scholarly journals Screening Piety, Class, and Romance in Indonesia

Author(s):  
Richard Fox

Abstract The collapse of the New Order ushered in what many had hoped would be a new era of openness and transparency for Indonesia. The loosening of laws pertaining to broadcast and print publication gave rise to a proliferation of new media and cultural production. This had a profound effect on everything, from politics, religion, and the economy to popular conceptions of romantic intimacy and personal accomplishment. The question is whether prevailing approaches to media and popular culture are adequate to the task of accounting for these oft-cited transformations in Indonesian public life. Focusing on issues of piety, class, and romance, this article examines a sequence of films, pop songs, and YouTube parody videos to offer a presuppositional critique of the current scholarship. Its central contention is that closer attention to pop culture as a form of ‘argument’ offers an important corrective to the reifying tendencies of prevailing approaches.

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Konrad Dominas

The aim of the article is to present two concepts — the supersystem of entertainment (super-system of transmedia intertextuality) and the transmission of storytelling — in the context of the re-search problem on various examples in pop culture. The first term was introduced by Marsha Kinder in the work Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the second was by Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. The analysis of the above terms uses knowledge in the field of archi-tecture of information (knowledge sharing and classification), internet technologies (search engine algorithms) and literature and popular culture (cultural universum). In addition, the most important mechanisms (causes and effects) of processes — cultural, media, social, economic — take place in contemporary culture.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Afdal Makkuraga Putra

Political system in Indonesia after New Order regime has entered into a new phase, which is both fundamentally and practically different. With the growth of freedom of expression and the rise of information and communication technology (ICT), the use and practices of political communication is also striking a fair balance, two-ways direction, no longer dominated by government-only apparatuses. The use of internet and New Media in political communication realm has been pioneered since 1997, and has been growing ever since, thanks to the new practices of local election (Pilkada). This paper will address firstly, the theoretical framework of political communication in e-Democracy, and secondly, the application of New Media (website, blog, and social media sites) in local-based political communication, namely Pilkada in Banten at October 23, 2011. Having analysed the phenomenon in question, a surprising result appears. Even though all candidates of Governor and Deputy Governor of recent Pilkada Banten have used New Media as their communication and campaign media, nevertheless the interactivity factor embedded within those “New Media use” are largely neglected. Keywords: e-Democracy, political communication, New Media, interactivity.


Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.


1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Manga Fombad

Freedom of expression is not only a fundamental human right but also constitutes one of the essential elements in the establishment of a democratic society. No country can seriously profess to be a democracy, or pretend to be making efforts towards this, if its citizens cannot freely express their opinions. Recent moves to introduce freedom of expression in Cameroon have come at a particularly difficult time. Like most African countries, it is on the horns of a dilemma. As it struggles to cope with an ever deepening economic crisis, it has come under strong internal and external pressure to democratise. The winds of change which blew into Africa at the end of the 1980s, when former communist-block single-party régimes collapsed, appeared to herald the beginning of a new era. But as leaders are increasingly pressed by impatient citizens to unfreeze their political, social, and economic rights, tyrants and dictators posing as democrats seem to be determining the nature and guiding principles of the new order.


Author(s):  
Adrian Deveau

Popular media is a series of appropriations and citations of cultural productions, refurbishing past ideas to fit the mold of the present. Representation of art works and cultural products influence the visibility of the groups who produce for popular culture. While social media and contemporary art allow for the rapid spread of ideas through the internet and advertisements, too often are ideas stolen for profit for large companies by exploiting the artistic integrity of uninitiated groups. Queer culture often appropriates historical methodologies for a reclamation of the past to create representation for the future. Queer artists produce landmark aesthetics in visual culture, shaping contemporary fashion trends and artistic movements in the 21st Century. While appropriation as a methodology is not inherently problematic, exploitation develops when artists are neglected credit for works which are exploited for capitalist gain.The research paper The Golden Age of Stealing: An Analysis of Queer Appropriation and Exploitation in 21st Century Popular Culture analyzes the relationship between the appropriation and exploitation of Queer art, using the 1980’s and 90’s club kids as a platform for queer aesthetic production. The paper outlines the dichotomy between representation of queer peoples in the 1990’s and the aesthetics produced to question popular representations and roles within a western consumer society. Using queer performative theories including utopianism, performativity, and disidentification, the paper distinguishes why the stealing of queer art for profit is inherently dangerous and regressive for the queer community, silencing queer voices and perpetrating a heteronormative narrative of cultural production.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Enny Ingketria

From the Dutch colonial era until the end of Suharto administration, Chinese Indonesians have perpetually been the victims of racial prejudice and negative stereotyping addressed by pribumi. However, the most difficult situations and unpleasant experiences occurred under Suharto's New Order, where the forced assimilation policy was implemented and Chinese Indonesians at that time were drawn to Chinese films and series to search for their Chinese-ness, while escaping reality. The previous researches did not provide comprehensive studies on the identity formation of Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto era, especially after the reformation era, under different presidents. Therefore, the subjective reality of third and fourth generations of Chinese Indonesians who spent their adolescence and/or adulthood over the course of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY)’s tenure has been explored in this study. From the constructive nature of reality to the situational constraints that shape inquiry, the Chinese Indonesians were indeed more emotionally expressive, supported by a more stable political and economic condition, exposure to the new media, and enhanced bilateral partnership between China and Indonesia. The use of new media in disseminating the Chinese cultural values through the media product, as well as the Chinese cultural practice publicly held by mostly Chinese communities in Indonesia became the influential factors in connecting those younger generations of Chinese Indonesia to their heritage. Ethnic pride and cultural long-distance nationalism can be eventually observed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-304
Author(s):  
Qurrota A'yuni
Keyword(s):  

As a means of disseminating information, a new era of media does not always have a positive impact on the purpose of da’wah. The new era’s media actually raises the birth of da’wah that is extreme, radical and far from the meaning of Islam as a religion of peace. Very few da’wah actors and activists have integrated prophetic ethics and values in the new media era. They use many utterances of hatred (hatespeech) and lies (hoaxes) to preach. This phenomenon is very inversely proportional to the teachings of friendly and peaceful Islam as did the Prophet Muhammad. Therefore, grounding prophetic-based tabligh activities is very urgent in the new media era.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Ferry Fauzi Hermawan

This study aimed to identify the forms of masculinity in the Indonesian popular culture in the beginning of New Order regime. This study was based on the two novels: Cross Mama and Kekasih-Kekasih Gelap, written by Motinggo Busye. The analysis used new historicism theory proposed by Stephen Greenblatt. The analysis also considered various cultural contexts emerged in 1970s. The results show three shared trends in the novels. The first trend shows that the masculinity tends to be represented by both men worshiping patriarchal values such as the myth of woman’s virginity and men perceiving woman as a sexual object. The second trend shows that masculinity is stereotyped based on masculinity, power, and male dominance. The third trend shows that masculinity relates to various products of mass culture at the time. This last trend shows that in that era,the ideal male figure is represented as the one who: (1) is sexually active with many women, (2) has a muscular body, (3) has a handsome look, and (4) has a financial capability. Besides the shared three trends, the result also shows that the texts in the novels do not only reflect the cultural situations in the 60’s and 70’s but also contribute in shaping the social values of the cultural situations.


Author(s):  
Marcin Kępiński

Both pop culture and modern Hollywood cinema are mainly intended for entertainment. American war films are not free from this vice. A researcher of culture should shun attempts to find hidden symbols, myths and flashes of meanings from distant traditional culture in such films. Contemporary popular mythologies do not represent the same mythical pattern that Eliade wrote about. Popular culture consists of ideas on various topics, borrowings, quotations and fragments of meanings, all patched together. In my view, however, Fury goes beyond pop culture and entertainment. After all, there is also good American war cinema and films that are not mindless borrowings or calques of carelessly patchworked pieces of pop culture. One can look at them and find certain cultural tropes and motifs known to specialists in humanities, such as an initiation journey, the symbolic language of eternal myths or archetypal figures of cultural heroes, all in a version transformed by popular culture, of course. The aim of my article is therefore to analyse David Ayer’s film from the perspective of a culture researcher who seeks cultural tropes and sources of the war hero myth in this cinematic work.


Author(s):  
Tully Barnett ◽  
Ben Kooyman

Contemporaneous with the collision of Science Fiction/Fantasy with the mainstream evident in the success of nerd culture show The Big Bang Theory (2007- ), Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012), the growth of Comic Con audiences and so on, Dan Harmon developed Community (2009- ), a sitcom depicting a study group at a second-rate community college. The show exemplifies a recent gravitation away from the multi-camera, laugh-track driven sitcom formula, alternating between “straight” episodes dealing with traditional sitcom premises, though always inflected with self-aware acumen, and more ambitious, unconventional episodes featuring outlandish premises, often infused with the trappings of genre and geek fandom. The show presents apocalyptic action- and Western-style paintball wars, epidemics that evoke zombie cinema, a Yahtzee game that spirals into alternate timelines, and a high-stakes Dungeons and Dragons game that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy.  Both the straight and the unconventional episodes ultimately serve the same purpose, examining the intersection between nerd culture and everyday life. This essay discusses a number of episodes which exemplify Community’s intersections between everyday life and popular culture, charting the show’s evolving preoccupation with pop culture and intertwining of reality and fantasy. It discusses Community’s self-referentiality as a sitcom, its ambitious and elaborate recreations of and homages to pop culture artefacts, and its explicit gravitation towards Science Fiction and Telefantasy in its third season. Through its various homages to popular culture and ongoing depiction of fan culture, we posit that the show is both a work of fandom and a work about fandom, advocating for the pivotal role of fandom in everyday life and for popular culture as a tool for interpreting, comprehending and navigating life. In this respect, the show contributes to the long history of both the sitcom and Telefantasy as vehicles for cultural commentary.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document