DEPOK,
Ignatius Haryanto Djoewanto became the 142nd Doctor of Communication Science from the University of Indonesia on Friday, April 19, 2024 at Juwono Sudarsono Auditorium, FISIP UI with his dissertation entitled “Digital Disruption, Journalistic Field, and Transformative Capital in Kompas and Tempo (1995-2020)”. The session chaired by the dean of FISIP UI, Prof. Dr. Semiarto Aji Purwanto, was examined by Dr. Nina Mutmainnah, Inaya Rakhmani, Ph.D., Dr. Indah Santi Pratidina, J. Haryatmoko, Ph.D and Angela Romano, Ph.D. Dr. Eriyanto acted as Promoter and Dr. Irwan Julianto as Copromoter.
Armed with the concept of capital proposed by Bourdieu, Haryanto’s research seeks to see how large print media companies such as Kompas and Tempo carry out the adaptation or transformation process towards digital journalism. Not only that, this research explores the requirements and challenges faced to survive in the present and future.
Through Haryanto’s research, it can be concluded that Kompas and Tempo both experienced delays in anticipating the development of digital media and journalism due to their strong confidence in leading the market in print media. During the New Order, Kompas and Tempo, which experienced authoritarian and repressive political life, benefited through expansion into a number of fields or media ownership in a number of cities. Both mass media underestimated the presence and development of online media until they realized the decline in advertising revenue and media circulation at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, which marked a structural change in the media industry as well as a change in the media readership.
“Advertising, which used to be the main support of the media industry, has changed. The huge revenues enjoyed by print media in the past cannot be replaced, especially when giant media platforms control the distribution of content through their search engines and make search engines run more than 90% of news consumption, rather than the audience going to the media website itself,” Haryanto explained.
He also highlighted the increase in online media consumption by audiences along with mobile phone ownership and the growth of internet access. Unfortunately, the invitation to subscribe to Kompas and Tempo content has not met expectations because the media ecosystem is still dominated by the practice of consuming online news for free. “There needs to be a fairly massive campaign from those who advocate to subscribe or pay for quality news,” he suggested. (SAC)
