Maverick Indonesia

Jakarta And Blogging

A new post on Enda Nasution’s blog mentioned that according to Businessweek.com, Jakarta is on par with cities like Beijing, Mumbai, and Philadelphia as one of the top 30 cities in the world for blog postings and comments activities. So I went to the website — and it’s true! It’s sad, however, that we still lost out to Singapore, but I agree with one of the comments on Enda’s blog: This is mostly due to the unavailability of cheap internet connection, even in Jakarta.

This little information is interesting, especially in the face of the current controversy about the proposed amendments to Press Law No. 40 (1999). Could it be that the prospect of a less-than-independent mass media little by little drives away consumers from the mainstream Press to the more independently written blogs? Or is this simply because a growing number of audiences feel that the mainstream media no longer sufficiently fulfills their need of information?

In any case this proves that blogs, online message boards, and mailing lists represent a growing trend of direct opinion forming and delivery, as more people take their cue from what they read in this media which is uncontrolled (or shall we say unrestrained) by conventional yokes, formulate their own opinions, then post it again in the same media, further influencing others at a rate that television and newspapers never even dreamt of. Something to think about, right?