate the Indonesian broadcasting industries of which substantially less democratic opportunities. The central issues was not opening television broadcasting undustries to the private institutions, but rather more creating regulations to improve the performance of the broadcasting system by amending its weaknesses and cultivating more resopect for the public. According to Wahyuni (2008), the creation of television broadcasting policy in Indonesia could be referred to as a re-regulation process rather than a deregulation process37. The decision of the policy makers to pursue re-regulation can be better understood in light of the deregulation of television broadcasting in 1998. The deregulation processes at that time was only political camuflage because of the strong nepotistic influence by the New Order regime. The Soeharto government opened the television broadcasting licenses only to the president’s family and his cronies. High numbers of previleges that were given by government to television industry actors resulted in many negative television broadcasting policies : (e.g. high tendency towards monopolies, cross-ownership and commercialisation) until the fall the regime in 199838. The 1998 deregulation in Indonesia was supposed to open and privatise the television broadcasting market. Licenses were only issued to extra-state actors who supported the continued existence of the New Order regime, as well as the interests of certain powerful groups in the Indonesian television industry. According to Wahyuni (2008) there are many potential problems in creating a democratic television broadcasting system in Indonesia39. First, the first potential problem is the domination by private/commercial stations rather than public service stations. According to Wahyuni (2008), there are two forms of broadcasting organizations that are new to Indonesia: public service television stations and community television stations. Public service television stations have never actually been fully implemented in Indonesia. Community broadcasting institutions, however basically aim to accommodate many interests at the local level in light of the decentralization process throughout Indonesia. It still seems difficult to expect community television to be the solution to the lack of balance Hermin Indah Wahyuni (2008). Broadcasting Media Regulation. Yogyakarta : Faculty of Social and Political Science Press of Gadjah Mada University (Penerbit FISIPOL UGM). First Editiond. Page.127. 38 Ibid…Page.128. 39 Ibid,…Page.139-150. 37

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between private and public sector television stations. And there are the high numbers of private/commercial television stations that have been established at the local level, which is a result of the decentralization policy. Second, the second potential problem is the lack of supporting media sector for a democratic broadcasting system (Wahyuni, 2008). According to Wahyuni (2008) the Indonesia’s television broadcasting system still does not fulfill the ideal conditions of a democratic broadcasting system as defined by James Curran in his “working model of a democratic media system”. Wahyuni said that Indonesia has only three types of journalists: “entertainer” journalists (offered by commercial stations), “advocate” journalists (offered by the civic media sector) and “balanced” perspective” journalists (offered by public service television)(Wahyuni, 2008). Third, the third potential problem is the challenges to the enforcing of decentralization policy in broadcasting. According to Wahyuni (2008), the broadcasting decentralization policy in Indonesia positively contributes to democracy in regard to empowering economic, political, social and cultural growth at the local level, and serving the local public interest. However, the high amount of resistance by opponents of this policy and the “unclear” position of the government regarding the transition process from centralized to the decentralized broadcasting policy indicate that there are problems in the employment of this policy. Based on these problems, therefore, the decentralization of the television broadcasting system in Indonesia remains unpredictable (Wahyuni, 2008). Fourth, The relationship between Department of Information and Communication (KOMINFO) and Indonesian Broadcasting Commission: between beneficial or detrimental. According to Wahyuni (2008), Indonesia has succeeded in creating KPI as a broadcasting commission that is concerned with the protection of the general public interest regarding broadcasting. The high expectations of the reform groups that supported KPI taking over the authority of the government in broadcasting had to face the fact that the Constitutional Court returned regulatory authority to the government. The return of the government as the primary broadcasting regulator resulted in KPI’s authority degraded. KPI has become a commission that regulates television programming content. The controversy regarding the positions of KPI and KOMINFO has had an impact on the quality of their relationships as they work together to enforce the broadcasting law (Wahyuni, 2008). Fifth, the fifth potential problem is the challenges in pursuing the public interest. The problem of interpretation of “public interest” might become a significant issue. Under

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Indonesia’s previous authoritarian regime, the government interpreted the public interest in light of the government’s own interests, and therefore television functioned primarily as a medium to support the government’s political interests. The new broadcasting system interprets the public interest much more broadly. “Public interest” refers to the internal interests of primarily television industry actors and the external interests of the general public as audiences of television stations (public service TV stations, private/commercial stations, community stations, and subscribed stations)(Wahyuni, 2008). Under Broadcasting Law No.22/2002, the Indonesian private broadcasting reaches out their position as main (f) actor of Indonesian democracy. In this period, in one side, the paradigm of Indonesian private broadcasting journalism had transform from a “partner of government” to “the public-oriented journalism”. In other side, the Indonesian private broadcasting journalism also transform from a “partner of government” to “the market-oriented journalism”. The conflict of the main logic of journalism—between state, capital and public interest oriented model—always have been resulting the unfinished contradiction of Indonesian private broadcasting journalism. In my conclusion, there two factor of which contributed these kind of contradiction are the natural and genuine logic of the structure of Indonesian private broadcasting television and the “unclear” or “unperfect” of the Indonesian broadcasting regulation to fullfill the public interests. The structure of Indonesian private broadcasting television had constructed by state power—since the Old Older Soekarno until the New Order Soeharto— and also constructed by cronies of state capitalisme (Cendana Family and Cendana Circle)—since the 1990s of New Orde Soeharto until present. This contradiction also being sutainable because of unperfect processes and the many “grey area” of re-regulation broadcasting law of reformation era (Post New Order Soeharto ): The Broadcating Law No.22/2002. The changing of political transformation Post New Order also open the opportunity to capital intervention to political regime. The capital interest and state interest have been growing as a potential power whose dominated the publict interest. They also have been joining together to control the House of Representative’s political views while procudes the critize the monopoly of television’s ownership.

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The commoditization and tablobloidization of political reality and public opion was always being developed by the Indonesian private broadcasting40. The commoditization and tabloidization more attractes the Indonesian audiences rather than “normative style” of program. The hard field of competition cause these trends being adopted by almost the Indonesian private television broadcasting. Terorism issues, corruption issues, presidential election issues, political party issues, security/criminal issues and almost the other public issues always have been framming based on commoditization and tabloidization perspective. The Indonesian civil society and citical or independent journalist association always tries to promote the public interest perspective and request the goverment authority to endorce the public interest perspective of Indonesian private television broadcasting. The goverment rules also being dilematic because of the bias between state interest in one side, and the other side to fullfils the public interest. In practices, the Indonesian govermnent tend to have less power to protect the Indonesian public sphere from capital intervention. The government and civil society also less enough power to control the private broadcasting television whose their broadcasting performances dominated by the commoditization and tabloidization of political reality and public opinion.

VII. For Further Discussion and Reflection. The dynamic performances of Indonesian private broadcasting television have been driving by the market-oriented model of journalism because of the decline and disintegration of the public sphere. Ian Ward (1995 : 12-13), said that in the end tracing Habermas’s account of the decline and “disintegration” of the public sphere leads back to the question of the place of television in modern political life which was our point of departure41. Greatly simplified, his wider argument is that this disintegration began when class contradictions, inevitably attenuated by the evolution of monopoly capitalism and irresolvable in the private sphere, spilled into the public realm.

The concept of commoditization refers to Cheasney’s (1998) theoretical frame work. For further explanation, see Robert Mc Cheasney (1998), The Political Economy of Global Communication, dalam Capitalism and The Information Age : The Political Economy of The Global Communication Revolution, Robert W. Mc Cheasney, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (Eds), Monthly Review Press, New York, 1998. 41 Ian Ward (1995), Politics of The Media. Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd. Page. 12-13. 40

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This resulted in forms of state economic intervention which established the government as a major participant in, and coordinator of the economy. It also led to state intervention aimed, ironically, at securing the public sphere in the form of governmentfunded education, public library systems, and, eventually, government-owned and regulated broadcast media. In this way the expanded state and civil society increasingly infiltrated one another and destroyed the very basis of an independent public sphere. Rather than preserve the latter, the development of mass media—especially private broadcasting television—contributed to its destruction. In an ideal public sphere, individuals are both producers and consumers of ideas. Technological innovation and the development of new broadcast media, especially televisions were also inimical to that non-distorted, free communication which is the public sphere ideal. In the first place, large Private Corporation and government obtained control of the broadcast media. Television deprived viewers of any opportunity to say something or to disagree, and it turned public debate into a form of commodity. In this context journalism not only lost out to advertising, entertainment and public relations, but began to imitate these media forms. Thus, the emergence of the electronic media accelerated the transformation of citizens—members of the public—into depoliticized consumers. The quality private television’s news and program of which contains the Indonesian public sphere was being a serious problem for Indonesian television audiences/citizen. The Indonesian private broadcasting television always have been covering their activities a news, talk show and adversarial as well as a commoditization and tabloidization style. Indonesian AC Nielson was being the main decision maker of the rating of Indonesian private television program. The highest kinds of television program always was being the trend of which adopted by the other competitor of private television. As an audience, Indonesian citizen also most preferred the commoditization and tabloidization style of news and television programs rather than “normative standard” of television program and journalism reporting. In my conclusion, the rise of the Indonesian private broadcasting television post New Order Soeharto results the paradoxes of broadcasting private television during mediated democracy. Based on structural perspective, the changing of Indonesian public sphere depends on media regulation, political regulation, political culture and the structure of social and political system. In modern democracy, broadcasting industries has

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been transforming their self as a pivotal medium of public sphere. The inequalities of power, access of information and representation, the market/capital domination/ capital interest and less powerless the political system to enforcing the public interest has causing the Indonesian public sphere being corrosive. And currently, the seventh corrosive effects above also emerge as the main problem of Indonesian public sphere. Political parties, state apparatuses/government, and civil society (including NGOs and CSOs) always contest their interest as a public debate in broadcasting television: e.g. on corruptions issues, transparency of government’s public policy issues, political economic issues, environment issues (global warming and climate change), public services issues, security issues, the accountability of national and local election, and etc. Almost on these issues, between political parties, state apparatuses/ government and civil society (including NGOs and CSOs) results many conflict of interest, internally and externally of their institutions/community. Almost of the Indonesian private television have been formatting these issues as a spectacle, rather than to facilitate a public debate to fulfill the Indonesian public interest. Literary Reference Croteau, David and Hoynes, William (2000), Media/Society: Industries, Image and Audience. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publication Ltd. Second Edition. Croteau, David and Hoynes, William (2006), The Business of Media: Corporate Media and The Public Interest. Thousand Oaks, California, London, New Delhi: Pine Forge Press. Eriyanto(2008), The Ownership of Media Concentration and The Potential Impact on Public Sphere (Konsentrasi Kepemilikan Media dan Ancaman Ruang Publik). FISIPOL UGM, Yogyakarta : Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik. Volume 12 No. 2 November 2008 Gerbner, George, Gross, Larry, Morgan, Michael and Signorielli, Nancy (1984), Charting The Mainstream: Television’s Contributions To Political Orientations, in Doris A. Garaber(1984), Media Power in Politics. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc. Grossberg, Lawrence, Wartella, Ellen, Whitney, D.Chales and Wise, Maccgregor (2006). Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publication.

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Hidayat, Dedy N. (Eds) (2000), Press In The “May Revolution”: The Falling of Political Hegemony (Pers Dalam Revolusi Mei, Runtuhnya Sebuah Hegemoni). Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2000. Mc Cheasney, Robert (1998), The Political Economy of Global Communication, dalam Capitalism and The Information Age : The Political Economy of The Global Communication Revolution, Robert W. Mc Cheasney, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster (Eds), Monthly Review Press, New York, 1998. McManus, John H. (1994), Market-Driven Journalism: Let The Citizen Beware?. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mc Quail, Dennis (2000) Mass Communication Theory, 4th edition, London, Sage Publication Ltd, tahun 2000. McQuail, Dennis (2005) Mass Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publication Ltd. Neuman, W.Russell (2001), Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nyarwi, Ahmad, The Changing and Challenging of Indonesian Political Communication and Political Marketing Performances Facing the Indonesian 2009 Election. Paper prepared for Presentation of AMIC Conference. New Delhi, July, 13-16, 2009. Nyarwi, Ahmad, “From Celebrity to Politician: Celebrity Politics and the Changing of Political Popular Culture Post-New Order Soeharto”. Paper presented at International Conference, Gender and Power in Southeast Asia. Kuala Lumpur: September, 24-29, 2007. International Conference Organized by Faculty of Social Science, National University of Malaysia (University Kebangsaan Malaysia) and SEASREP-Philippines. SK, Ishadi (1999), The Prospect of The Business of Information in Indonesia (Prospek Bisnis Informasi di Indonesia). Yogyakarta : Pustaka Pelajar. SK, Ishadi (2002), The Dynamic Discourses of News Room of RCTI, SCTV and INDOSIAR: Critical Analysis of News Production Processess Facing The Fall of Soeharto’s Government in May 1998 (Praktek-Praktek Diskursus Di Ruang Pemberitaan RCTI, SCTV dan INDOSIAR: Analisis Kritis Proses-Proses Produksi Teks Berita Menjelang Berakhirnya Pemerintahan Soeharto, Mei 1998). Un publish Doctoral Desertation for Post-Graduate Program, Departement of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Indonesia, Jakarta. Sudibyo, Agus (2004) Political Economy of Media Broadcasting (Ekonomi Politik Media Penyiaran). Yogyakarta: LkiS Publications.

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Wahyuni, Hermin Indah (2000), Television and State Intervention : The political context of the public policy of broadcasting television (Televisi dan Intervensi Negara: Konteks Politik Kebijakan Publik Industri Penyiaran Televisi). Yogyakarta : PT Media Pressindo. Wahyuni, Hermin Indah (2008). Broadcasting Media Regulation. Yogyakarta : Faculty of Social and Political Science Press of Gadjah Mada University (Penerbit FISIPOL UGM). First Editiond. Ward, Ian (1995), Politics of The Media. Melbourne: Macmillan Education Austrlia Pty Ltd.

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Emerging Landscape, Same Old Theories in News Flows?: Two Case Studies of News Diffusion in Cyberspace : Im, Yung-Ho (Pusan National University) Kim, Kyungmo (Yonsei University) Kim, Eun-mee (Yonsei University) Kim, Yeran (Kwangwoon University)

I. Introduction In June 2009, Italian customs officers caught two Japanese men for attempting to smuggle astronomical amount of U.S government bonds into Switzerland. The mainstream news media covered the event briefly, only showing that these bonds turned out to be false and that the officials, involving Italian, American and Japanese sides, made only ‘by-the-book’ comments. Yet, in the Internet, the apparently simple news story triggered various theories and responses among the netizen: Some interpreted that incident as, say, the Japanese government’s attempt to dump the U.S. bond in the face of declining value of dollar. Another speculation revolved around the clandestine maneuver by Italian Mafia to launder illegal fund for a massive fraud. When they proved to be fake bonds, there emerged another speculation that North Korea might have produced them in collaboration with forces in the Middle East. Aside from those international conspiracy theories, the incident, combined with the wishful thinking by the Italians, also spurned potential windfall stories, The Italian law allows the government to confiscate up to 40 percent of the smuggled money, which may bring a ‘too-good-to-be-true’ bonanza for Italians(Povoledo, June 27-28, 2009, p. 1, 4). Thus, what could have remained a straight coverage of minor incident led to a variety of stories and tremendous repercussions among the Internet users. More impressively, the Internet has now endowed researchers with tools to trace in vivid detail what previously would have only inspired their imagination in the form of speculative rumors in the traditional offline media environment. As illustrated above, the proliferation of digital media has brought about radical changes in the way news is provided and consumed. The predominant power of mainstream news organizations has drastically dwindled. New and alternative news providers, such as ‘Wikinews,’ have emerged. And Internet users, who have access to diverse news services and advanced digital devices, often report news events themselves or deliver news articles with modifications in form and contents (Allan, 2006).

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In particular, there have been a few noteworthy changes that have significant implications for news diffusion study in the context of the Internet. Above all, the Internet has brought a participatory quality to communication patterns, regarding news in particular, which has traditionally relied on professional judgments of journalists. As shown in numerous blogs, forums, chat rooms, and networking sites in virtual spaces, far from being passive audience, these users share information and emotion to feel that they are a part of the events that are being unfold at the moment (Riegner, 2007; Vengerfeldt, 2002). What people do currently with news on the Internet seems to fit perfectly what Jenkins (2006) has once described as ‘convergence culture’ in which established professional media organizations and audiences/users interact in news production, distribution and consumption. How news gets diffused in the given society has been one of the essential research questions in journalism over the last decades. However, the rise of the Internet provides diffusion researchers with new challenges, as news diffusion has further accelerated and demonstrated more complex and multi-directional patterns whereby a wide variety of newsrelated websites and the users actively participate in spreading, transforming, and even recreating news. In the Internet-based communication, a boundary becomes often blurs between what is media and what is user, given that both parties are able to equally pick up a specific news story, add or change its form or content, and convey it to others. The old phenomenon of news diffusion has acquired a somewhat different twist in the digital communication milieu, thus necessitating a re-illumination of the way one approaches the diffusion process. Hence, based on the actual two cases of news diffusion, this paper re-examines the main ideas of the diffusion study in the context of the Internet, and explores new possibilities for future research. A primary concern of our study is with to what extent the traditional notion of ‘news diffusion’ has relevance to understanding online diffusion, and if any, how we may reinvent the concepts to come up with theoretical challenges arising from the unforeseen news environment. Especially, this paper focuses on transformation of news content and forms in the diffusion process, which the previous news diffusion study has neglected at the expense of tracking the awareness level of the audience. Indeed, news diffusion in the Internet remains still a rapidly evolving and uncharted research area. Consequently, instead of rigorous empirical study based on well defined hypotheses or research questions, this paper aims at an exploratory analysis, groping for useful implications for more elaborate future research. 2. The Korean example as a showcase This paper deals with two cases of news diffusion in South Korea, because the authors believe these country-specific cases may represent a showcase of trends which have been under

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way in the Internet-based news environment.

In a sense, the Korean cyberspace demonstrates

in present forms what may materialize itself in the near future in some other parts of the world. First of all, in terms of the infrastructure, South Korea is one of the most connected countries in the world. An array of surveys shows that the Internet has deeply penetrated into the everyday life of Koreans. A report by European Commission ranked Korea as a “country with the highest percentage of homes and businesses equipped with high-speed Internet outside Europe”(Kanter, August 5. 2009). Korea is especially distinguished for the accessibility of the Internet to ordinary citizens in residences. The subscription rate of the broadband Internet amounts to 91.5% and Internet users have reached 75% of the population(You, et al., 2006, p. 32). In a slightly different vein, another study by International Telecommunication Union compares countries in respect of to what extent communications services are accessible, how far technology is used, and how skillful their residents are. Here, South Korea was ranked second, preceded only by Sweden(Hansell, March 3, 2009). As these indices demonstrate, the Korean information infrastructure has paved technological ground on which citizens may resort to the Internet for their everyday use of news. In fact, about 70% of Koreans use the Internet in order to read news (Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion, 2009, p. 75). Secondly, one of the important features in the Korean media scene is related to the central role of “portals,” Domestic companies, such as naver.com and daum.net, rather than global competitors, including yahoo and google, have emerged as dominant players in the Internet services in Korea. These sites function as comprehensive distributors or, ‘hubs’ indeed, of virtually most news stories from major Korean newspapers and broadcasters, rendering them as arguably the most accessible and convenient source of news among ordinary Koreans. Furthermore, rather than merely linking to articles from other news media, these portals offer news in edited forms together with a series of auxiliary functions, such as emails, blogs, SNSs, cyber communities, UCCs, etc., which are tailored to the needs of local users. In part helped by their versatile technical formations, portals have helped facilitate user participation in various ways, not to mention a prompt nationwide diffusion of breaking news. Indeed, portals have empowered formerly passive Korean news consumers to actively respond to news, by adding replies, delivering it to others by emails, or rewriting it into a different story in their own blogs. In all, portals have been instrumental in generating the nationwide rise of an interactive, networked and participatory culture of news use, to the extent the distinction between production and consumption of news virtually disintegrates. Thirdly, what is also noteworthy in the Korean case is the degree users are receptive to the technological potential of the Internet as a venue of active participation in communication process. The Korean Internet culture has evolved in a way that, relatively speaking, drives the meaning of ‘active user’ to its utmost. While many scholars underscore the participatory and

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active nature of the Internet use, ‘participation’ may indicate a wide range of levels, degrees and modes of participation: from active creators (producing and uploading content); critics (rating or evaluations); collectors (saving URLs for sharing); joiners (social networking); passive spectators (reading blogs); inactives (not engaged in any of the previous activities) (Social Technographic Survey, 2006; quoted in van Dijck, 2009, p. 44). Furthermore, in reality, there exists considerable disparity among countries in the intensity of user participation. A research shows that most of the American users are likely to be passive: 13% of active creators, 19% of critics, 15% of collectors, 19% of joiners, 33% of passive spectators and 52% of inactives. The data of OECD countries reveal similar trends in the Internet use: over 80 percent of all users are de facto passive recipients of content (OECD, 2007; quoted from van Dijck, 2009, p. 44). These figures suggest that active participation is a term relative in form and extent; even such a limited phenomenon is further confined to part of users and activities in the Internet. In comparison to other regions, Koreans’ Internet use may be deemed relatively and exceptionally ‘active.’ Significantly, among others, over 50% of the Internet users are reported to have one or more experiences of producing UCCs. Even about 35% of the Internet users say that, they have uploaded their own UCCs onto the Internet more than once per month(Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion, 2008, p. 30). Given the above-mentioned features, this study may still represent an inquiry into two unique cases which mostly reflect the specific situations in Korea. Nonetheless, the Korean cases may also illustrate well not only on-going global trends but also one of the future scenarios, in the production, circulation and use of news, which are unfolding rapidly in the current cyberspace throughout the world. 3. Theoretical background Traditional diffusion study has proceeded basically against the backdrop of the dominance of mass media. News diffusion has been regarded as communication process in which information and ideas on the news event spreads through a variety of means including mass media and interpersonal channels over time among the members of a social system. As far as the phenomenon is concerned with diffusion of news over time, be it online or offline, traditional diffusion study still contains copious implications for online research as well. News diffusion study has emerged in the early 1960s and established itself as a part of mainstream communication research through the 1980s. Diffusion studies, dealing mainly with major news events, prospered in 1960s, starting from the death of JFK (Banta, 1964; Greenberg, 1964) to the Challenger disaster (Kubey & Peluso, 1990). Audience was conceptualized primarily as an adopter and news adoption was measured in terms of an awareness or

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knowledge of the news event. It has been criticized that the researchers relied only on a socalled “firehouse research” design (De Fleur, 1987; Rogers, 2000; Rosengren, 1973, 1987), thereby limiting the room for systematic theoretical framework. Diffusion study has mostly provided a snap-shot view of the news diffusion, and graphically summarized the patterns in terms of ‘diffusion curves.” A number of scholars specifically delved into the way an array of factors influence diffusion patterns. These include channel factors, such as the role of mass media and interpersonal channels(Basil & brown, 1994; Deutschmann & Danielson, 1960; Rogers, 2000) as well as audience factors, such as salience of news(Basil & Brown, 1994) or personal relevance of the issue(Grantz & Trenholm, 1979). Nevertheless, although literature has proliferated, the basic concepts and research frameworks have persisted without significant change. With regard to the theoretical implications of diffusion theory, consequently, there already arose a criticism that, by incessantly replicating

similar researches only with minor variations, the diffusion researchers have almost exhausted source of ideas (De Fleur, 1987). In the sense that online diffusion may find its closest precedent only in diffusion study, conceptual frameworks of diffusion theory may still offer useful insights for dealing with this unexplored online phenomenon as well. Yet, a primary challenge for online diffusion study is two-fold: It will be necessary to inherit insightful ideas and underdeveloped suggestions from traditional diffusion researchers, as well as expand and elaborate on them further in order to come up with phenomena we have never witnessed in the past. Undeniably, the prospect is not entirely positive at this point. Although increasing number of recent studies include the Internet in addition to the traditional news media and interpersonal channels (for example, Greenberg, Hofschire, & Lachlan, 2002; Kanihan & Gale, 2003; Ruggiero & Glascock, 2002), these studies tend to replicate the well-trodden approach applying the archaic theoretical framework to the new phenomenon, rather than experimenting with new concepts. They have often repeated basically the same research questions such as when and how many people adopted news through the Internet among others. The Internet tends be regarded as an additional medium and therefore users are still assumed as passive, either ‘being aware’ or ‘not aware’ of the news provided by the media, be it traditional news channel or the Internet. As Kress (2003) has so succinctly noted, the problem facing communication scholars is, rather than a sweeping change in media environment itself, the fact that we are forced to observe the transformations with theories which emerged in order to account for the past. There is an urgent need for theoretical accounts that tell us how to understand communication in periods of instability. At face value, previous theories and empirical findings on news diffusion have failed to provide us a useful framework for grasping a picture of such diffusion process on the Internet. New questions and ideas are urgently needed. While the online diffusion process

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represents an unforeseen phenomenon, nonetheless, it shares some features of the diffusion process with which we are familiar through the theoretical lens of diffusion research. The limitations of the previous research basically lie in the fact that it has been invented to take into account the old phenomena under the dominance of traditional mass media, thus considerably confining its usefulness. The pioneers of diffusion study may have never anticipated the emerging, and even unprecedented features in the way news is produced and used in the online news milieu. Unlike in the traditional news culture, when Internet users visit news-related websites, they not only “adopt” news, but also sometimes transfer it to others, and re-create it in their own way. News diffusion studies in the Internet environment need to take into account such emerging characteristics in user activities. The following are our preliminary statements on the shortcomings and underdeveloped insights of previous diffusion study, as well as suggestions for a more fertile research on the online diffusion. First, based on a narrow definition of diffusion, traditional diffusion study has in fact provided a static snap-shot of diffusion rather than a dynamic process involving variety of activities among participants and subsequent changes in content. Its inadequacy to deal with the complex and dynamic aspects of the process may be attributable to the methodological limitations of research design, which relied mainly on surveys asking the adopters to recall (Meyer, 2004). Then, the real challenge for online news diffusion research is to develop both theoretically and methodologically ways to grasp a more multi-faceted and dynamic notion of diffusion, which may take into account a broad array of diffusion activities beyond news awareness. The news diffusion, be it online or offline, needs to be understood broadly as a social process on a spatial-temporal dimension, which entails myriad of actions and reactions back and forth among the media and individual audiences. In this respect, then, a boon to online diffusion researchers is the fact that, for instance, unlike mouth-to-mouth diffusion in traditional diffusion environment, almost all diffusionrelated activities leave traces in textual forms, with the information on timing, on the Internet. Furthermore, it became feasible to chronicle relatively in detail how the news goes through transformation as it gets diffused over time in terms of content and form. The online diffusion study may arguably grasp the process with its dynamic and volatile features. Secondly, traditional diffusion research has paid inadequate attention to the active, participatory role of news audience, thus emphasizing the diffusion from the perspective of professional journalist as the primary agent of diffusion. As pointed out before, in the previous research, the concept of diffusion was de facto reduced to mean the degree of saturation of awareness regarding an event throughout the community as a whole, tthereby leaving out diverse forms of user activities. Especially on the Internet, users perform various diffusionrelated activities such as copying to relay it to acquaintances, and even re-writing it with

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different emphasis points or angles. In that people may become sender and receiver of news at the same time, it is necessary to conceptualize them as active participants in diffusion rather than passive audience. In terms of the roles of creation, diffusion and adoption, the old distinction between news production and consumption has virtually broken down. Mass media and individuals may both become news producers, diffusers, and adopters simultaneously, in the sense that, on the Internet in particular, either party may clip, add, combine, or edit the original news. The dominant power of Internet users’ participation in news production has been vividly illustrated in many cases, from reporting unexpected events on the spot ahead of coverage by professional reporters to shaping civic opinions and building up agenda (Song, 2007). The activities of emerging Internet users also have helped redefine the boundary between the mass-mediated and interpersonal channels. Indeed, spread of news in cyberspace needs to be seen as a dynamic process, in which news diffuse multi-directionally across diverse media run by individuals, social organizations as well as the established media institutions. Of course, a theoretical emphasis on the active user is not entirely unprecedented. From its early days, the role of the audience or interpersonal channel has been an indispensable part of the theoretical consideration in traditional diffusion study. Indeed, the ‘two-step flow’ model by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) underscored insightfully the potential complexity of diffusion process, illustrating how both mass media and individuals actively (or often interactively) contribute to the process. Also news diffusion study, starting from Deutschmann & Danielson (1960), has underscored the functions of media system and the interplay between interpersonal communication and the media (Rogers, 2000). These studies aimed to demonstrate that interpersonal communication complemented mass media in terms of making the audience aware of the news, and that interpersonal networks are as influential as mass media (Basil, & Brown, 1994). While such early studies acknowledged the importance of the interaction between media or channels, the subsequent studies have rarely incorporated these insights into basic schemes of most empirical studies (Basil & Brown, 1994). Neither have they been adequately received in recent research on online news diffusion. These theoretical limitations may be also attributable to a lack of appropriate methodological tools, which may identify and trace in detail the specific role of the audience at each stage of diffusion process. Thirdly, the traditional diffusion study has maintained a rather unrealistic notion of news, by assuming that the news remains an invariable object throughout the on-going process. Since diffusion research has emphasized only the ‘cognitive’ aspect of the audience behavior, i.e. acquisition of knowledge or the level of awareness (De Fleur, 1987; Rogers, 2000), it has assumed in fact that the news itself will stay unchanged. More specifically, the problem is that

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the traditional research has been more preoccupied with measuring the degree of an audience awareness of the event than elaborating on diverse dimensions of news itself. Anyway, such an implicit assumption is far from the reality, and neglects important aspects of the process. In the actual process of diffusion, the news of an event may transform itself, often due to additional coverage, changes of emphasis and news frame, and interpretations. Even a news of the same event may reach (or diffuse among) the audience in various forms, since the audience either repeatedly contacts the follow-up coverage of the mass media or hear about different versions of the event from a wide array of channels. Nonetheless, these issues have remained beyond the main scope of previous research. Above all, an awareness of news event may not be synonymous with the news per se. There may exist numerous ways of representing the same event. In this respect, future diffusion studies may benefit to a considerable extent from ‘media frame’ research, whose major concern resides in how certain news frames help configure the flow of influence from the media to other media, or from the media to the audience(e.g., Binder, 1993; Entman, 1991; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Pan & Kosicki, 1993). Given that frame studies proved useful in dealing with changes of meaning in the on-going news coverage, it is surprising that their ideas have rarely been incorporated into understanding how such shifts take place over time in news diffusion. The problematics of frame studies may be hopefully translated into and organized into a part of diffusion research, thus illuminating how, even with the same news, its nature and meaning may changes considerably, with additional coverage or shifts in angles or emphases. In addition, the term news in diffusion research suggests a notion of story-telling genre, which has been mostly associated with that of professional journalism. The developments of online journalism and radical changes in the social practices of news urge us to fundamentally rethink of what is news in reality(see Allan, 2006). Can we still regard as news what are produced by ordinary citizens with no training or qualifications as professional journalists? Can we accept as news what is written in a subjective essay style far away from journalistic writing practices? Will the audience accept as news those stories that depend on apparently trivial personal experiences (rather than on important social events), or that betray the journalistic principles of neutrality, factuality, or news values. In reality, individual bloggers often copy and relay some news stories and transform them into diverse personally customized forms; mainstream news media occasionally pick up some blog stories and develop them into a traditional form of news story. Indeed, any aberration from news conventions may take place in online news diffusion. Some scholars argue, news bloggers are increasingly forming their own journalistic norms and ethics

which partly share and partly contest those of professional journalists(Kunelius, 2006; Singer, 2007), as they often initiate a report that professional journalists usually bypass due to the lack

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of traditional news values. What has been deemed merely a part of news consumption behavior among the audience now constitutes an indispensable part of the news production in online journalism. In all, such phenomena may profoundly alter the very definition of news, which we still tend to understand in terms of traditional journalism. This paper aims to grope for a more transient, multi-faceted, and evolutionary notion of news in online diffusion study. Given the above-mentioned problems of previous news diffusion study, we need to reinvent a more elaborate conceptual framework so that it may take into account the complexity and dynamics of news diffusion in the emerging online environment. In reality, news of an event needs to be understood as an evolving concept, a ‘seed’ of the following diffusion process that triggers a series of representation or interpretation of the event. Even the same new event has diverse aspects, and consequently news may take diverse forms and stories depending on which aspects of the event it has emphasis. Also diffusion involves not only increasing level of awareness of event but also diverse forms of participation among media and the users. Future studies on online news diffusion need to examine and re-conceptualize the very bases of traditional news research, such as ‘news’ and ‘diffusion,’ as well as follow the complex trajectories of news diffusion proves. Inheriting lessons from the traditional news diffusion studies and also acknowledging their limitations, this research attempts an exploratory analysis of the actual diffusion of news events in cyberspace. It also aims at suggesting the directions for developing a new approach to diffusion research in the digital age. Starting from the aforementioned theoretical discussions, this research gropes for future directions for diffusion studies especially in the Internet-based communication environment. More specifically, based an analysis of two cases, this paper will suggest some preliminary theoretical ‘theses’, and illustrate the outline of what a diffusion study in cyberspace may look like and what research questions such a study may pursue. These statements take a form of tentative proposals as alternatives to traditional news research with their own theoretical problems, which are examined in the literature review. In exploring the two cases we started with following questions: How fast and by which path does ‘seed news’ get diffused on the Internet? How does ‘seed news’ get subsequently transformed in content and form as they flow on the Internet? How do these patterns differ between media-originated and user-originated news? 4. Research Methods 1) Selection of Cases and Their Context For an exploratory case study of news diffusion in cyberspace, two news events in Korea were selected in 2007. The first news was concerned with the market panic on sharp decline of

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real-estate price in Pyongchang area, when the city failed to win the host bids for 2014 Winter Olympics(‘Olympic Aftermath’ story, hereafter). In that the news deals with the economic impact of a worldwide sport event on the local community, it includes many characteristics of traditional news, offered by professional journalists. Actually, this case was initiated by Money Today Daily, a Korean financial daily as regular news story, and posted on its website. The second case was the story about the accidental deposit of 10 million dollars to an account of Mr. Choi, an ordinary citizen, due to a bank clerk’s blunder, in which he put a few comma key instead of enter key, resulting in the transmission of the equivalent amount of 10 million rather than 10 thousand U.S. dollars(‘Bank Deposit’ story, hereafter). In the meantime, realizing their mistake in transaction, the bank staffs called up to Choi and begged desperately to return the money to the bank. Finally he decided to be a good citizen and send the whole amount of money back to the bank. All the restitution for his righteous but painful decision was a bouquet of flowers from the bank, with estimated value of around 100 dollars. This story contains a strong aspect of human interest news, and has indeed provided a subject for lively talk in online communities. Although this story originated from a blog posting Choi wrote on his personal experience, the mass media picked up the subject and elaborated on it afterwards. 2) Data Collection and Content Analysis The data gathering for an analysis proceeded in accordance with the following steps. First, when the first story on the relevant events (be it an individual blog posting or a regular news story) appeared for the first time in the Internet, it was regarded as the ‘original news story’ of the each case, or the origin point of news diffusion. Then, the authors extracted a few keywords from it, and used them as the basis for online searching and collecting relevant posterior news materials on everyday base. Operationally, the original news was defined as a set of key words, which, in combination, reveal the main theme of the event in a narrative form. Therefore, the relevant materials constituting the diffusion were judged in terms of their relevance to keywords and the narrative theme. If, two days (48hours) have lapsed without further postings since the latest material was found, the data gathering stopped, assuming the diffusion process virtually came to an end. Although all postings and news stories regarding two news events were compiled, short replies (less than 100 words) to each posting were not included to the data set. It is related to technical difficulty in determining whether they construct sufficiently the main narrative theme of the original news story. Then, all materials were content-analyzed to further investigate the patterns of diffusion. Main variables for the analysis include time of posting (TOP), the type of participant/website, and forms of user participation. It needs to be noted here that these variables, mostly from

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previous diffusion study, are adjusted to take into account the context of online news diffusion. For example, as an equivalent to TOA (time of adoption) in offline diffusion study, TOP indicates the point of time at which the diffusion participants upload news materials (e.g., blog posting, news report, web document, etc.) on various news-related websites. Adopter/channel is also redefined as the types of participant/websites. Traditional diffusion researches, including Rogers (2003), have classified adopters into five categories in terms of their temporal stages of adoption: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. However, given that the time intervals among actions of adopting are extremely minute, an attempt to classify groups of adopters according to the standardized category may be either infeasible or meaningless. In the same vein, traditional dichotomization of diffusion channels (mass-mediated vs. interpersonal) is not adequate in cyberspace because an online news diffusion involves much more complex and dynamic process. For the purpose of coding, main concepts and variables were defined as follow. First of all, the boundary of online news diffusion needs to be defined clearly. In the online environment, ‘news diffusion’ may be considered as a cumulative result, in the graphical form, of the activities of participants in the news diffusion over time. Yet, conceptually, these activities may include the following three forms: First, the audience merely ‘reads or hears about and comes to be aware of the news event, but never participates in diffusion in any active form. Secondly, after the adopter has acquired information, she/he may pass it along offline, instead of posting it online. Thirdly, the audience contacts the news and helps spread it online by relaying it either as it is or in a transformed state (e.g., adding new facts, interpreting from a different angle, expressing personal emotion, etc). While traditional diffusion research has dealt mostly with the first two categories, news diffusion in this paper is defined in terms of the third type. This part of diffusion represents a notion of diffusion considerably different from the subject of traditional research, in the sense that it indicates a common denominator of the activities of passive adopters and active participants in online diffusion. In other words, this definition confines the scope of diffusion study to the activities which leave textual trail on the Internet. Secondly, whereas traditional offline news diffusion study assumes the conceptual distinction between mass-media and interpersonal channels, as well as between the channel and adopter, the participants in the online diffusion are reclassified simply in terms the types of ‘sites’ in this paper. To put it shortly, the conceptual division between mass media and interpersonal channels is surely outdated. In the Internet, the traditional media institutions are no longer the exclusive source of news in news flows with the target of passive audience. Rather, any participants, such as individuals, social organizations, and a variety of online communities, may initiate the diffusion process by posting an intriguing story, while in turn they are engaged in adopting the circulating news.

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Also, given that ‘news’ may be deemed a form of story regarding unfolding event, all the uploaded messages on websites may be further differentiated in terms of storytelling formats. News diffusion in cyberspace is no longer dominated by the traditional news report in its inversed-pyramid format. Instead, a variety of formats are employed, partly reflecting a climate of laissez-faire in terms of storytelling experiment by so-called ‘para-journalists’ such as blogger, communication consultant, PR specialist, and spin doctor. Accordingly, the types of participants are categorized into individual, organization, and news institution (mass media and news portals). And the types of new formats are divided into news report, blog posting, discussion/chat in online community, and web document (UGC). As mentioned earlier, diffusion-related activities of news users need be expanded as to include diverse forms other than the narrow notion of adoption-awareness in the previous study. Therefore, we have traced diverse patterns of ‘user participation’ activities by which news users as ‘prosumers’ disseminate news on their own by transforming the original news after their adoption-awareness in cyberspace. This represents also an attempt to extend the area of new diffusion research as some previous researchers have called for (Inoue & Kawakami, 2004; Rogers, 2000; Rogers & Seidel, 2002). As a variable for content analysis, the patterns of user participation activities are categorized as ‘adding new factual information,’ ‘interpreting and commenting,’ and ‘expressing personal emotions.’ In a sense, these categories may be parallel to the traditional distinction among journalistic genres of straight news, editorial and column, and feature. However, it is worth noting that these categories, as activities of transforming original news, are not mutually exclusive; more than one type can be witnessed simultaneously in a single news posting uploaded. Lastly, we also checked how and to what extent the main theme of seed news has been changed into different one: that is to say, attention was paid to changes, if any, in ‘thematic frame’ during the diffusion process, even though the following stories maintain the primary keywords of the original news. In other words, this notion indicates the context in which the overall meaning of the story is organized. Given that the original news may transform unexpectedly into different news stories, because of the dynamics of users’ participation, this notion is an attempt to conceptually reflect a unique phenomenon of online news diffusion in which news is ceaselessly evolving through self-multiplication. Specifically, change of thematic frame was coded in binary mode (1 or 0) for each diffusion case, where 0 coding means a simple diffusion (spreading of seed news as it is in terms of main theme) has occurred. For data analysis, six graduate students of communication with some research experience in content analysis participated in coding under the guideline of the structured coding schema. The final inter-coder reliability (Krippendorff’s alpha) ranged from .77 for pattern of user participation activity, .84 for change of thematic frame, .91 for type of participants, .93 for type

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of news formats, to 1.00 for TOP, respectively. As online searches were implemented on the basis of the cluster of keywords as well as the narrative theme, that operation produced ample data sets of diffusion cases, each being coded in TOP and checked for relevance to the theme of the seed news. The indices of TOP signify the cumulative rate of adoption (posting) of online news over time. According to the observation, the Olympic Aftermath story, the news initiated by the mass media, reached the point of saturation about in 962 hours (40days). The diffusion of the Bank Deposit news, the one stemming from an individual blog posting, came to the peak level in 250 hours (about 10 days). A cumulative count of postings led to an overall pattern, in graphical form, of what previous research used to call a ‘diffusion curve.’ (앞에서 옮겨옴). A quick glance at the overall patterns of news diffusion reveals that the diffusion curve of the Olympic Aftermath story shows an inverted U-shaped curve, while the accidental deposit related news is apparently close to a typical S-shaped curve (see the Figures 1 – 6). On average, the number of posting per hour was 0.38 in the market panic case and 0.45 in the accidental deposit case. Despite the fact that the concept of diffusion in this research differs from that in traditional diffusion studies, interestingly, the overall patterns of online news diffusion as posting-diffusion appear to have striking similarity to what the existing literature on the offline news diffusion has presented so far. 5. Results 1) News Does not Diffuse, but Evolves Within the traditional research frame, the meaning of news diffusion was virtually equivalent to the increasing spread, over the lapse of time, of awareness level of news event among people. An implicit assumption here is that throughout the course of diffusion the news remains the same news. However, what may be commonly witnessed, in the online news diffusion in particular, is that the content and form of the original news story keeps changing, often turning into a different story, in the process of diffusion. Over the period of our analysis, the proportion of ‘simple diffusion’ in which the original news gets relayed was not that high in both cases: In the Olympic Aftermath news, only 8.9% of total postings maintains the original news both in terms of content and form throughout the whole process. The case of Bank Deposit news reveals a higher rate(18.6%), which occupies still a minor portion of the whole postings(see ). In other words, what may be aptly called ‘transformative diffusion’ is a more commonly found type of diffusion in the online world.

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Table 1. The Proportion of Simple Diffusion by Types of Participant Olympic Aftermath news Simple

Transform-ative

diffusion

diffusion

Individual users

25(11.96)

184(88.04)

Organizations

1(5.3)

News media total

Bank Deposit news Total

Simple

Transform-ative

Total

diffusion

diffusion

209(100)

18(25.71)

52(74.29)

70(100)

18(94.7)

19(100)

1(25.0)

3(75.0)

4(100))

7(4.9)

135(95.1)

142(100)

2(5.13)

37(94.87)

39(100)

33(8.9)

337(91.1)

370(100)

21(18.58)

92(81.42)

113(100)

* row % in the parenthesis

We have further cross-analyzed the total diffusion-related postings by the type of participant. It is the individual online news users, among the three groups, who participate most frequently in news diffusion, be it simple or transformative diffusion, followed by news media: The former group amounts to 56.5% in the Olympic Aftermath case, and 61.9% in the Bank Deposit news, respectively. In terms of the distinction between simple and transformative diffusions, in two cases selected, all types of participants including both individuals and news media seem to be more frequently involved in transformative diffusion than in simple diffusion. Interestingly, presumably due to follow-up coverage, news media appear to be remarkably more inclined to the role of transformative diffusion than simple diffusion, regardless of the case. Interestingly, also regardless of who provided the original news in the diffusion process, i.e., in both the media-initiated Olympic Aftermath news and the individual-initiated Bank Deposit news, transformative diffusion occupies overwhelming share out of the whole postings. In all, the overall findings demonstrate that transformation or change constitutes a more crucial and indispensable characteristic of actual online diffusion than a simple notion of diffusion, which previous study has assumed presumably for the sake of practical consideration in research. 2) News diffuse in diverse forms of story-telling As we have observed in the previous section, news diffusion is not only carried out by media but also by other participants. In the same vein, traditional news-media web-sites are not the only places on the Internet that pass along and follow up the original news. Instead, diverse types of websites provide venues for ‘news’ in various forms, contributing its share at each state of diffusion. It is already well-known that citizen news sites, such as online community sites, weblogs, individual and organizational websites and BBSs, appear to be engaged at every

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instance in news diffusion, thus giving birth to the multiplication of online journalism. Not surprisingly, modes of story-telling are as much varied as the types of participants, who would consequently emerge as co-creators of diverse forms of news stories. The analyses of two cases show an emerging typology of news as modes of story-telling about unfolding event in the diffusion process: The online postings apparently consist of an array of formats, including traditional news, blog postings, online community postings, and web documents. The distribution of news genre reveals some patterns in their shift over time. In the case of Olympic Aftermath story (see

), the contribution of mainstream news media appear to be slightly higher than that of blogs at the beginning, then gradually lagging behind. Instead, blog postings seem to emerge as increasingly more important venue of story-telling about the original news event, thus eventually overtaking all the other types of news.

The second case of Bank Deposit News shows a different pattern. The following

indicates that the role of blog postings appears to be highly important in news diffusion while the presence of the mainstream news is relatively low throughout the whole diffusion process. This may be attributed to the fact that the user-initiated news starts with an informal story about personal experience, and increasingly attract other news media for its aspect of news value from a traditional journalistic view. Also, in comparison to the case of Olympic Aftermath news

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(

), online community postings seem to play relatively stronger role here, presumably because the latter story may create more personal and emotional resonance among ordinary citizens, with regard to the choice of action by the news subject.

In traditional journalism, news as a way of reporting or representing an event has taken a quite standardized, taken-for-granted format, which mostly finds a typical example in straight news in its inverted-pyramid form. Diffusion study has implicitly depended on such a notion and rarely elaborated on further. However, an analysis of actual diffusion process in cyberspace suggests that such process is deployed only through the participation of numerous actors, whose contribution, either in relaying or rewriting, may take diverse forms of story-telling about the event. In fact, for instance, participants at the same stage may be aware of the unfolding news event, either through big new media, blogs of friends, or online community talk, and then they spread the ‘over-heard’ story in their own version of narrative, and in a mode they feel most comfortable. Even for the practical purpose of diffusion research, it will be necessary to discard the ambiguous notion of ‘news’ in traditional diffusion study, and come up with a more rigorous conceptual scheme for classifying the multifarious forms of story-telling with regards to the

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relevant event, about which the original news has provided merely a trigger for subsequent streams of news in its multiplicity. 3) Users Transform News, Not Just diffuse It As shown above, news stories on the Internet not only spread at a much faster rate than in a traditional media environment but also transmute themselves as they circulate over time. The original news story is rarely purely relayed in the initial form through on the Internet (see

). Hence, it is imperative to embrace the elements of change and dynamics into an essential part of diffusion theory. This shift in theoretical emphasis may be translated into attempts to elaborate on the specific forms of user participation in the process. Overall, the type of transformative activities that occurred most frequently was adding extra pieces of information to the ongoing news story, followed by addition of analysis/interpretation and then by expression of personal feelings. Of course, these activities may be implemented simultaneously to a single posting by the same participant. The Olympic Aftermath news illustrates well how the whole diffusion process develops out of the varied ways of active participation by news users. The basic narrative of the original news was that Pyongchang’s failure to win the host bids for 2014 Winter Olympic had a negative side effect on the real estate market, leading the authorities and investors either to suspend or reconsider previous development blueprints. Town renovation plans and tourism programs have halted soon after the news broke out. This news story, first reported by a Korean financial daily on its website, was quickly delivered to and followed up by numerous sites and induced a wide variety of analyses or interpretations. Our analysis clearly shows that various kinds of participants have contributed to the metamorphosis of news, either by incrementally adding supplementary information, analysis/interpretation, or assigning personal feelings. For example, a blogger offers a rather optimistic analysis, speculating that the failed bid for the event host will inflict negative impact on the local economy just temporarily, given that some positive signs for city development still hold on, such as the establishment of a university advanced bioresearch center and the expected boom of national tourism. Another blogger raises a completely different issue and argues that the failure will be ironically beneficial for Koreans. His/her rationale is that, after all, an array of political, social, economic agenda awaiting solution should have priority over one-time sports events, such as the Winter Olympics. The Bank Deposit news provides an example with different twist where, aside from addition of information, an expression of personal feelings in its ratio overwhelms analysis or interpretation as a way in which various participants contribute to the on-going transformation of news. When Mr. Choi first posted it on his blog, it was a personal recounting of an episode

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he experienced. He wrote, with a rather subjective touch, about how he came to a hard decision, after a deep agony over the dilemma: whether he should give the money back to the bank or keep it for himself. Yet, as the original news story on his blog spreads quickly across a scores of sites, it triggered a wide variety of postings, from simple praises for his honesty to occasional laments over broken dreams of a millionaire, among which the majority involves strong emotional responses to the intriguing story. The outburst of emotional expression was relatively prominent especially in the early stages of diffusion, when the blog story drew enthusiastic emotional responses mostly from many netizens, and the news media, such as the national dailies and network television sites, have not yet picked it up for additional coverage. As the participants in the diffusion expanded, the transformative actions continued to diversify incrementally both in form and content. While some users kept expressing personal feelings, others brought in additional information on the story, and a few presented their own suggestions for what ought to be done. For example, some people left their replies on Choi’s blog, saying Choi had to take time to negotiate with the bank for a reasonable honorarium in return for his contribution. Others blamed the bank for its ingratitude for Choi’s righteous deed. One netizen even ventured into a legal opinion, as an amateur expert, that even with the newly acquired ownership of the money in question, Choi might be forced into complex and controversial legal matters, if the bank should attempt to block Choi from withdrawing the money. Even though the above-mentioned activities comprise the most frequently found forms of participation in the transformative diffusion, the relative weight of each type varies according to the nature of news event. Apart from adding information which is the most conspicuous in both cases, the two news stories were dominated by a different form of participation respectively. While, in the case of Olympic Aftermath news, addition of analysis/interpretation was the second most important mode of participation, expressing personal feelings seem to play a relatively bigger role in the diffusion of the Bank Deposit story. In other words, it is noteworthy that the Olympic Aftermath news attracted more analysis/interpretation than expression of feelings from participants, while it is reverse in case of Bank Deposit news. Of course, it will be premature to generalize from such results, considering that only two news events are examined in this paper. Nevertheless, considering that the nature and direction of transformation of news depends on the user-participation patterns, it is certainly worth pursuing further research regarding how and to what extent such distinctive features, illustrated in this analysis, is related to the nature of news story.

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An ad-hoc analysis was also conducted to see how the distributive pattern of participations varied according to user types (see table 2). Overall, the behavioral distribution of individuals, organizations, and media did not deviate much from the average pattern in the Olympic Aftermath news: Information adding was still the most prominent type, trailed by analysis/interpretation and then by expressing feelings. However, in the case of Bank Deposit news, individuals tended to attach their feelings disproportionately more in comparison to the other two groups of users. It is also notable that, in case of Olympic Aftermath story, news media did not provide any postings with expression of feelings towards the story, whereas it did so to a certain extent in the Bank Deposit news. Presumably the news media may have approached the latter case relatively with a more emphasis on ‘human interest’ story than the former case. Table 2. Distribution of Forms of Participations by Participant Types Olympic Aftermath News

Bank Deposit News

information

analysis

feelings

Row Total

Information

analysis

feelings

Row total

169(62.59)

79(29.26)

22(8.15)

270 (100)

32(39.02)

10(12.20)

40(48.78)

82(100)

organizations

17(70.83)

6(25.00)

1(4.17)

24(100)

3(60.00)

1(20.00)

1(20.00)

5(100)

News media

136(74.32)

47(25.68)

0

183(100)

37(69.81)

6(11.32)

10(18.87)

53(100)

Total

322(67.51)

132(27.67)

23(4.82)

477(100)

72(51.43)

17(12.14)

51(36.43)

140(100)

Individual Users

* row % in parenthesis

4) News Frame Changes As Well News of an event, even in its factual form, may contain a variety of meanings, depending upon the frame or context the facts are located in. It is news frame research that has mainly pursued this question (e.g., Binder, 1993; Entman, 1991; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Pan & Kosicki, 1993). A particularly noteworthy phenomenon is that the original news stories on the Internet often transmute themselves into different stories, as even with basically the same facts shifts in the emphasis or angle take place during the online diffusion. A verbatim copy of partial or whole content of the original news story may be often de-contextualized from the overall meaning of the origin and develop into different paths over time as they transform and diffuse regardless of the intent of the producer of the original news. The previously mentioned Bank Deposit story illustrates well how such a shift in frame takes place in the diffusion process. When Mr. Choi first posted the story on his blog, it was primarily based on a narrative about an individual choice of action in the face of a moral dilemma: whether he should give the money back to the bank or take it himself. From a

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material-interest side, it is an once-in-a-lifetime chance of bonanza and he has basically no legal obligation to return it. But from a moral perspective, it is far from being a righteous act to take advantage of someone else’s fatal mistake, not to mention to embezzle enormous money which he has not earned on his own. At the initial stages of diffusion, a scores of postings, be it agreement or disagreement with his choice, remained in general within the framework of the original story. Yet, at some point over the course of diffusion, a crucial new piece of information accrued: that the person was a refugee from North Korea. Then, this factual addition drove the still lively online discussions to somewhat different direction, for example, the South Korean government’s policy toward North Korean refugees, thus turning a human interest story into a policy issue. In other words, the news itself has been detached from the context of the original news, and eventually led to unexpected, different news stories over the diffusion process. This incidence also shows how volatile and unpredictable the eventual course of news diffusion process could be in the Internet environment. Over the process the meaning or orientation of the seed news story can change completely even if the later stories are rooted in mostly the same factual information, thus necessitating the original news to be re-framed in a quite new context. This finding is as meaningful as to suggest us a theoretical possibility of combining diffusion theory and news frame research, which have been developing separately from each other. The following figures (

and

) demonstrate how stories with different frames increase over time, after the original news initiates the whole process. In the case of Olympic Aftermath news(

), as the news gets diffused, the proportion of stories with differing frames becomes stagnant soon and remain virtually still over time. On the other hand, the case of Bank Deposit News in

shows a considerably different pattern, in which stories with different frames tend to augment more steadily and consistently than in the Olympic Aftermath case. Cumulatively, while in the Olympic Aftermath news only 23.5% of the total postings contain a frame divergent form the original news, in the Bank Deposit case as much as 54.3% of posted stories reveal shifts in news frames. This is an interesting and significant finding, in the sense that even a minor addition to or change in the content of the original news may provoke a series of meaningful or often conspicuous shifts in the way the people understand what is going on in the event in question.

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In sum, this case study demonstrates how the original news in cyberspace has, to divergent degrees, changed into different news stories through a variety of activities of the news users. While traditional news diffusion studies have focused on the increase of awareness level over time with the nature of the news story assumed as fixed, this study reveals that the news itself may change over time as the original news goes through diffusion process. In a sense, the original news evolves online out of the multifarious and dynamic actions taken by online news users, that is, what Bruns(2008) aptly calls the ‘produsers’ of news. IV. Discussion and Conclusion The result of our analysis vividly tells us about rather diverse, dynamic and evolutionary aspects of news diffusion, which at the moment of individuals’ news awareness the news keeps developing afterward. The news-diffusion process in cyberspace represents an on-going product of collaborative work between the producer as a news originator and the consumer-user. The traditionally passive audience now emerges as active participants in the news process: e.g. bloggers are participating in producing and distributing their own versions of news. The original news constantly reconstructs itself and evolves into different stories through interactive process of deliverers and adopters situated in various contexts. Thus, contents and forms of the original news may continue to change and turn into unpredicted, different news stories. In other words, the news diffusion process in cyberspace is not limited to mere reception as the knowledge-awareness process but has to be defined as a self-multiplication and transformation process of the news. It is interesting to note that as early as in 1900 James Bryce has mentioned that ‘the mutual action and reaction of the makers or leaders of opinion upon the mass, and of the mass upon them was … the most curious part of the whole process by which the formation of opinion is produced’(cited in Briggs & Burke, 2005). How news gets diffused and be transformed along the way in cyberspace depicts such interactions of multi-directions much more clearly in comparison to what has been described in the previous diffusion study tradition. Indeed, what we observe on the Internet may have been the way they were in the past, but was not something easily traceable before. There is possibility that news diffusion process in the traditional media environment may have as much complexity and dynamism as the one we witness in this study. Yet, aside from documenting the features of an emerging scene, a case study of online news diffusion may also provide a glimpse into the old phenomenon which has long remained invisible to communication scholars. The phenomenon of news transformation as described here may, actually, have been what traditional diffusion research has intended to grasp with the concept of ‘post-awareness’ activities. Now with the Internet, it became possible to

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empirically track and elaborate on such complex aspects of diffusion-related activities, in order to shed light on some of the essential characteristics of news diffusion. Above discussion shows that previous research has not quite taken into account the complexity of the actual diffusion process, which gets even more complicated, fast-moving, and multi-directional in the Internet-based communication environment. Future research needs to start from questioning, scrutinizing and re-inventing the fundamental concepts and premises of diffusion research. With additional benefits of online study, diffusion research needs to grasp its approaches in terms of new theoretical framework. To put it simply, the news diffusion in cyberspace, and perhaps, news diffusion itself, is apparently closer to evolution rather diffusion. The results of this paper highlight the deficiencies of the basic premises of diffusion study, in that both “news” and “diffusion” are no longer tenable notions in the highly volatile and changeable environment of the cyberspace. Indeed the original news may be deemed a sort of trigger for the development and evolution of subsequent versions of news event. In this respect, the authors would like to propose that the diffusion study discard the mechanical notion of ‘diffusion’ and instead adopt a biological metaphor of seed news, for elaborating on conceptual framework for future research. This renovated notion needs to take into account the dynamics of the seed news, which, during the diffusion, evolves and goes through metamorphosis. First of all, “news” and “diffusion,” respectively became rather problematic concepts in a digital environment. Diffusion research has unilaterally relied on a metaphorical notion of physical ‘diffusion’ to describe the research agenda. Yet, the phenomenon of diffusion in cyberspace necessitates a new conceptual framework, which may grapple with the dynamic process of diffusion in the Internet environment. Far from being a stable substance to be transmitted, the original news of an event diversifies both in terms of its forms and content in the process of diffusion via interactions among media and users. In this respect, an alternative concept of ‘seed news’ may offer more fruitful insights for grasping simultaneously both the new and old phenomenon of news diffusion. This notion seems to be simply more adequate in delineating the diffusion phenomenon in cyberspace, because the concept may embrace the complex and dynamic process of diffusion, addition, displacement, evolution, and decline of the news event as well. This notion may also come to terms with the complex dimensions of transmission and interplay between the media and audience, or among the users. In addition, the findings in this paper may provide some insights for exploring new theoretical and methodological approaches to diffusion research. Above all, these results suggest the possibility of theoretical convergence among diffusion study, content analysis of message, news effect (such as agenda setting) and public opinion research, which have remained

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fragmented theoretical traditions respectively. Considering the above-mentioned features, an emerging approach to news diffusion has also a great deal of potential to bring about significant paradigm shifts not only in diffusion study itself but also in communication theories in general. Whereas the traditional diffusion research has approached the news phenomenon primarily from a professional producer’s view, thus illuminating the way news saturates the society as a whole, an alternative approach in an emerging Internet environment may help reconstruct the tradition in terms of, and from the perspective of the audience or ‘prosumer.’ Even this shift alone may suggest enormous theoretical implications in a way that, with the rise of uses and gratifications research, the traditional effects studies have shifted from a communicator-centered approach to a more audience-centered one. This research has concentrated mainly on the description of the process of news diffusion in cyberspace, based on a case study in Korea. Therefore, some general theoretical propositions on online news diffusion may emerge from additional case studies in the context of other countries. For example, a future research may try to find what factors help shape patterns of news diffusion in cyberspace. In particular, diffusion researchers may benefit enormously from a comparative study, aiming at examining the patterns and features of online news diffusion in other countries for the purpose of generalization of news diffusion phenomena. In addition, diffusion researchers are encouraged to delve further into the complex trajectories of online news diffusion in the context of, and in conjunction with offline world. Not surprisingly, those theoretical ventures would entail additional challenges for researchers, in the sense that more elaborated tools of empirical inquiry need to be invented to deal with such complex phenomena.

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4 Asia Journalism and News Flows in Asia

Day2: August 28, 2009.

Western Journalism and Asian Journalism Choi, Young Jae (Hallym University)

1. Western Journalism and Imported Journalism If a universal global journalism exists, we may imagine without difficulty how Western standards, developed in the U.S. and West Europe for the last two hundred years, could secure a dominant position, competing against other plausible alternatives. Despite frequent severe criticisms on western journalism within or outside of its regional boundary, western norms and values of journalism - Freedom of Press, autonomy, a watch dog role against government, objective report and fairness - have gained superiority without any daunting competition. Furthermore, in the post cold-war era, when opposing Soviet journalism and the Third world journalism models were almost abandoned, the western free press model gained an advantage for expansion. However, we need to carefully look into how the western journalism can become a desirable international standard for global citizens. To a considerable extent, global journalism is a highly normative problem. Generally, media do not perform their journalistic roles without involvement or interest to the nation or organization they are engaged in. Despite transnational media, such as CNN, BBC World Wide Service, conveying information around world, we seldom regard them as 'cosmopolite media' on behalf of world citizen's general interest, beyond their own country's interest. Here, we may find evidence that western professional journalism is still constructed within social structural constraints in its nation, though its influence tends to go beyond national boundaries.

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2. Reality of Imported Journalism Despite critiques against Western global media, most of the Third World countries, ironically, have imported western media system. As Peter Golding (1981) puts it, "mass media in Latin America, Asia, and Africa have developed, almost invariably, as derivatives of those in the advanced industrialized countries" (p.291). While U.S. and Europe journalism have developed with their own originality, the Third World journalism has been shaped as an imported model. Just as western companies and products are easily found in the streets of the Third World countries, it is not difficult to find the ideological prototype (i.e., objective report, fairness, neutrality) of western journalism in the developing countries. However, it can still be noted that the practice of imported journalism has been shaped with a considerable variance within its indigenous socio-cultural context. Since the collapse of Soviet Union, the case of Russian journalism shows how western journalism model has been imported in the different political and cultural situations. Even though Russia imported positively western free press system, those in power typically saw television as their rightful medium of communication. President Yeltsin fired and hired four directors of Ostankino Television over the period 1991-1994. Not only were pro-Communist newspapers banned after the siege of the Parliament building in October 1993, but the Independent Newspaper (Nyezavisimaya Gazeta), as independent as its name, was repeatedly threatened with being muzzled by members of President Yeltsin's team. "No one in power seemed to value the notion of independent media - old traditions were clearly dying hard" (Downing, 1995). Given the different socio-cultural systems, it is not easy to grasp the general characteristics of the imported journalism, and little was known about how journalisms in the imported nations are different, in comparison to the "original" western journalism. Despite in the macro level, to what extent any society has been democratized in politics and economy has influenced on media system, how that is related with the lower level, such as individual journalist, routine practice, and media organization, have not been well known. In Weaver's

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study (1998) that empirically examines journalism professionals around world, it is not easy to find distinctions between western and imported journalism or any commonalties among imported journalism for that matter. On the contrary, Rodriquez's study (1995) on the mechanisms of journalistic control and their effects in Britain, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. shows common salient characteristics. The comparative research, if not the western and the media of the rest of the world, addresses that the ownership of the national media system is centralized in very few hands; worse, these owners and the journalists they employ have close personal and professional relationships with the political elites of their respective nations (Rodriqeuz, 1995).

3. The Case of Asia Journalism When it comes to Asian mode of journalism, this research conducted an empirical research on the World that media in Asia construct and portray. A content analysis on the 8 Asian countries newspapers was conducted. The sample under investigation is international news in 8 newspapers including Korea, Chosun Daily; China, People's Daily; Japan, Asahi Shimbun; Malaysia, Utusan; Indonesia, Suarapembaruan;Singapore, Straight Times; India, Times of India; Philippine, Daily Inquirer. The time span from which the sample news articles were collected is the constructed 6 weeks, selecting one week each month from May till October, 2007. The sample of Singapore' Straight Times was selected from Oct 23 - 1 Nov. (9days) mainly due to the difficulties of collecting data. The first stage of analysis is about the proportion of Asia news in Asian newspapers with respect to other regions' news. For the second stage of analysis about Asia news itself, 1,193 Asia-related news were selected from the sample and investigated.

Firstly, the project addressed how the world are portrayed in the international news in Asia media. For the Korean newspaper, its international news section consists of news mainly about U.S. (34%), Asia (32%), Europe (21%) and so on

.

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A similar pattern of International news coverage in Korea is discovered in ones in Philippines, Singapore, India. This similarity among those nations perhaps owes to their historical ties to the West. News about Asia accounts for relatively much portion of international news in Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia (respectively, 53%, 50%, 40%). The reason for Asia news in the Japan newspaper may come from Japan's economic influence over the Asia. Also, Malaysia and Indonesia's geo-political status may lead to the many Asia news.

Global Regions portrayed in 8 Asian newspapers 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% a In

do

ne

si

si a al ay

a M

In di

in es

e

i li pp

or Ph

n

Si ng ap

pa Ja

a hi n C

K

or

ea

M idEast Africa E ur/R us O th America US Cent' l Asia Asia

Second, one of the main research questions in the project is how much the Asia countries are portrayed in the other Asian countries. In general, newspapers over Asian nations under investigation covered China news the most. The China newspaper reported about Japan, which is followed by news about Korea

.

illustrates that how much each Asia nation is relatively portrayed in other Asia nations’ media. China was covered the most in the Singapore newspaper, followed by in Korea, Japan, Philippines and Indonesia. Korea was most portrayed in Japan media and Singapore, then China and Indonesia in order. Japan was most covered in China, Korea and Indonesia. Again, Singapore was seldom covered in other Asia nations’ media, while it reported other nations in a great degree.

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How Asia media cover the other nations

How each Asia nation is portrayed in other Asia nations’ media

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Third, a research question in the project turns to how the Asia countries are framed in the other Asian countries.

illustrates that news about Asia counties are centered on politics and diplomatic relationship. In the case of news about China and Singapore, economy news are more likely to be covered. The other most distinctive feature of Asia news is disaster-accident-driven news in the coverage of relatively underdeveloped countries. The analysis of Asia news from the perspective of news value also discovered the disaster-driven news value. Southeast Asian countries are more likely to be portrayed by the accident news value than other economically advanced countries. Asia countries framed in the Asia media coverage.

Forth, media sociological interests make us turn to the question of how the Asia news contents produced in 8 different countries. The analysis of Asia news edition shows that Singapore, China, Korea, Malaysia tend to put more Asia news on the front-page, giving priority to the news in the front-page. Asia news stories are more frequently discovered in Editorial/Opinion pages in Singapore and Korea newspapers

.

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Editing of Asian News

Korea China Japan Singapore Philippines India Malaysia Indonesia total

Front page

International news

24 15.2% 26 16.9% 19 8.8% 25 27.2% 9 8.2% 7 4.9% 19 12.0% 8 4.9% 137 11.5%

81 51.3% 128 83.1% 189 87.9% 47 51.1% 95 86.4% 102 71.8% 136 86.1% 143 87.2% 921 77.2%

Editorial/ Other news Opinion sections 22 13.9%

7 3.3% 20 21.7% 2 1.8% 10 7.0% 3 1.9% 13 7.9% 77 6.5%

31 19.6%

4 3.6% 23 16.2%

58 4.9%

total 158 100.0% 154 100.0% 215 100.0% 92 100.0% 110 100.0% 142 100.0% 158 100.0% 164 100.0% 1193 100.0%

The authorship analysis of Asian news in

shows that most of Southeast Asian countries rely heavily on wire service in covering Asia. Korea, Japan and Singapore have sent their own correspondents to cover the Asia.

Authorship of Asia News (byline)

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The length of news stories of Asia varies country by country. On average, East Asian countries, Korea, China, Japan writes shorter Asian news stories with about 5.5 paragraphs per a story. Asia news in the Straight Times in Singapore are three times longer than ones in Korea newspaper. Philippines and other Southeast Asian newspaper are in the middle range in the length of news article

.

Differences in length of news

: Chang, Y. (1967). Development of korean journalism education based on american practices. (Ph. D. dissertation) University of Missouri. Columbia. Chosun Ilbo Oct1 - Nov 5 1999. Downing, J. (1995). Media, dictatorship, and the reemergence of "civil society". In Downing et al. (Eds.) Questioning the Media: Critical Introduction [no page numbers].Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Flink, S.E. (1997). Sentinel under siege. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Golding H. & Harris, P. (1997). Introduction in Golding & Harris (eds.), Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Globalization, communication & the new international order (pp. 1-9). Golding, P. ( 1981). Media professionalism in the third world: the transfer of an ideology. [no publisher and place of publication]

- 188 -

Gross, L. (1978). International law aspects of the freedom of information and the right to communicate. In P.C. Horton (Eds.), The third world and press freedom (pp. 55-73). New York: Praeger. JoongAng Ilbo Oct 1 - Nov 5. 1999. Korea Herald Oct 1 - Nov 5 1999 Mankekar, D.R. (1981). Whose freedom? whose order? a plea for a new international information order by third world. Delhi, India: Clarion. Mowlana, H. (1996). Global communication in transition: The end of diversity? .Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pinkney, R.. (1994). Democracy in the third world. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner. Reese, S. (1999). Understanding journalists and journalism: a hierarchy of influences approach. [no publisher and place of publication] Rodrigeuz, A. (1995). Control mechanisms of national news making: Britain, canada, mexico, and the united states. In Downing et al. (Eds.), Questioning the media: critical introduction. [no pages] Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sussman, L.R. (1978). Developmental journalism: the ideological factor. In P.C. Horton (Eds.), The third world and press freedom [no page numbers]. News York: Praeger Publishers. Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T. & Schramm. (1963). Four theories of the press (2nd ed.). Urbana, Illinios: University of Illinois Press. Sieghart, P. (1991). International human rights law: Some current problems. In R. Blackburn. & J. Yayloar. (Eds.), Human Rights for the 1990s (pp.24-42). London: Manshell. Slack, J. D. (1987). The information age as ideology: an introduction. In J. D. Salck & F. Fejes (Eds.), The ideology of the information age (pp. 1 - 11). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex. Straubahaar, J.D. (1991). Beyond media imperialism: Assymetrical interdependence and cultural proximity.[no editor] Critical Studies in Mass Communication 8, 39-59.[no place of publication and publisher] United Nations (1948). Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Right, United Nations General Assembly. Weaver, D. (1998). The journalists around the world: Commonalities and differences. In Weave et al. (Eds.), Global journalist: News people around the world. [no page numbers] [no place of publication and publisher] Yonhap News Oct 1 - Nov 5 1999

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Asia’s Internet Journalism and News Flows

Jinah Seol (Associate Professor, Korea National Open University)

The purpose of this discussion is to understand how Internet journalism can assist the flow of news in Asia.

Both Asia’s economy and ICT are expanding rapidly. In sheer numbers, Asia’s 4 billion inhabitants constitute approximately three-fifths of the world’s population. A sizeable proportion of that population belongs to developing nations, whose political situations are very interesting and volatile.

Whether developing or developed, however, Asian states have become crucial partners in trade and commerce for many countries around the world. Western states, in particular, have forged many strong ties with Asian states, most notably, India and China. These multilateral interactions do and will require, even more pressingly in the future, information about Asia. The demand for Asian news is rising.

The political and market situations, technological advancements, natural disasters, cultural rediscoveries that are taking place in Asia have become of great interest, not just

- 191 -

to many professional journalists around the world, but to many ordinary people as well. Consider, for example, the reengagement with North Korea as of late, the reporter’s releases with Clinton’s visit. Or the close tracking of the story of Ann Sung Suu Kyi’s house arrest. In the last few months, myriad articles have been published about her detainment. There are lots of attention-grabbing political stories we can pick up from Asia.

China’s Shinhwa News Agency claims that it is or will become one of the four largest international news agencies in the world. Despite being a major news agency, Shinhwa has not yet established its credibility and reputation among Asian nations, let alone the Western. We wonder why, with Shinhwa supplying news about China, Korea and many other Asian nations will still look to AP or Reuters. News about Asia in Asia, then, is supplied by non-Asian news agencies.

There is something slightly ironic in this. Asian news agencies ought to assist one another in publishing and reporting news about and for Asia. Instead, because of certain prejudices that Asian news agencies hold against other Asian news agencies, it is more often the case that news is taken or shared by Western sources rather than Asian ones. Asian news agencies, for their part, have discouraged other countries’ journalists, agencies and people from accessing websites or publications by in English.

The current state of Internet journalism in Asia lacks a community, or common portal, through which news can be picked up and posted from all corners of Asia. This,

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“Common Portal of Asia” will be based on consumer report. We can refer to websites like Youtube and Wikipedia as examples, not to mention CNN’s iReport. Web 2.0 enables ordinary people to become proactive contents providers on the Net.

Before we get started Round Table discussions, I propose that we build ‘Asia News Web Portal’ for Asian professional journalists as well as all Asian citizens. Asian citizens – of any nationality, any educational background or any age can post the news. The professionals, from here, can pick up the news posted and filter it. Their primary role would now be to ‘gate-keeping’ news, and “fish out” the credible sources from the bad with the aid of collective intelligence. With collective intelligence, everyone can be informed and, in turn, be an informer. Everyone becomes essentially a cyber journalist. The power of online journalism shows a democratic process, is open, transparent, and it is self-corrected, checked upon by the viewers. Because stories need to be fact-based this Asian-citizen based portal will be thriving.

Under this ‘Asia News Web Portal’, someone in Indonesia or in Vietnam could be rewarded for a ground-breaking report. This does not mean that professional journalists will disappear. What is news/what is not depends on the individual journalists, professional journalists operating this proposed portal. They just don’t have to search for Asian news via a few news agencies. Journalists will fish out what’s good news in the sea of news stories. They’ll check the Portal, they’ll ‘PULL In’ the valid information. Meantime, people in Asia can, through the Internet, check the power of the fourth branch of government.

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The power of the Internet journalism is eventually about the user potential. But professional journalists have to be better and meticulous gate keepers about what are real news and how to select them. I strongly believe that news created by the users and filtered by the professionals will vigorously flow across Asia and spill over to other regions.

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