Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

178 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond YoutubeAsia online179A Chronicle of Video Activism andOnline Distribution in Post-New OrderIndonesiaFerdiansyah Thajib, Nuraini Juliastuti, Andrew Lowenthaland Alexandra CrosbyIn Indonesia, the relationship between social movements and the technologies of online videodistribution has reached a very exciting phase. 1 The exhilaration felt in 1998, at the end ofthe repressive era of Suharto’s New Order, created a unique sense of momentum for activistsworking with new technologies. In particular, the sense that video could directly impactlocal, regional, national and global politics remains strong. However, as activists begin todevelop more tactical approaches to changing technologies, how their videos will be distributedbecomes a recurring question. The many answers to this question arise from anarray of conflicting interests, ideologies and identities emerging from what can no longer beviewed as a single unified movement. Yet, alongside this divergence of approaches is theconvergence of existing forms of cultural production and distribution, mediated by advanceddigital technologies.Access to video production tools, the internet and mobile technologies, while still limited inIndonesia, is increasing dramatically. The proliferation of video production and the burgeoningonline sphere has introduced new ways of communicating that intensify the connectednessof agents from from different settings – including those initiating movements for socialchange, and those who would have once been considered the subjects of such movements.The writers of this article come from two organizations, KUNCI Cultural Centre and Engage-Media, both of which are firmly placed within the movement for social change, actively manipulatingemerging technologies for activist purposes. In our ongoing work, we have begunto chart how a range of activist organizations are engaging with online video technologiesin the Indonesian context, addressing issues that emerge from the interplay between socialmovements and technology, and exploring the potential and limitations of online video distribution.We have worked with participants within Java and Bali, as video production anddistribution activities are still concentrated in this part of Indonesia. Arguably, this is due tothe uneven development of the country’s communication infrastructure, which is very muchbound by the scope of market activity. We are, however, aware that video-based activities areburgeoning outside these islands even as we write. While this account is limited in geographicalscope, we hope that it becomes a solid point of departure for further research.We begin with a brief history of video activism in Indonesia, showing how and why some of the1. This article is a summary from Videochronic: Video Activism and Video Distribution in Indonesia,2009, KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (http://kunci.or.id) and EngageMedia, a collaborativewriting by Ferdiansyah Thajib, Nuraini Juliastuti, Andrew Lowenthal and Alexandra Crosby. Thecomplete PDF version is available in both English and Indonesian from:http://www.engagemedia.org/videochronic.offline methods of distribution have developed, and revealing the beginnings of some waysto map the different approaches to distribution. We then move into a discussion of onlinedistribution, arguing that while the prospects for strongly networked digital distribution are immense,there are still many barriers, both technological and cultural in nature.Video in Shifting MediascapesMany analyses have pointed to how technologies have helped to mobilize dissent within Indonesia’snational political landscape, in particular leading to the demise of Suharto’s threedecadeauthoritarian government. 2 One prominent example is the role the internet has playedas an alternative civic space allowing political engagement to bypass the control of the nationstate.3 Before the internet, however, video in its early stages was already beginning to alter theway that society constructed images of itself.According to theorist of globalization Arjun Appadurai, it is through visual information producedwithin ‘mediascapes’ that audiences can experience and transform ‘imagined lives,their own as well as those of others living in other places’. 4 In Indonesia, these mediascapescan be traced back to the early 1980s. At this time, video technology entered into and thrivedamong a new middle class, that was rapidly increasing thanks to an economic growth periodresulting from the New Order’s boom in state-sponsored natural resource exploitation. Thisperiod was marked by the popularity of ‘imagined lives’ on screen: Indian Bollywood movies,Hong Kong action series, and local films were consumed on Betamax and VHS videocassettes, and distributed by outlets called penjualan/persewaan or palwa (sales/rental). Theconsumption of these images contrasted sharply to the way video technology was simultaneouslybeing manipulated by the state. Audiovisual content in Indonesia was implicated in theIndonesian nation-building project through the establishment of the first national televisionnetwork Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI), and later by the launch in the late 1970s of thePalapa communication satellite. Both technologies became a means for Suharto’s New Orderregime to extend its political authority, sugar-coated with developmentalist logic.Like many New Order cultural policies, however, the government’s approach to video wasfraught with contradiction. As stated in the preliminary study on the history of video in Indonesia,Video Base, the analogue video period lasting from the 1970s to the late 1990s wasmarked by the increased use of videocassette recorders (VCR), which the state decided hadthe potential to endanger its dominance. From that point, the New Order took anticipativemeasures to contain and control video-related practices, ranging from censorship and theintroduction of new taxes on the sale and screening of video cassettes, to the classification of2. Krishna Sen and David T. Hill, Media, Culture and Politics in Indonesia, Australia: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000, pp. 195-217.3. Merlyna Lim, ‘Lost in Transition: The Internet and Reformasi in Indonesia’ in Jodi Dean, JonAnderson and Geert Lovink (eds) Reformatting Politics: Networked Communications and GlobalCivil Society, 2006, pp. 85–106.4. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalizations, Minneapolis, USA:University of Minnesota Press, 1996, p.35.