UNAIR NEWS – Head of Information and Public Relations Center (PIH) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) and public communication expert, Suko Widodo had an open doctoral exam in Adi Sukadana room, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Thursday, September 7.
His dissertation entitled “Colonization of Public Sphere in Public Broadcasting in Indonesia, Case Study of Local Public Broadcasting in East Java (TVRI Jatim and ATV Batu)”, has made Suko achieve 3.81 GPA.
Some prominent figures were attending as examiners such as Governor of East Java Dr. Soekarwo and lecturers of Universitas Indonesia Effendi Ghazali, PhD.
There was also Prof. Mustain, Prof. Djoko Santoso, Prof. Budi Prasetya, Vincensio Dugis, Ph.D, and Dr. Suprawoto, MSi.
The promotor was Prof. Dr. Hotman Siahaan., Drs. and Prof. Rachmah Ida, Dra., M.Comm., PhD, as the co-promotor.
“The background of this dissertation research was the enormous growth of television broadcasting practice in Indonesia,” said Suko.
The television regulation was applied as a consequence of the effort to build democracy in Indonesia. The existence of television as a form of media in the regions hopefully will provide public sphere as a place to represent their interests.
In reality, there is an intense competition among local TV stations and some stations even have difficulty to carry out their broadcasting operations. Similar things happen to local public televisions as they are forced to violate the regulations for their broadcast continuity.
“As a result, the public which deserve to get their public sphere as the consequence of broadcasting autonomy, do not get the service as they are supposed to,” said Suko.
The focus of this dissertation was to know the understanding of public broadcasting stakeholders on public sphere, managerial practice of public broadcasting institution to provide public sphere and the existence local consultative forum as the public representative to retain public sphere.
This research was focused on the idea of public sphere as presented by Jurgen Habermas and practice of political economy of the media proposed by Moscow to answer three questions.
First, the understanding of stakeholders on public sphere; second, determination of political economy interests currently happening and practiced in public television broadcast in East Java, TVRI Jatim and A-TV Batu Malang; and third, the existence of public representative in the effort to retain public sphere in public television.
The research referred to the idea of public sphere from the public television service -which has obligations to provide a space for public communication – and then it was analyzed with political economy approach.
The data to reveal local public television broadcasting practice was from documents and interview texts from the participants, such as the public television management officers, humanist/artist of non-governmental organization, parliamentary members, academics, journalists and television monitoring council.
There are two benefits obtained from this dissertation research. First, it brings theoretical benefit as it contributes analysis on public broadcasting through media political economy approach.
“Hopefully my research can give real contributions to the theoretical science and practical management of national television. So our television, especially the local television can contribute more to express the aspiration of people,” said the man who also host a talk show on TV. (*)
Penulis: Rio F. Rachman
Editor: Defrina Sukma S
