Commercial Islam in Indonesia: How Television Producers Mediate Religiosity Among National Audiences

Abstract

While Indonesia's burgeoning private television industry has prospered through the country's democratic transition and the rise of popular Islam, it has remained ideologically constrained by many of the content restrictions established during Suharto's New Order era. One area in which producers have broken these norms is in the field of religious imagery, and the adaptation of religiously-themed narratives and tropes. This articlebased on a long-term ethnographic study of television producers in Indonesia and the social institutions that influence themexplores the strategies and goals behind the industry's handling of the imagined religious audience. It asserts that the tension of appeasing cultural conservatives has been redirected by the industry into content that appeals to the much larger demographic of moderate Muslims, through the adaptation of narrative conventions and stylistic forms that draw on an array of global media traditions. It examines new genres and conventions invoked by producers in their efforts to both placate and mobilize religious sentiment among Indonesia's culturally heterogeneous population, arguing that these practices promote a successful, commercial Islam that largely comports with neoliberal subjectivity.Kata Berkait was a moderately popular 1 quiz show on which I was lucky enough to be conducting ethnographic research when a special episode was taped for the Muslim holiday Idul Adha (Eid al-Adha in Arabic). The set's decorator brought in a load of brightly colored decorations, including ribbons and streamers that brought to mind a child's birthday party, and arranged them around the set along with a sign making it clear which holiday was being celebrated and displaying the year of the Islamic calendar. Accordingly, the casting director had made sure that only Muslim contestants would be appearing on that particular program (one of six being taped that day). The costume director brought in several 1 All references to the statistical popularity of programs are based on ratings research conducted by A. C. Nielsen company. Although there are flaws in their data collection methods, including strong urban and Javanese biases, their reports are accepted as the industry standard reference by stations and advertisers, and are invoked in that context. 1 headscarves (jilbab) for the three female contestants, colored as brightly as the streamers, and three black peci 2 for the men. The program had been arranged so that a team of women would play against a team of men, which was not the standard format of the program. It was December 2001, early in my research on the culture of national television production in Jakarta and before I had come to focus on Muslim-themed programming. Back in the dressing room, the female contestants struggled to put the jilbabs on one another. One told me that she normally wore a simpler design; another said she did not wear one at all. Donning the jilbab is often regarded as a life-long commitment, 3 but in this case they were spoken of (and rhetorically designated...

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