Pendekatan Materialist untuk Studi Komunikasi Indonesia

Abstract

This paper advocates for a materialist approach to studying communication in Indonesia. This paper questions the communication/media study approach in Indonesia, which only has two approaches when looking at the ontological reality of communication: message transmission or meaning production. This paper explains that these two approaches are not absolute truths. Both of these approaches are historical products and have contributed to the stagnation of communication studies, so an alternative approach, such as a materialist approach, is needed in communication studies. This paper then describes some of the initial ideas of the materialist approach which defines communication as the circulation of people, ideas, information and capital. Furthermore, this paper also shows the development of this approach in several regions such as Europe and North America, where communication studies are understood as studies of material realities that are neglected as objects of communication studies by the message transmission process approach and the meaning production approach. This paper then outlines several alternative syntheses for developing approaches in communication studies in Indonesia, including alternative fields proposed by North American scholars namely; political economy, technological infrastructure, space, body and discourse. As a recommendation, this paper calls on Indonesian communication scholars to discuss and practice a materialist approach so that their studies will not only be limited to issues of media content, meaning, or media-centric things.