Abstract
For nearly 30 years, television in Indonesia was dominated by the state broadcaster TVRI and five commercial channels with very close links to former President Soeharto. In the reform period since Soeharto's resignation, there has been a new sense of public and publicness, an expansion of the public sphere and the break-up and re-imagination of the Indonesian audience. These developments have been led by media sector insiders. This paper argues that, despite the progressive work of new licensees and civil society media groups, it is media sector outsiders which are needed to lead television in Indonesia out from under the totalising, essentialist models of the past to establish televisi bangsa baru — television for a new nation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.