The Suharto Regime and Its Fall Through the Eyes of the Local Media

Abstract

The first part of this article elaborates on the content and media management dynamics in local newspapers and radio stations during the period leading up to the fall of the New Order in Indonesia. The latter part deals with the early reform period after the downfall of Suharto. In-depth interviews were conducted with editorial policy-makers of the newspapers and with various radio station staff members in four cities where media consumption and other data had rarely been documented. The findings in the first part reveal omnipresent political control at two levels — local and central government. Because of this control, the local media personnel acknowledge their limitations, but strove for as much freedom as possible within the system. The second part shows that in this historical context, changes are taking place in both agency and structure. Both parts support the thesis that there is an interplay between agency and structure as opposed to the instrumentalist and structuralist orthodoxies.