Is it possible to make a fair and legitimate comparison when we are not comparing apples to apples? This was the first question that crossed my mind when I saw this book, a compilation of writings on comparative media studies and transformation in Germany and Indonesia. To my mind, these two countries are very different, if not complete opposites. Germany is northern, democratically established, has a strong Christian culture, and of course is part of Western culture, and is a core nation in the constellation of international relations. Meanwhile, Indonesia is in the south, its democratic system is still fragile, it contains the largest population of Muslims in the world, and is often labelled as being ‘developing’ or ‘third world’. So, for me at least, the two are like apples and durians.
This book is based on a three-year (2015–17) collaborative project of German and Indonesian scholars coordinated by the Media and Communication Studies Department of the University of Erfurt in Germany and the Faculty of Communication Science, Universitas Padjadjaran (Unpad), Bandung, Indonesia. It was also preceded by a three-day conference held at Unpad, Indonesia between 1 and 3 November 2017.
The book is divided by theme into four sections: ‘Media and political transformation’; ‘Media representation and racism’; ‘Internet and counter public sphere’; and ‘Popular culture and democracy’. The themes are discussed in greater depth through case studies from Germany and Indonesia. In total, the book presents fifteen essays from both countries, including one with a case study from Egypt which, while very interesting and thematically relevant, did feel a little lost. If nothing else, the book demonstrates the wide scope of media research in both countries. Each thematic section has its own introduction, two to three essays, ends with a report of the respective roundtable discussion at the conference, and a comprehensive list of references.
The general Introduction written by Kai Hafez and Subekti Priyadharma (pp. 17–22) forms the foundation of the volume: they present theoretical arguments to counter the scepticism of most people, including myself, on the comparisons made between apples and not apples. They also discuss the missing link between theory and practice and the role of comparison as a source of academic knowledge, as well as asymmetrical comparisons in Media and Communication Studies, which are rarely discussed. For me, this essay was eye-opening and shaped my mindset so that I was able to approach the first thematic section from a perspective of transition. Hafez and Priyadharma convincingly argue that both Indonesia and Germany are still in the process of transformation, and so ‘it is unclear whether they are really apples or oranges’ (p. 17).
The first thematic section begins with a comparison of the Indonesian and German media systems, written by Mira Rochyadi-Reetz and Martin Löffelholz (pp. 31–46). The authors combine the indicators proposed by Hallin and Mancini with a number of other indicators such as press freedom, Internet freedom, and cultural dimensions (pp. 32–3), which I think are pertinent to their aims. However, it is the inclusion of other aspects of both countries’ media and political landscapes such as media ownership, media regulation, state intervention, and professionalism (pp. 37–43), that completes this analysis.
The other writings in this section then flow very well and complement each other. They include an analysis by Ade Armando on ideologies, partisanship, and media freedom in Indonesia from the Old Order to the contemporary era (pp. 49–69), followed by an analysis of the role of ideologies and partisanship in public political communication in Germany, written by Oliver Hahn and David Liewehr (pp. 73–93).
It is surprising just how many similarities are found between these two supposedly contrasting countries, including in the discussions on public participation, media representation, and the social recognition of ethnic, religious, and social minorities in the second section. The analysis grows more comprehensive in the book's fourth section, with studies of how popular cultural articulations through the media can also contribute to social developments, and how communication cultures have to be considered when analysing vital transformations in both countries.
My attention, perhaps steered by my own projects and concerns at the time of reading, was continually drawn to the third section of this book: ‘Internet and counter public sphere’, especially the essays written by Subekti Priyadharma, ‘Dimensions of comparison of German/Indonesian online public spheres’ (pp. 199–221) and Jeffrey Wimmer's ‘Digital transformation of counterpublic spheres’ (pp. 227–44). Traditional forms of media that have been racing against, but also fuelled by the rapid progress of digital technology, at least in the last decade, seems to have positioned the Internet as the saviour: a medium which enables citizens to interact more intensively either with each other or with institutions such as the state, and hence to facilitate the functioning of the public sphere. Priyadharma reminds us that the Internet does not necessarily herald an improvement of the quality of the public sphere and the number of participants (p. 202). He revisits Papacharissi's arguments (2009) and rightly underlines the relevance of arguments as to why the Internet is not necessarily increasing the quality of the public sphere, by taking into consideration the importance of factors such as access to information (p. 202), reciprocity of communication (p. 204), and the commercialisation of online space (p. 207). These concerns about the Internet as a public sphere remind me of its underlying capitalist structures — thus, regardless of how promising this media is, capitalism will find a way to take advantage of it.
Jeffrey Wimmer explores the under-researched and, similarly, under-criticised study of counterpublic spheres. Wimmer systematically disentangles the complexity of counterpublic spheres, including by offering several concepts such as ‘alternative media’ (p. 230) and ‘citizen media’ (p. 232), leading me to conclude that perhaps counterpublic spheres should not be categorised as anything other than the antithesis of the dominant discourse and that this antithesis might not be singular — they can exist sporadically, although they can also be well orchestrated if they intersect. His writing on counterpublic spheres opened my mind to this phenomenon in the Indonesian context, especially during the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Media and transformation in Germany and Indonesia is a thought-provoking and analytically helpful book. It corrects some established assumptions and proposes directions of asymmetrical comparison for further research. Its comparisons, made through a collection of writings with the aim of bridging a gap between theory and practice, successfully remind us that we live in asymmetrical constructions in multiple dimensions, and that nothing is really an apple or an orange — or a durian.
