The Power of Media to Shape Public View:

A Study on the Case of Corruption

Eradication Commission–National Police
Affair in
The Jakarta Post News
Luvdhy Wahyu S.E.
120710250
Airlangga University

Nowadays, in our era of Industry, the media has met its freedom
among the democratic environment. It means that the media can raise their power
in a term to build the public opinion. The suitable sample of this phenomenon is
the case of KPK-Police affair in Indonesia that well captured in The Jakarta Post
news. This study will bring the explanation about how the media works in mass
culture to establish a public view of KPK in a positive position and National
Police in the opposite that emerge a uniformity in the people opinion and make
them loose their objectivity toward this case. This paper will demonstrate how
the media plays its strong role in the contemporary society today.

Keywords : media, mass culture, public view, news.

Introduction

In the 21st century society, media is not a rare thing that uncommon

to the society. It has been a part of the contemporary daily life’s consumption.

More than that, it also a part of the urban lifestyle which can’t be separated from

the mass culture appeared. It can happen because in the era when democracy

becomes the most recognized system in the world, the implication is that the

freedom of media is absolutely legitimated. With such freedom and the frequency

of its use, media however can play a great role in the mass culture because of its

ability to build the public opinion. Media also can manage what the people are

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thinking about the issues existed. Mass media as the form of media that survive

till today still becomes one of the most important source of the news that the

society get. The news in media is a factor that influence the people view. The

question appeared right now is about the reliability of the media toward the public

view that it had emerged.

The suitable example to show the strong relationship between

media and the public view can be represented in the case of KPK(Corruption

Eradication Commission)-National Police affair that occurred in Indonesia. This

phenomenon can explain how strong the media plays its great role to the people

view toward their way of seeing this issue. It tells us about an agreement of

standpoint that media has built into the society point of view that they place the

Corruption Eradication Commission in the good position, while the National

Police in the contrary. The media is unconsciously or not has brought the opinion

of the people in one single sight like what have captured in their news. This study

will concern in the evidences of this phenomenon that included in an English

language mass media of Indonesia called The Jakarta Post. The truly reason why

the writer choose this phenomenon is actually lies in a fact that the media has

thrown out the objectivity of the society in their way to see this affair and follow

the mainstream of view that the mass media had established.

The importance of this study is concerned in the cultural practice

lies behind this phenomenon and the advantages that the people can get as the

consumer of the media itself. The cultural practice of the phenomenon is about the

strength of the media to bring the public opinion into their sight of the news. Since

the media has been a part of the society culture, it is not difficult to influence the

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way of the people to view some kind of issues such as the affair between the

Corruption Eradication Commission and the National Police in Indonesia. This

study will take back the objectivity of the way to see this phenomenon, not to

place the both sides into a binary opposition that cause one side as the blamed one

and the other as the safety. For the people as the reader and the consumer of the

news, this study will show the standpoint that should be handed by the society.

Therefore the public as the consumer will be wiser to take part of the way they see

this affair and not to misjudge the case before it is settled with their awareness of

the media’s role of building the perception of issue.

This study is aimed to break down the work of the media that is the

Jakarta post news in a matter of the built opinion left in the public view in

Corruption Eradication Commission-National Police affair. The theory used in the

analysis is the theory of mass criticism of Adorno and Horkheimer. This is the

appropriate approach to give an explanation about how the strength of the media

can deal with the mass culture as its result. The method of this paper is by

analyzing the recent news in December 2009 and a start of January 2010 about the

case of Corruption Eradication Commission-National Police affair in the Jakarta

Post newspaper to show the one-sidedness of the mass media of building the

public view of this case. Finally, this paper will conclude how the role of the

media operates the public view as a part of the mass culture and find out the lost

objectivity that is supposed to be in the people way of seeing this case of

Corruption Eradication Commission-National Police affair in the news in The

Jakarta Post newspaper.

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Analysis

One of a part of the news in Jakarta Post has placed into a high

position in the people sight by its words. That incremental change soon becomes

meaningless when we consider the incessant attacks on the Corruption Eradication

Commission (KPK), which had spearheaded and symbolized Indonesia’s war on

corruption (Jakarta Post 12/28/2009). What matters in mass media is not what

happens in real life, but rather the positive and negative ‘messages’, prescriptions,

and taboos that the spectator absorbs by means of identification with the material

he is looking at ( Bernstein 173). In this case , the media has turned the existence

of Corruption Eradication Commission that actually still a few of time into a great

point that it becomes the representation of Indonesian war of corruption rather

than the National Police or the court which have grown for a longer time. It is

truly unfair, but in the other news, the media give the more evidence to support

their point of view. The biggest success in handling corruption cases, such as the

previous year, was still in the hands of the Corruption Eradication Commission

(KPK) with 58 cases, followed by regency/municipal prosecutors’ offices with 35

cases and provincial prosecutors’ offices or the Attorney General’s Office with 13

cases (Jakarta Post 12/31/2009). By this news, the reader will see that the

Corruption Eradication Commission has succeed to play their job and in other side

at the same time says that the other institutions which also response to this work

as a fail ones, such as the National Police. In this term, the mass media has

brought what are called as the positive and negative message that shape the people

view to identify their material of the news as a guide to judge the Corruption

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Eradication Commission as the positive side and the National Police in the

opposition, while the fact of this case is still in undiscovered condition.

In one of the articles of their news, Jakarta Post as a mass media in

this problem, has ever written a title that point the National Police into a cornered

situation. Experts doubt police's ability to resolve graft cases (Jakarta Post

01/02/2010). With this title, the spectators of the news will automatically think

about the incompatibility of the National Police’s works. The media transmit

messages that virtually define what we regard as the real world, even though these

images are frequently at wide variance from the larger society (Schaefer 2004).

The people in this case will obviously perceive the position of the National Police

in a bad term. As we know, the word ‘expert’ in the title can make sure the people

to believe in the hidden message of the media to shape the people’s mind into its

direction. Although, in the reality the works of the National Police are not totally

resulted in failure, but only with the word ‘doubt’, the masses will completely

forget this fact and change their view into the same with the message transmitted

in that news that is a bad judgment to the National Police’s image. Unfortunately,

this reader’s response will spread out to be a public view in the larger society

which really is shaped by the mass media itself.

The other title of the Jakarta Post said that ‘Indonesia will still need

KPK for at least another 25 years’ (Jakarta Post 12/07/2009). It is a certain effort

of the media to bring the people way of seeing this case in their opinion to support

the position of the Corruption Eradication Commission’s innocent image. What is

crucial is the way in which cultural products have been standardized and

distributed by means ofrationalized and strictly controlled organization (Wilson

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29). In this phenomenon, the way them people seeing this case and their view to

shape the Corruption Eradication Commission in an innocent position is a merely

cultural product that is constructed by a certain organization named mass media.

The effect is that the dialectic situation of the society can’t be reached because the

variances of the people opinion turn into a single narration created by the media

itself. It is a frightening condition that Adorno and Horkheimer have predicted in

the beginning of 1930s that the power of media will create the ideology of the

world. In the same time, it will make the society looses their uniqueness as

individual and goes to a uniformity (Woodfin & Zarate 132-133). Thereby, the

power of media that growing into a strong role today is an ultimate factor that

forces the society varieties of seeing this case becomes a uniformity which said

the Corruption Eradication Commission in positive side and the National Police in

negative side is a result of the view shaped by the media to loose the objectivity of

the people point of opinions into a singular public view.

In practice, people's consciousness is determined by 'ideological state

apparatuses', including the mass media (Theobald 11). It is clear enough that the

media also something that includes an ideology within it. In the case of the

Corruption Eradication Commission-National Police affair, the media brings the

people view into one-sidedness sight as its ideology. The reason of the occurrence

of this reality is the sake of the mass media as a company or producer to gain as

much as profit with place the reader as the consumer. For the sake of gaining an

audience and possessing credibility, mass media must reproduce social reality; the

consequence of this is that they ‘may deflate or undermine the ideological

illusions of their own products and however unwittingly engage in social critique

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and ideological subversion’(Bernstein 20). The people are naturally like to see

what the want to see. In order to attract the reader, the media must produce a

second reality of the object news into a point where the people want to see. In this

case, as we know with the desperate condition of Indonesian corruption, the

people are more courage to watch the winning of the struggle symbol to fight

corruption in this country which is Corruption Eradication Commission. In other

side, their disappointment toward the National Police’s performance in eradicate

the corruption cases so far that are unsatisfied ones, the media reads this

phenomenon and place the National Police in a bad point of view rather than to

defend the objectivity of its news. The media has been succeeded to make an

illusion toward the society to see this case with their lost objectivity after all.

The other evidence lies in one of its article of news that contains a

statement of the ICW (Indonesian Corruption Watch), ‘Emerson was concerned

that police officers embedded in the KPK could interfere with investigations of

the Anggodo case’ (Jakarta Post 01/02/2010). This statement tries to prove to the

reader about professionalism of the police officers who are working within the

Corruption Eradication Commission. With the emergence of the protest

movement in one of Facebook group to support the two of the Corruption

Eradication Commission’s chairmen in the case of the Corruption Eradication

Commission-National Police affair, it has shown how the public have been

manipulated and shaped their view to see this case without any kind of objectivity

because whether the news are right or not, the judgment of the public society is

shouldn’t be prohibited except that the truth of the fact has discovered or the

procedure of the country has settled it. The more inarticulate and diffuse the

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audience of modern mass media seems to be, the more mass media tend to

achieve their ‘integration’ (Bernstein 162). It is the final danger of this

phenomenon because in the complicated audience of the mass media in recently

moment such as today because if the integration between the people and the

media is materialized, while the media only use the newsas a profit sake with its

one-sided perception, the public opinion will be ruined and the larger effect will

considered in a larger society stability. The evidence is the number of the people

that join that Facebook group is exceed one million. Though this number is not

quite enough to sign the public opinion of the whole Indonesian community, but it

resembles the beginning of the integration. The mass media is supposed to be

more neutral with their way to write their news, therefore the lost of objectivity

will never happen in the public view shaped.

Conclusion

Based on the Jakarta Post newspaper, the use of the words within the

news obviously pretends an effort to bring the people opinion as the reader to one-

sided sight. In this case, the mass media shows the binary opposition between the

Corruption Eradication Commission and the National Police with the positive side

is Corruption Eradication Commission that dominated the negative one, the

National police, whereas either the decision of the court or the true fact has not

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been settled yet. Moreover, the perception which is shaped by the message of the

mass media into the reader will definitely take an influence to the larger society to

build the same opinion in public view. It will create an unconscious singular way

of seeing this affair toward the society who makes themselves finally lost their

objectivity. The implication is the appearance of misjudgment of the public

through this case. In conclusion, the operation of the mass media to shape the one-

sidedness public view of the case Corruption Eradication Commission-National

Police affair is motivated by their profit orientation and works with its power of

media to build a loss of objectivity toward the variances of people standpoint as

the mass culture of its consumer, the lost objectivity here is the existence of a

singular way of seeing this case on the public view before the real judgment is

made.

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