Detailing Various Problems in Writing History of Public Broadcasting in Indonesia

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Does Indonesia have a historical legacy for iIndonesian public broadcasting? This question is important to raise. The question of the historical legacy of public broadcasting may be difficult to answer. Not to mention that the direction of writing the history of Indonesian broadcasting still faces various problems.

Masduki, Lecturer of Department of Communication Science at UII, said that various problems in writing the history of Indonesian broadcasting have made it difficult to trace the legacy of public broadcasting in Indonesia.

This doctoral graduate from the Institute of Communication Studies & Media Research (IfKW), University of Munich (LMU Munich), explains that this fact is different from some public broadcasting practices in Europe and America, for example.

“In the UK, the BBC, as a public broadcaster, was born to meet the needs of quality information for citizens. The BBC has long confirmed that it is in the form of public broadcasting. It is also protected by law,” he said in a discussion at the Amir Effendi Siregar Forum (AES Forum. ) which was held by the Department of Communication Science. on Saturday, August 8th, 2020.

The AES Forum Discussion which was broadcast live by the Department of Communication Science via its First Online TV at UII, Uniicoms TV, was attended by various participants from various campuses, institutions, and NGO. Starting from broadcasting activists, academics, NGO activists, students, the press, and also the citizens of Yogyakarta.

Various Problems in Writing History of Public Broadcasting

According to Masduki,  who is also a broadcasting expert, there are several problems in writing the history of Indonesian broadcasting. He succeeded in tracking down references from books, journals to other literature that talk about public broadcasting in Indonesia. From here, finally, he recited his questions about the history of public broadcasting in his dissertation.

The problems in writing the history of public broadcasting, for example, as He mentioned it, first, books and other references in Indonesia have only focused on actors. Second, if there is any trace of the history of the institution, it only contains single institutions, TVRI for example, and only in certain periods.

Third, the approach used is the pre-soeharto period oral history approach. “This is as we can see in the book ‘Sedjarah Radio’ (history of radio) published by the Ministry of Education in 1953.

The next problem, fourth, is that the writing of history in books is still centered on the strategy of music broadcast content in the colonial era. This is as written by Yampolsky, a writer who researches colonial era radio such as SRV, Nirom, etc.

Fifth, books on the history of public broadcasting are still compiled by several Indonesianist authors. Sixth, the history that is listed only focuses on the organization and dates such as in theses, theses, dissertations, “and tends to copy and paste from various histories which are haphazard and dry analysis,” said Masduki.

“Well, what is missing is the writing of a longitudinal, comparative, and critical pattern of public broadcasting,” he said while explaining the reason he wrote his dissertation which was published by Palgrave Macmillan Publisher, some time ago.