Mediating the Pandemic in Jakarta

New Digital Platforms in a Time of Crisis

Abstract

The mediascape in Indonesia is highly diverse and pluralized. Citizen activists have long used new media as a means of political engagement. Some examples include the use of e-mail discussion groups and online forums to bring down President Suharto in May 1998, and the use of WhatsApp groups by Islamic groups to bring about the downfall of the then governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (more commonly known as Ahok) in 2017. Indonesian citizens have proven to be early adopters of digital technologies, the nation is one of the most active social media users in the world, and Jakarta is widely considered as the Twitter city; citizens are digitally literate and are politically engaged through a variety of media. Digital media and new online platforms play vital roles in the so-called processes of democratization. This article looks specifically at two emerging media platforms, Project Multatuli and LaporCovid-19, as means to explore the ways in which citizens can continue to pluralize and democratize the mediascape in (post-)pandemic Indonesia. In this article, we look at how our informants have navigated their livelihoods, family life, and careers in pandemic-era Jakarta. Crucially for Evi of Project Multatuli and Irma of LaporCovid-19, this has involved initiating the use of new platforms to circumvent, counter, and mitigate the shortcomings in available media, governance, or health care provision. The paper draws on Vigh’s use of the term ‘navigating’ to refer to the shifting terrain in which actors must determine which networks to utilize, which skills to deploy, and how to manage temporal unpredictability. The pandemic, which continues to fluctuate in waves, necessitates a nuanced and shifting response. This article seeks to place the varied responses of Jakartan-based actors in the context of these dynamic circumstances.