Depok, August 1st, 2023. The practice of buying and selling news or news trading in Indonesia does not only occur at the reporter level, but has transformed into the behavior of media corporations. This attracted Nuruddin Lazuardi’s interest to research and raise this topic in his dissertation entitled “Abuse of Media Power in News Trading Practices in Mainstream Media in Indonesia”. At the doctoral promotion open session held by the Criminology Postgraduate Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) Universitas Indonesia (UI), Nuruddin managed to get a doctorate degree with cum laude predicate.
The promotion session was chaired by Prof. Dr. Semiarto Aji Purwanto, Dean of FISIP UI. Acting as the promoter was Prof. Drs. Adrianus Eliasta Meliala, M.Si., M.Sc., Ph.D., and co-promoter Dr. Iqrak Sulhin, S.Sos., M.Si. The board of examiners consisted of Prof. Dr. Drs. Muhammad Mustofa, M.A.; Dr. Ninik Rahayu, S.H., M.S.; Dr. Bagus Sudarmanto, M.Si.; Dr. Eriyanto, M.Si.; and Dr. Dra. Ni Made Martini Puteri, M.Si.
According to Nuruddin, the news trading phenomenon is motivated by internal and external media interests through hegemony and oligarchy approaches. As a result, the content produced tends to ignore media norms and sacrifice the public’s right to factual information.
Nuruddin explained, using qualitative methods accompanied by data processing using the NVivo software, the research found motives, patterns, modes, goals, and advantages in the practice of news trading in corporate media in Indonesia.
“This finding shows that there are acts of abuse of media power within the organizational structure of corporate media in Indonesia, which constitutes corporate misconduct behavior. From a media criminology perspective, it is referring to the concept of criminogenic media, the construction of news trading content which is categorized as bribery has the potential to cause social harm,” said Nuruddin, during the open session for his doctoral promotion which was held on Monday (17/7).
Criminogenic media means that the media tends to cause danger, stimulate material desires, imitation of crime, or the passion of using violent images. The behavior of corporate misconduct in the media can put people – directly or indirectly – in a position that has the potential to become victims of moral panic, segregation, and lead to social harms.
From research conducted by Nuruddin, there are three problems drawn as a conclusion; first, the practice of news trading is a practice of bribery or gratification. The practice of news trading occurs due to interference from individual and group interests, both internal and external, who deliberately ignore ethical values and media norms.
Second, as a corporate institution that is entrusted with the trust of the state and society, media that practice news trading proves that they have not only deviated from their obligations in maintaining societal harmony, but it is also a form of abuse of media power. This abuse of power by corporate media can be categorized as corporate misconduct.
Third, the media that constructs news trading content is an abuse of media power. From a criminogenic media perspective, it has the potential to cause moral panic, segregation, and lead to social harm. Therefore, it can be said that corporate misconduct behavior by the media in the context of this research is a crime.
“In the end, I suggest the need to actualize media ethics and legal policies, as well as encourage supervision of corporate media by the public, in order to be able to respond to the dynamics of changes in the media landscape towards a better situation,” said Nuruddin.
