Media and religion: Rodja tv’s involvement in the civil society discourse for community development

Abstract

After Soeharto’s fall in 1998, a plethora of different types of mediadi scovered ways to grow and expand in Indonesi a. After Indonesia accepted the democratic politicalsystem, freedom of expression became part of everyday l ife. As pillars of democracy, the media are the tools par excellence for the expressi on of the people’s ideas. Established i n 2007, Rodja TV started its own discourse amidst civil society. The aim of this paper is to see the involvement of Rodja TV in the civil society discourse for community development. To what extent Rodja TV’s discourse has involved the four civil society spheres-private, public, market, and the state-and how it pursued the creation of the exemplified community it promotes. This paper takes the qualitative approach and uses data gathered from observati on, documents, and interviews. Apparently, Rodja TV has adopted a safe di scourse by showingits propensity for mainstream Sunni Islam rather than taking the jihadi approach to politics that strives for the establishment of an Islami c state. Rodja TV’s maintargets are localism and global ism but it is open to local values and selected expressions of modernism. However, it does not cri ti ci se the Indonesi an government in fighting terrorism. While the station initially targeted a li mi ted audience, because it broadcasts informati on about Islamic tenets, its public audience widened and members of Muslim associations, businessmen, and members of the government have become attracted to Rodja TV’s programs.