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Playboy Indonesia and the Media: Commerce and the Islamic Public Sphere on Trial in Indonesia

A seminar by

Professor Philip Kitley
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Room: 67.202 (moot court)
Time: 12.30-13.30

Faculty of Law and Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) joint seminar.

Abstract

This presentation is concerned with one specific matter and other, more general and challenging issues. My specific focus is on the 2006 trial of Playboy Indonesia, a publication that is part of the international Playboy franchise. I examine the complaint before the South Jakarta District Court and the evidence that was presented by the prosecutor and the comments made by various expert witnesses. I move quickly through the problems with pornography in the media to consideration of the transformation of the symbolic and moral character of the urban landscape under capitalism, and new media services and products. In brief, I argue that for some groups, reformasi (political reform) and globalisation have constructed a public sphere that is morally offensive and raises issues of proper performance.

The prosecution of the magazine signified concerns with the global spread of commercial media products and the circulation of sexual imagery derived from other places, histories and norms. It was also about frustrated political ambitions and the interest some conservative Islamist groups had in reinstating the Jakarta Charter and establishing the rule of Sharia law.

What is worth discussing is the question whether the trial represents a political tactic by marginalised Islamist interests, or is part of a growing, worldwide concern about the character and content of the visual and cyber-spheres.

Bio-note

Professor Philip Kitley is Chair of Communication and former Head, School of Social Science, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong, and Research Affiliate of the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS). He is a specialist on the Indonesian electronic media and the author of Television, Nation and Culture in Indonesia (Ohio University Press 2000) and Television, Regulation and Civil Society in Asia (Routledge 2003). From 1986-89, Philip Kitley served as Cultural Attache, Australian Embassy Jakarta. His current research funded by the Australian Research Council is on discourses of publicness in Indonesia.