1132183

research-article2022
GMC0010.1177/17427665221132183Global Media and CommunicationAhmad

Article

Global Media and Communication

What drives journalists’ 2022, Vol. 18(3) 323­–343

© The Author(s) 2022

perceptions of media powers

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DOI: 10.1177/17427665221132183
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as political image-makers in journals.sagepub.com/home/gmc

the emerging democracy of

Indonesia?

Nyarwi Ahmad
University of Gadjah Mada, Indonesia

Abstract
This work explores what drives Indonesian journalists’ perceptions of media powers
as political image-makers. The findings indicate that the following structural factors
determined their perceptions: the journalists’ willingness to adopt the news media
logic, journalists’ conceptions of the media as primary sources of political information
and media and journalist independencies. The effects of these factors on journalists’
perceptions are defined by the types of media content, platform and media ownership
with which they are associated and also the journalists’ age, gender, education level and
position in the media organisation.

Keywords
Indonesian democracy, journalists, journalists’ self-perception, media power,
mediatisation, mediatisation of politics, political image-maker, structural factors

Introduction
Some of us might remember the bloody incident of Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Charlie
Hebdo is a French satirical magazine, which, since 2005, has quite frequently published
controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. On 7 January 2015, two French Algerian
Islamist gunmen, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi, attacked the offices of the magazine,
killing 12 people and injuring another 11. Five of the people killed were well-known

Corresponding author:
Nyarwi Ahmad, Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University
of Gadjah Mada, Jalan Sosio Justicia No. 1, Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia.
Email: [email protected]
324 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

cartoonists – Charb, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski. The attack created shock
waves not merely in France, but across the globe. Reacting to the attack on Charlie Hebdo,
around two million people gathered in Paris for a rally of national unity and 3.7 million
people joined mass demonstrations across France. The demonstrators protested against
the attack by using ‘Je Suis Charlie’ as a common slogan.
What prompted the Islamist gunmen to launch a bloody attack on the Charlie Hebdo
office? The trigger seems to have been a satirical image of Prophet Mohammed produced
by the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. This indicates that the media and media workers can
be image-makers too. They have the power to create and define the images of particular
public figures and/or groups of people. Such images could easily prompt unexpected
social and political movements. This tendency, to some degree, has been visible in
Indonesia’s democracy too.
Between 2012 and 2014, an influential segment of the Indonesian media ‘yearned for
news of a politician who represented a break from the familiar faces of Indonesian poli-
tics’ (Tapsell, 2015: 49). At that time, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was
widely considered to be a local populist politician who represented the ordinary
Indonesian people. When Jokowi entered Indonesia’s 2014 presidential election race
against Prabowo Subianto, a former son-in-law of former president, Suharto, an autocrat
who ruled the country from 1966 to 1998, the media and journalists associated with the
media endorsed him vigorously to win in the election.
Among Jokowi’s endorsers was Majalah Tempo, an influential Indonesian political
magazine established in 1971. A year before the 2014 presidential election, Majalah
Tempo published a series of issues with covers that portrayed Jokowi as the presidential
candidate favoured by the common Indonesian people. This support continued when
Jokowi ran for a second term in 2019. However, on 16 September 2019, a group of peo-
ple called Jokowi Mania, who publicly claimed themselves to be his hardliner support-
ers, publicly condemned the magazine. What were the triggers for this condemnation?
On 13 September 2019, Majalah Tempo released a weekly edition with Jokowi’s
Pinocchio silhouette caricature on its cover; the report inside said he had ignored a pledge
he had made in both the 2014 and the 2019 Indonesian presidential elections to tackle the
corruption rampant in the country. The executive editor of the magazine stated diplo-
matically that the cover was not intended to mock at him, asserting that the cover was
merely a journalistic product that was unlikely to downgrade Jokowi’s image as
Indonesian president. But Jokowi’s hardliner supporters were not swayed. They organ-
ised a public demonstration, went to the office of the Indonesian Press Council and called
for members of the council to order senior journalists who managed the Majalah Tempo
to withdraw the cover and apologise publicly to Jokowi (Putri, 2019).
Such stories indicate that journalists are seen as having the capability to construct the
image of a public figure, whether positive or negative, through the media content they
produce. However, while non-media actors strongly noticed such power, we lacked
knowledge regarding the ways in which they perceived such power and what factors
were likely determine their perceptions regarding such power.
This work argues that a specific research focusing on such issues are really important.
The reasons are as follows: the journalists associated with the media are principal actors
in the field that constitutes journalism. Journalism is interpreted as an entity that is
Ahmad 325

closely related with news or media or profession or social system or ‘a certain set of
practices and skills enacted by the particular group of “news workers” in the context of
media organisations’ (Deuze, 2004: 276). It is also seen as ‘an occupational ideology’
with ‘a set of values and practices that serve to sustain a more or less naturalised way of
seeing and interpreting the world’ (Deuze, 2004: 277). However, while it has been argued
that ‘how journalism in the self-perceptions of journalists has come to mean much more
than its modernist bias of telling people what they need to know’ (Deuze, 2004: 275),
knowledge regarding journalists’ perception of media power as political image-makers
in an emerging democracy has been under-developed.
In consideration of these points, this work selects the Indonesian democracy as a case
study and raises following question: what drives Indonesian journalists’ perception of
media powers as political image-makers? Focusing on this question, this work first
examines the existing theories of mediatisation of politics. It then formulates a journalist-
centred perspective and proposes a baseline structural model. Survey data derived from
Indonesian journalists are extracted using the PLS-SEM algorithm, bootstrapping tech-
niques and PLS-MGA procedures to generate the findings.

Literature review
The existing literature indicates that the media hold influential power in shaping politics
and political affairs within and across the established Western democratic countries,
where it often assumes the role of an autonomous power centre (Swanson and Mancini,
1996: 11), moving toward the centre of social process and elevating ‘the communica-
tion function and the role of communication experts in a wide range of institutions’
(Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999: 211). The media are no longer existing as ‘merely pas-
sive channels for political communicators and contents’ (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999:
249). Instead, the media have been taking shape as a super power (Van Aelst et al.,
2008) and media logic has been increasingly colonising the logic of politics and politi-
cal affairs (Meyer, 2002).
Acknowledging these changes, Strömbäck and his colleagues adopted the ideas of
Altheide and Snow (1979) and Mazzoleni and Schulz (1999) to formulate a theory of
mediatisation of politics. This theory highlights increasing media influence on the politi-
cal sphere with the media becoming a primary source of political information and assum-
ing that as the media become much more independent from political institutions, the
media logics direct not merely the media and media content, but also political actors
(Strömbäck, 2008: 235–241, 2011: 425; Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011: 35). Following
these propositions, some authors evaluated the ways in which the media, journalists and
political actors managed their relationships (Albaek et al., 2014; Casero-Ripollés et al.,
2016) and marked the role played by media power in shaping politics and political affairs
(Van Aelst et al., 2008; Van Dalen, 2012; Van Dalen and Van Aelst, 2014). However,
while offering invaluable knowledge, most of these scholars clarified the less structural
components that defined journalists’ perceptions regarding media power.
Promotors of the theory highlighted that media power has been constantly increasing
(Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999; Strömbäck, 2008: 2011). Most of them, however, consid-
ered less the diverse media-related actors that actually determine the existence of such
326 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

media power (Ampuja et al., 2014: 113–114; Deacon and Stanyer, 2014: 1034–1035).
More importantly, while developments of such media power have been reliant on coun-
try-related factors and type of media (Van Aelst et al., 2008) and journalistic works
(Hjarvard, 2008: 128; Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999: 250; Schulz, 2004: 93; Strömbäck,
2008: 240), knowledge regarding structural factors that define journalists’ perceptions
regarding the power of the media in an emerging democracy as political image-maker
has been under-developed.
Focusing on Indonesian politics, some authors have explored transformations of
media performances and policies and their impacts on political communication processes
in the Indonesian democracy (Gazali, 2004; Gazali et al., 2009; Ispandriarno, 2008;
Wahyuni, 2008). Researchers have also investigated the structural conditions that trans-
form the role of the media and journalists in politics (Kakiailatu, 2007), elements that
constitute role performances of journalists (Hanitzsch and Hidayat, 2012) and the effects
of political ownership of the media on how journalists practised journalistic values while
reporting news (Ekayanti and Xiaoming, 2018). However, while some of them indicated
that the Indonesian media are no longer acting as a lapdog (Hanitzsch and Hidayat,
2012), but, instead, emerging as a guide dog (Kakiailatu, 2007), none of them have
explored the structural factors that determine Indonesian journalists’ perceptions regard-
ing media power.
Keeping these research works in mind, this work lays out the following propositions:
The media have more influence over some political actors and institutions than others
(Strömbäck, 2008: 235). This influence, however, cannot be taken for granted (Ampuja
et al., 2014: 113–114; Deacon and Stanyer, 2014: 1034–1035). Rather, it is determined
by ‘the self-perceptions of journalists’ (Deuze, 2004: 275) while managing journalistic
work. We cannot observe such influence directly. To capture this influence, we need to
evaluate the way journalists and other media-related actors perceive media power as
political image-makers and also the structural elements that constitute such perceptions.

Context: The Indonesian media and journalists in the post-

Suharto new order
Between 1966 and 20 May 1998, Indonesia was ruled by the authoritarian Suharto
regime. In the first and second decades of Suharto’s rule, the print media took its place
as a primary sector of the Indonesian media industries (Dhakidae, 1991). In the last dec-
ade of his rule, however, the broadcast media, especially television channels, evolved
substantially (Hidayat et al., 2000; Wahyuni, 2008). During Suharto’s rule, the main-
stream media were forcibly de-politicised. The regime constantly constrained the role of
the media and the journalists who worked for the media through several instruments,
such as licensing mechanisms, media ownership regulations, media associations and
Press Council membership (Gazali, 2004; Gazali et al., 2009; Sudibyo and Patria, 2013).
When Suharto’s regime fell in May 1998, democratisation of politics gradually took
shape in Indonesia (Ahmad, 2019). This led to several transformations. As imposed by
Articles No. 5 (1), No. 20 (1, 2 and 4), No. 21 (1), No. 27, No. 28 F, No. 31 (1), No. 32,
No. 33 (3) and No. 36 of the amended version of the National Constitution of 1945, the
parliament members elected in the 1999 general election proposed the new Press Bill and
Ahmad 327

decreed it as Law No. 40/1999, and redrafted the existing Broadcasting Law and decreed
it as Law No. 32/2002. The enactments of these laws paved the way for the establishment
of a democratic media system.
Since the new system was put into place, the total number of media platforms in
Indonesia and journalists who work for such media have been increasing substantially
(Pintak and Setiyono, 2011). Some national news TV channels (Metro TV, SCTV, TV
One, TV 7, Kompas TV and CNN Indonesia) and local TV channels (JTV, Bali TV,
Jogja TV) have been showing remarkable growth. In particular, Trans Corp Group,
MNC Group, Kompas Gramedia Group, Elang Mahkota Teknologi, Visi Media Asia,
Jawa Pos Group, Mahaka Media, CT Group, Beritasatu Media Holdings, Media Group,
MRA Media, Femina Group and Tempo have been evolving significantly (Lim, 2011,
2012; Nugroho et al., 2012). These media have not merely developed constantly as
business institutions, but also continuously existed in an important arena of political
contestation between political actors and institutions (Gazali et al., 2009; Sudibyo and
Patria, 2013).
The establishment of such a system leads to the role of the Indonesian media and
journalists in politics and political affairs escalating substantially and the autonomy and
self-rule of such media thriving significantly (Gazali, 2004; Gazali et al., 2009). As these
media enjoyed much more freedom now (Ispandriarno, 2008; Wahyuni, 2008), they
turned into commercialised, profit-making institutions (Sudibyo and Patria, 2013) and
took shape as an important source of information and channel of communication (Lim,
2011, 2012). However, while, in the last two decades, the power of the media in shaping
Indonesian politics and political affairs has been increasingly visible (Ahmad, 2017,
2019; Sudibyo and Patria, 2013), knowledge regarding the structural elements and fac-
tors that define Indonesian journalists’ perception of media power as a political image-
maker has been under-developed.

Mediatisation of politics: A journalist-centred perspective

Adopting the institutionalist perspective, Strömbäck (2008), as informed by the ideas of
Altheide and Snow (1979), Mazzoleni and Schulz (1999) and Schulz (2004), proposed
the theory of mediatisation of politics. This theory assumes that once the media became
an importance source of political information and gradually independent from political
institutions, ‘the influence of the media on the institutional level increases’ (Strömbäck,
2008: 237), the media becoming not merely more influential as political communication
platforms, but also more influential as institutions, which are ‘differentiated and increas-
ingly independent of other political and social institutions’ (Strömbäck, 2011: 424–425).
It recognises the existence of media influence as ‘media interventionism’ (Strömbäck
and Esser, 2009) and journalistic influence as ‘journalistic interventionism’ (Strömbäck
and Dimitrova, 2011: 35).
Followers of this perspective argued that ‘media interventionism’ takes place as a prin-
cipal component that leads to such developments evolving (Strömbäck, 2011; Strömbäck
and Esser, 2009). However, since such developments are ‘less clear in reality than in
theory’ (Strömbäck, 2008: 241), Strömbäck and Dimitrova (2011: 35) favoured using the
concept of ‘journalistic interventionism’, while Esser and Strömbäck (2014: 227)
328 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

suggested moving from the media-centric to the actor-centric perspective. Unfortunately,

whilst transformation of journalistic interventionism seems inseparable from journalists’
assessments of media power while translating ‘political reality into story formats’ (Esser,
2013: 173), we have little knowledge regarding the structural factors that define journal-
ists’ perceptions of media power as political image-maker.
In order to consider such issues, this work proposes a journalist-centric perspective.
The reasons for doing this are as follows. Firstly, those who introduced the theory of
mediatisation of politics considered the media to be the most important source of infor-
mation and channel of communication, and also that the media were increasingly inde-
pendent of political institutions (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999; Schulz, 2004; Strömbäck,
2008, 2011; Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011; Strömbäck and Esser, 2009). However,
while such developments are evolving and could not be taken for granted (Ampuja et al.,
2014: 113–114; Deacon and Stanyer, 2014: 1034–1035), they explained less how media
actors, especially journalists, managed such developments.
Secondly, innovators of this theory highlighted diverse elements that constitute media
logic and considered it as an engine of mediatisation of politics (Mazzoleni, 2017: 139;
Strömbäck and Esser, 2009: 209–212). They also visualised factors that influence how
the media institutions developed this logic (Strömbäck, 2008, 2011; Strömbäck and
Dimitrova, 2011; Strömbäck and Esser, 2009). However, it is difficult for us to observe
such developments empirically. It is instead more reasonable to see how journalists
employed by such institutions manage such elements and deal with such factors while
selecting, covering and presenting political issues and events.
Thirdly, advocates of this theory assume that media power evolved within and across
dimensions that constitute mediatisation of politics (Strömbäck and Esser, 2009).
However, since we cannot observe such media power directly, we need to go into the
ways and the degree to which journalists and political actors perceive media power while
dealing with these dimensions.
To do so, we need to adopt the theory of presumed media influence originally intro-
duced by Davison (1983) and advanced by Mutz (1989), Gunther (1995, 1998), Gunther
and Storey (2003) and Tal-Or et al. (2010). The main reason is that this theory assumes
that ‘a person’s opinions and behaviours are sometimes ‘sociotropic’ responses, that is,
determined by his or her perceptions of others’ (Gunther, 1995: 28). Since these condi-
tions are clearly visible not only among politicians, but also among journalists
(Strömbäck, 2011: 435–436), adopting this theory allows us to evaluate not merely jour-
nalists’ perceptions of media power as a political image-maker, but also the structural
factors that define such perceptions.
Guidedg by this perspective, this work proposes subsequent hypotheses and a base-
line structural model to evaluate such hypotheses.

Proposed baseline structural model and hypotheses

It has been argued that the functional power of the agenda-building and agenda-setting
role of the media in determining the politics affairs escalates visibly and the role of the
media and journalists as indispensable actors within the political spheres increase sub-
stantially (Strömbäck, 2008, 2011; Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011; Strömbäck and
Ahmad 329

Esser, 2009). It has also been said that media interventionism likely exists when ‘journal-
ists and media actors become the stories’ main newsmakers rather than politicians or
other social actors’ (Strömbäck and Esser, 2009: 217). These lead to journalists having
influential power in shaping political news and influencing the political process, becom-
ing central actors within media organisations and having the capability to define news
content (Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011: 427).
It has been also acknowledged that the nature and variability of media channels deter-
mine the ways in which journalists produce media content that meets the needs and
expectations of the media owners, politicians, interest groups and audiences (Strömbäck
and Karlsson, 2011: 646). The personal and professional backgrounds and values of
journalists influence how they carry out such practices (Hanitzsch, 2007). As the media
are increasingly independent of political institutions and as well an important source of
political information, journalists are more likely to realise media and journalist inde-
pendencies, adopt the news media logic (Strömbäck, 2008: 235) and exercise their role
as news-makers (Strömbäck and Esser, 2009: 217) and meaning-makers (Salgado and
Strömbäck, 2012: 152) and consider media power as a political image-maker while
translating ‘political reality into story formats’ (Esser, 2013: 173).
In consideration of the fact that such developments are likely to take shape in the new
democracy of Indonesia, this article proposes the following hypothesis:

•• Journalists’ perception of media power as a political image-maker is likely deter-

mined by the following factors: journalists’ willingness to adopt the news media
logic and journalists’ conceptions regarding the media and journalist independen-
cies from political actors and institutions and the importance of the mainstream
media and the online and social media platforms as primary sources of informa-
tion (H1).

The mainstream literature indicates that how journalists manage journalistic works
are influenced by individual and organisation related factors. The individual-related fac-
tors include the journalist’s age, gender, educational level and position in the media
organisation and the type of media content they handle. The organisation-related factors
consist of the type of media platform and media ownership with which the journalist is
associated. In consideration of this proposition, this work formulates the following
hypotheses:

•• The effects of these factors on journalists’ perception of media power as political

image-makers are likely influenced by subsequent factors, which are types of
media platform (H2) and media ownership (H3) with which the journalist is asso-
ciated, and the journalist’s age category (H4), gender (H5), educational level
(H6), type of media content the journalist handles (H7) and the journalist’s posi-
tion in the media organisation (H8).

To evaluate such hypotheses, this work formulated a baseline structural model con-
structed from the following variables: the media and journalist independency assess-
ments (V1), perceptions of relative importance of mainstream media (V2) and online and
330 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

Figure 1. Baseline structural model.

social media platforms (V3) as the primary source of political information, the news
media logic adaptation (V4) and perception of the power of the media as a political
image-maker (V5). In this respect, V1, V4 and V5 are formulated as reflective variables,
while V2 and V3 are defined as formative variables. As seen in Figure 1, V1, V2 and V3
are positioned as exogenous variables (ξ), while V4 and V5 are placed as endogenous
variables (ŋ).

Research methods and design

This work adopts the quantitative method and uses the variance-based PLS-SEM
(VB-SEM) approach. The reasons for using this approach are: this approach has the
capability ‘to render a specific significant relationship when it is in fact significant in the
population’ and can generate a greater statistical power than the Covariance-Based
Ahmad 331

Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM) (Hair et al., 2014: 15). Adopting this approach
allows us to systematically evaluate the underlying factors that compose the measure-
ment models and the structural model (Hair et al., 2014: 13–14).
This work, as detailed in Appendix 1, formulates the measurement indicators of vari-
ables that construct the baseline structural model. The indicators of the variables that
construct this model were transformed into a questionnaire. The questionnaire was trans-
lated into Bahasa Indonesia, printed and sent to 2500 sampled journalists within two
months of the 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections being held. The journalists
included those who were associated with the Indonesian journalists’ association
(Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia or PWI), the Indonesian TV journalists’ union (Ikatan
Jurnalis Televisi Indonesia or IJTI) and the Independent Journalists’ Alliance (Aliansi
Jurnalis Independent or AJI). Five professional researchers were employed to remind the
journalists to answer the questionnaire and interview those who were strongly reluctant
to do so.
This work proposes dummy exploratory (grouping) variables and evaluates indicators
that construct these variables through the following procedures. The sampled journalists
were classified based on types of media platforms (newspapers, TV channels and online
news portals)1 and ownership (media owned by those affiliated to a political party, media
owned by those who have no political party affiliations and public media). They were
also categorised based on the media content or programmes they handled (social or polit-
ical news content or programmes and non-social and non-political news content or pro-
grammes), age category (<25, 26–35, 36–45 or >46 years old), educational level (high
school, undergraduate or post-graduate), gender type (male or female) and position they
hold in the media organisation (reporter, editor/producer or senior editor/executive pro-
ducer). The total number of sampled journalists, grouped into these categories, are
detailed in Table 1.
The survey data set derived from the 1074 Indonesian journalists in the sample was
coded in SPSS 23 and extracted using the algorithm and bootstrapping procedures of the
Smart PLS-SEM 3.0. Most of the journalists were associated with the Java-based main-
stream media2 (79.6%) and the rest of them were affiliated with the outer Java-based
mainstream media (20.4%). A summary of the evaluation results of the baseline struc-
tural model is laid out in Appendix 2. The PLS-MGA technique of Smart PLS-SEM 3.0
was applied to compare the path coefficients (β) values of the dummy structural models
formulated based on the dummy indicators and get path coefficients (β) values differ-
ences and their statistical values (ρ values).3 The findings are reported below.

Research findings
The PLS-SEM results show that Indonesian journalists perceived media power as
political image-makers. This perception, as seen in Figure 2, is strongly influenced by
the following factors: journalists’ willingness to adopt the news media logic (t = 10.086;
ρ > 0.001) and journalists’ conception of online and social media platforms as primary
sources of political information (t = 6.562; ρ > 0.001) and moderately defined by jour-
nalists’ assessment of the mainstream media as the primary sources of political infor-
mation (t = 3.524; ρ > 0.001). These results revealed that adaptation of this logic by
332 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

Table 1. Dummy exploratory (grouping) variable, sub-category/group, total number and per
cent of sampled journalists.

No Grouping/ Sub-category/group Total number

exploratory variable and per cent of
sampled journalists
1 Types of the media The newspaper journalist 270 (25.1)
platforms TV channel journalist 252 (23.5)
The online news portal 78 (7.3)
2 Types of the media Journalist associated with the media 231 (21.5)
ownership owned by those who are affiliated with
political party
Journalist associated with the media 660 (61.5)
owned by those who are not associated
with political party
Journalist affiliated with the public media 183 (17.0)
3 Type of the Journalist who handled the social and 600 (55.9)
media contents/ political news contents/programmes
programmes Journalist who handled the non-social 474 (44.1)
handled by and political news contents/programmes
journalist
4 Journalist’s age Journalist whose age less than 25 years 144 (13.4)
category old
Journalist whose age in between 26 and 473 (44.0)
35 years old
Journalist whose age in between 36 and 319 (29.7)
45 years old
Journalist whose age in more than 46 138 (12.9)
years old
5 Journalist’s Journalist graduated from high school 84 (7.8)
education level education institution
Journalist graduated from the 876 (81.6)
University’s undergraduate programme
Journalist graduated from the 114 (10.6)
University’s master programme
6 Journalist’s gender Male journalist 783 (72.9)
type Female journalist 291 (27.1)
7 Journalist’s position Journalist who worked as reporter 498 (46.4)
in the media Journalist who worked as editor/ 429 (39.9)
organisation producer
Journalist who worked as senior editor/ 147 (13.7)
executive producer

journalists is strongly directed by the journalists’ assessments of the media and jour-
nalistic independence (t = 9.367; ρ > 0.001) and journalists’ conceptions of mainstream
media as primary sources of political information (t = 4.196; ρ > 0.001) and online and
social media platforms as primary sources of political information as well (t = 5.073;
ρ > 0.001). This validates H1.
Ahmad 333

Figure 2. Statistical results of the baseline structural model.

Path coefficient and t-values.

This work also reveals that the effects of journalists’ perception of media power as
political image-maker is determined by several factors. First is the type of media plat-
form with which the journalists are associated. The PLS-SEM results indicate that as
compared to TV journalists, journalists employed by newspaper groups not only realised
much more the importance of the media and journalistic independence and the impor-
tance of mainstream media in providing political information (β values differ-
ences = 0.273; ρ = 0.986), they also perceived the power of the media as political
image-maker much more while adopting the news media logic and (β values differ-
ences = 0.202; ρ = 0.953). As compared to journalists who worked for online news por-
tals, journalists employed by newspapers were more cognizant of this power while
334 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

managing the news media logic (β values differences = 0.318; ρ = 0.998). However, as
compared to TV journalists, journalists associated with news portals perceived this
power much more while developing the news media logic (β values differences = 0.129;
ρ = 0.967). This validates H2.
Second is the type of media ownership with which the journalist is associated. The
results show that as compared to journalists employed by media groups with associations
to political parties, journalists who work for media owned by those who are not affiliated
with political parties not only considered mainstream media to be the primary source of
political information much more (β values differences = 0.228; ρ = 0.008) and online and
social media platforms as primary sources of political information (β values differ-
ences = 0.226; ρ < 0.005), but also perceived the power of the media as political image-
maker much more while adopting the news media logic (β values differences = 0.363;
ρ < 0.001). As compared to journalists employed by the public media, however, journal-
ists who work for the media owned by those who are not affiliated with political parties
considered such power less while managing the news media logic (β values differ-
ences = 0.324; ρ = 0.976). This validates H3.
The third factor is the journalists’ age. The results confirm that as compared to jour-
nalists whose age is between 25 and 35 years, journalists aged less than 25 years not only
perceived much more the power of the media as political image-maker (β values differ-
ences = 0.241; ρ < 0.001), they also realised the importance of online and social media
platforms as the primary source of political information (β values differences = 0.245;
ρ = 0.017) while adopting the news media logic. While managing this logic, journalists
aged less than 25 years perceived the importance of media and journalist independence
(β values differences = 0.304; ρ = 0.002). This age group also realised such power much
more while adopting the news media logic (β values differences = 0.330; ρ < 0.00), as
compared to journalists aged between 36 and 45 years; however, the degree to which
such journalists carried out these practices are insignificantly different from journalists
who are more than 45 years old (β values differences = 0.092; ρ = 0.170). Moreover, as
compared to journalists who are between 25 and 35 years old, journalists in the 36–45
years’ age bracket perceived mainstream media as the main purveyor of political infor-
mation and adopted the news media logic much more (β values differences = 0.166;
ρ = 0.956). Though both considered this media power, both sets of journalists are insig-
nificantly dissimilar in terms of the degree to which they realised such media power (β
values differences = 0.089; ρ = 0.159). Meanwhile, as compared to journalists aged
between 36 and 45 years, journalists who were more than 46 years old favoured adopting
this logic and realising media power (β values differences = 0.238; ρ = 0.985) much more.
These journalists also perceived much more the importance of media and journalistic
independence (β values differences = 0.319; ρ = 0.995) and mainstream media to be the
primary source of political information (β values differences = 0.335; ρ = 0.995) while
considering media power. This validates H4.
The fourth factor is the journalist’s gender. As compared to male journalists, interest-
ingly, female journalists perceived the importance of mainstream media much more
while adopting the news media logic (β values differences = 0.242; ρ = 0.996). Male jour-
nalists, however, realised the importance of media and journalistic independence much
Ahmad 335

more. Both genders perceived media power as political image-makers, and the degree to
which they realised this was statistically similar (β values differences = 0.052; ρ = 0.753).
This validates H5.
Fifth, the results for journalists’ educational level demonstrate that as compared to
high school graduates, journalists who had passed an undergraduate programme per-
ceived the importance of media and journalistic independence much more (β values
differences = 0.316; ρ > 0.000), as also online and social media platforms as primary
sources of political information (β values differences = 0.406; ρ = 0.002) while consid-
ering media power as political image-makers. When considering media power, both
groups are insignificantly different in terms of the degree to which they perceived
mainstream media as primary sources of political information (β values differ-
ences = 0.179; ρ = 0.915) and adopted the news media logic (β values differ-
ences = 0.047; ρ = 0.680). Moreover, as compared to journalists with an undergraduate
qualification, graduate journalists realised media power much more as well as the
importance of the media and journalist independencies (β values differences = 0.226;
ρ = 0.022) and online and social media platforms as primary sources of political infor-
mation (β values differences = 0.383; ρ = 0.004). Both groups are insignificantly differ-
ent in terms of the degree to which they adopted the news media logic (β values
differences = 0.056; ρ = 0.679). Additionally, as compared to journalist with undergrad-
uate qualifications, journalists graduate journalists realised media power much more
and considered mainstream media (β values differences = 0.221; ρ = 0.983) and online
and social media platforms as primary sources of political information (β values dif-
ferences = 0.263; ρ = 0.997). Both groups, however, are quite similar in terms of the
degree to which they considered online social media platforms as a primary source of
political information (β values differences = 0.023; ρ = 0.610) and adopted this logic (β
values differences = 0.016; ρ = 0.550). This validates H6.
The sixth factor is the type of media content or programme handled by the journalist.
The results indicate that as compared to journalists who are principally assigned to han-
dle non-news social and political content, journalists who are primarily appointed to
manage the news and social and political content not only considered mainstream media
as primary sources of political information much more, but also perceived media power
as political image-makers in a larger percentage (β values differences = 0.172; ρ = 0.019).
However, though realising media power, both of them are insignificantly different in
terms of the degree to which they adopted the news media logic (β values differ-
ences = 0.043; ρ = 0.282). This validates H7.
The seventh and last factor is the journalist’ position in the media organisation. The
results indicate that as compared to reporters, producers and editors not only considered
to a greater level online and social media platforms as primary sources of political infor-
mation (β values differences = 0.161; ρ = 0.034), but also perceived the power of the
media as political image-maker (β values differences = 0.226; ρ = 0.005) much more
while adopting the news media logic. As compared to producers and editors, executive
producers and senior editors perceived media power to a greater extent while managing
this logic. But the degree to which they carried out such practices are quite similar (β
values differences = 0.114; ρ = 0.914). This validates H8.
336 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

Conclusions and recommendations

The existing literature indicates that the power of the media in shaping politics has been
visible within and across democratic countries. However, while some authors argue that
the self-perceptions of journalists have been matter in journalism—in general (Deuze,
2004) and news production and publication taken by the media—in particular (Deacon
and Stanyer, 2014: 1034–1035), knowledge regarding what drive journalist’s perception
of the media power as political image-makers in the emerging democracy has been
under-developed.
This work is an exploratory research. It attempts specifically to evaluate what drives
Indonesian journalists’ perception of media power as political image-maker. The find-
ings reported by this work reveal that the following structural elements defined jour-
nalists’ perception of media power as political image-maker. The elements include
journalists’ willingness to adopt the news media logic and journalists’ conceptions of
media and journalistic independence and media as the primary source of political
information. The effects of these factors on journalists’ perception of media power as
political image-maker is, however, determined by other factors, such as type of media
platform and ownership with which the journalist is associated, journalist’s age, gen-
der and educational level, the media content handled by the journalist and the journal-
ist’s position in the media organisation.
What can we learn from these findings? The existing theories of mediatisation of poli-
tics highlight that the media have more influence over some political actors and institu-
tions than others (Strömbäck, 2008: 235). This influence, however, cannot be taken for
granted and observed directly (Ampuja et al., 2014: 113–114; Deacon and Stanyer, 2014:
1034–1035). The influence of the media should be assessed by evaluating how media-
related actors, especially journalists, perceive media power as political image-maker and
structural elements that constitute such perceptions as well. This work has visualised the
way to do so.
The findings, overall, quite meet Deacon and Stanyer’ (2014: 3) argument that we
cannot take for granted the innate power of the media, as ‘agents of mediatisation’, in
shaping politics and political affairs. The findings hint that we need to organise the fol-
lowing efforts as we want to evaluate media power. First at all, we need to move from the
media-centric to the actor-centric perspective. Second, as we adopted this actor-centric
perspective, we also need to evaluate the subsequent points: (1) what structural factors
and conditions are likely to determine the perceptions of media-related actors regarding
such media power; (2) how did these media-related actors realise such structural factors
and conditions; (3) and how and to what degree do these structural factors and conditions
determine their perceptions regarding media power; (4) as also their capability in exer-
cising such media power.
This study examines as a case study Indonesia wherein the freedom of the media
remained taking place as a crucial issue in Indonesia’s democracy. As reported by
Reporter Without Borders in 2019, Indonesia ranks at 124 on the World Press Freedom
Index. There have been also diverse threats to and violence against Indonesian journal-
ists, as recorded by the Indonesian Independence Journalist Alliance (Aliansi Jurnalis
Independen or AJI Indonesia) and those who organise journalistic work in this country,
Ahmad 337

as noted by some observers (see Blades, 2018; Masduki, 2017; Robie, 2017). These seem
also emerging as structural conditions that lead to these aforementioned structural factors
take place as determinant factor that likely influence Indonesian journalists’ perception
of media power as political image-maker as well.
Nonetheless, there are some democratic countries that share similarities with
Indonesia. These countries also exhibit the individual, organisational and structural sys-
temic factors that could determine journalistic work undertaken by journalists. Further
comparative research, therefore, needs to be taken to evaluate how these factors deter-
mine the perception of journalists in these countries regarding media power as political
image-maker and the degree to which such factors influence how these journalists per-
ceive media power and the capability of these journalists in exercising media power.
Reflecting on these findings, this work highlights the following propositions. First,
mediatisation of politics has been widely seen as a complex phenomenon (Strömbäck,
2008, 2011). To explains the phenomenon, we need to not only develop ‘the medium-level
concept’ that contains the ‘ladder of abstraction’, as suggested by Deacon and Stranyer
(2014: 1040), but also move from the media-centric to the actor-centric perspective. A
journalist-centred perspective and the baseline structural model proposed by this work
could be deployed to explore not merely how media actors, especially journalists, adopt
the news media logic and perceive and manage media power as political image-maker, but
also how political actors deal with this logic and address such media power. This could
allow us to evaluate ‘the extent to which media content as well as political institutions,
organisations and actors can be more or less guided by media logic’ and political actors
‘more or less reactively or proactively adapt to the media and their own needs to commu-
nicate through the media’ (Strömbäck, 2011: 426).
Second, mediatisation of politics is not merely a matter of degree, as posited by Esser
and Strömbäck (2014: 241). More than that, it seems to be a matter of mode. The most
important question, therefore, is not merely the degree to which such actors, organisations
and institutions are guided by the media logic (Esser and Strömbäck, 2014: 241), but how
and to what extent such actors, organisations and institutions perceive and exercise media
power while managing the media and news media logics and dealing with political logic.
To evaluate these questions, we need to move from the media-centric to the actor-centric
perspective, as suggested by Esser and Strömbäck (2014a: 227). This might enable us to
better capture and understand not merely the ways in which media-related actors, espe-
cially journalists, within and across democratic countries, take shape as ‘agents of media-
tisation’, but also the degree to which did they have the capability to exercise such media
power and exploit this media power to shape politics and political affairs.
To do so, we need to transform the components that constitute the theory of mediatisation
of politics into what Deacon and Stanyer (2014: 1040) called ‘a mid-level general concept’
and use them as ‘a mid-level general theoretical framework’. Doing this might allow us to
leverage mediatisation not merely as ‘a proper theory’, but also as ‘a general theory’ that
could explain the dynamic relationship between ‘media, politics and democracy’.

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank all the Indonesian journalists who helped me by filling out the questionnaire
and completing the survey data.
338 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Nyarwi Ahmad https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7392-910X

Notes
1. Some journalists employed by media groups were asked to decide what main platform they
work for. In this respect, the journalists who stated that they (primarily) worked for radio
and magazines are excluded due to insufficient sample size, as imposed by the PLS-SEM
approach.
2. Indonesia is an archipelago and composed of 17.491 Islands. Java Island is the most advanced
and populated island in Indonesia. Around 46 per cent of the total Indonesian populations
lives on Java, and most of the central offices of the Indonesian mainstream media are also
located here.
3. In this respect, β (path coefficients) values differences with ρ < 0.05 indicates that the struc-
tural path model (β path coefficients) value in the first structural model is significantly smaller
as compared to the structural path model value in the second structural model. In contrast,
ρ > 0.95 validates that the structural path model (β path coefficients) value in the first struc-
tural model is significantly larger as compared to the structural path model value in the second
structural model (Hair et al., 2014).

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Ahmad 341

Author biography
Nyarwi Ahmad is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Science, Faculty of
Social and Political Sciences, University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He was
a post-doctoral research fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne (September
2018–February 2019). He obtained his PhD in Political Communication and Marketing from
Bournemouth University, UK, in January 2018.

Appendix 1
The measurement models of indicators of variables that construct the
baseline structural model
To evaluate its hypotheses, this work proposes a baseline structural model constructed
from the following variables: media and journalistic independence, perceptions of rela-
tive importance of mainstream media and online and social media platforms as the pri-
mary source of political information, the news media logic adaptation and perception of
the power of the media as political image-maker. In this respect, the first, fourth and fifth
variables are formulated as reflective variables, while the second and third variables are
defined as formative variables. In this model, the first, second and third variables are
positioned as exogenous variables (ξ), while the fourth and fifth variables are placed as
endogenous variables (ŋ).
These variables are assessed through various indicators. The first variable is evaluated
through: how much the journalists agreed or disagreed with the argument that the media
and journalists should be independent of political parties (1.1) and other social and politi-
cal institutions (1.2), journalists should develop a strategy to keep the media and them-
selves independent of all political actors and institutions (1.3) and media owners should
be independent of all political parties (1.4) and other political actors and institutions
(1.5). The second variable is evaluated through: the degree to which journalists per-
ceived the relative importance of private radio (2.1), public radio (2.2), private news TV
channels (2.3), private non-news TV channels (2.3), news magazines (2.3), national
newspapers (2.4) and local newspapers (2.5) as a primary source of political information.
The third variable is measured through: the degree to which journalists perceived the
relative importance of online news portals (3.1), Facebook (3.2) and Twitter (3.3) as a
primary source of political information.
The fourth variable is assessed through: how much journalists agreed or disagreed
with the following statements: journalists should follow an interpretative style while
covering political news and events (4.1), identify and quote interesting sound bites from
politicians (4.2), prioritize the most interesting of such sound bites (4.3), help the audi-
ence discern and interpret such news and events (4.4), report political issues and events
that draw the attention of the politicians (4.5) and the audiences, including social media
users (4.6), make a strong impression on such audiences (4.7), present simple and dis-
cernible political news stories (simplification) (4.8), focus on controversial issues and
events (polarization) (4.9), cover and deliver such issues and events through several
news stories (intensification) (4.10), prioritize personal aspects of politicians covered in
342 Global Media and Communication 18(3)

news stories (personalization) (4.11) and visualize the news stories using schemes, fig-
ures, graphs, charts and illustrations (4.12). The fifth variable is assessed through: how
much the journalists agreed or disagreed with the argument that political information
published by public or private radio (5.1), private news TV channels (5.2), private non-
news TV channels (5.3), news magazines (5.4), national newspapers (5.5), local newspa-
pers (5.6) and online news portals (5.7) could shape the personal political image of a
party’s politicians.
These indicators are transformed into questions written in Bahasa Indonesia. Each
questions is scored using the Likert scale 1–5, with 1 = not important at all and 5 = very
important.

Appendix 2
The baseline structural model evaluation
Evaluation results of the measurement elements of the reflective variables that construct
this model, which are the first, fourth and fifth variables, using the Fornell-Larcker crite-
rion approach, indicated that each of these variables is statically reliable and valid.
Following the ideas of Hair et al. (2014: 101–107), it was found that each of these vari-
ables was sufficiently convergent. The evaluation results of these measurement elements
using the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) approach formulated by
Hair et al. (2014: 116–128) confirmed that that each of these variables has HTMT values
of less than 0.85. This indicates that each of these variables is internally and consistently
reliable and convergent and has no substantial issue regarding the discriminant validity.
Each of these variables also has an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) value that is more
than the minimum threshold, which is 0.50 and Chronbach’s alpha, which is higher than
0.70. This confirms that the set of indicators that construct each of these variables is
statistically valid and convergent and practically reliable to evaluate such hypotheses.
Evaluation results of the measurement elements of formative variables that construct this
model revealed the following evidence. Outer weights significance of the indicators used
to measure are statistically significant. Each of these indicators has Variance Inflation
Factor (VIF) value, which was above 0.20 and below 5. Similarly, each of the variables
that construct this model has VIF values in between 0.20 and below 5. Based on the ideas
of Hair et al. (2014: 125–127), this condition indicates that variables used to measure
such variables and variables that construct this model are not highly correlated and did
not suffer from the collinearity issues.
Evaluation results of the structural elements of this model confirmed that the first
variable composes substantial f square values for the second and third variables and
moderate f2 value for the fourth variable that construct this model. This hints that this
variable likely exists as a powerful explanatory exogenous variable to explore these vari-
ables. This variable also produces R2 values more than 0.236 for the second variable,
0.191 for the third variable and 0.376 for the fourth variable. Together with this variable,
such variables create R2 values 0.420 for the fifth variable. These indicate that once
applied together, these variables have capabilities to explain 42 per cent of elements/fac-
tors that define journalists’ perceptions of media power as political image-maker.
Ahmad 343

This model has an NFI Saturated Model Value of 0.811 and Estimated Model Value
of 0792. This model also has SRMR Saturated Model Value of 0.068 and Estimated
Model Value of 0.083. Since the rule of thumb is that the baseline structural model that
has ‘SRMR value less than 0.10 is considered a good fit’ model (Henseler et al., 2014),
the work confirms that this model is a statistically robust and practically workable model
to evaluate such hypotheses.