Lim, M. (Merlyna)

Nugroho, Y. (Yanuar)

Carleton University's Institutional Repository

Vol. 3/No. 2 (2011) INTERNETWORKING INDONESIA JOURNAL  1 
ISSN: 1942-9703 / © 2011 IIJ 
 
NFORMATION and communication technologies (ICTs), 
especially the internet, have become a ubiquitous part of 
people’s lives all over the world, including in Indonesia. Three 
decades since the internet was introduced to Indonesia via the 
first international connection made by the University of 
Indonesia in Jakarta (Lim, 2003:117), the number of 
Indonesian internet users has reached 39.6 million or 
approximately 16.1% of total population (Internet World Stats, 
2011). That makes Indonesia one of 20 countries with the 
highest number of internet users. The more stunning fact 
comes from the usage of social media in the country. In 2011, 
there are around five million bloggers populated the 
Indonesian blogosphere. By December 2011, there are 41.7 
million Facebook users in Indonesia, making it the second 
largest nation on Facebook after the United States  
(Socialbakers, 2011). In addition, the April 2011 data from 
Comscore (2011) reported that at 22% Indonesia ranks fourth 
of its Twitter population, behind the Netherlands, Japan and 
Brazil. 
The growing use of the internet, including social media, has 
not only implicated the ways Indonesians communicate, but 
also influenced the ways they connect to each other. With the 
developments of social media such as blogs, wikis, 
collaborative websites and other social networking tools to 
fulfill the personal, organizational, societal and political goals, 
and to influence the ways individuals work and live, it is 
important to understand the implications it brings. What is 
central here is the needs for a critical examination of the 
assumptions behind the internet adoption in Indonesia and the 
ways in which these impact, and are impacted by, the societal 
development. While innovations in internet technologies and 
social media have perhaps given new impetus for the 
reinvention of many activism in many fronts (i.e. government, 
business, and civil society organizations), more than often, not 
all of these technological adoption processes are deliberate 
and strategically designed by the users.  
Similarly, equal access to telecommunication infrastructure 
cannot be assumed as granted: digital divide (Norris, 2001) is 
real, particularly in developing worlds like Indonesia. 
Moreover, mobile and cable broadband penetration has been 
claimed to have bridged the divide (e.g. Roux, 2011) but most 
of its development simply follows the ‘market logic’ rather 
than its ‘universal service obligation’ (e.g. Rauen et al., 2011), 
leaving many deprived areas unconnected, as is the case in 
 
The editors can be reached individually at the following email addresses. 
Merlyna Lim is at: Merlyna.Lim@asu.edu.  Yanuar Nugroho can be reached 
at: yanuar.nugroho@manchester.ac.uk. 
 
Indonesia. In contexts like these, Morozov’s warnings (2011) 
on the over-exaggerated role of digital technology, particularly 
social media in social change, despite sounds too dystopian, 
are worth noting. We should always be critical to the notion of 
the internet being perceived as a causal agent having a pivotal 
role in social change. Echoing Lim and Kann (2008), we 
perceive the internet, as a technological artefact, as “both 
constituted by society and constituting society” (83). The 
impact and outcomes of the internet as well as its inherent 
limits and possibilities are, thus, constructed by “social 
arrangements and contexts around the technology” (Lim & 
Kann, 2008:83). We also note, not only is the adoption and 
use of the Internet and social media never straightforward, its 
integration into many organisational strategies often becomes 
problematic (for an example of internet adoption in civil 
society organizations (CSOs), see Nugroho, 2011).  
However, despite the exponential growth of the internet 
usage and the abovementioned challenges, scholarly work 
focusing on the relationship between the internet and society 
in Indonesia is still a rarity. As a research domain, the 
Indonesian internet study only started about one and half 
decade ago. The first known scholarly work in the field is Hill 
and Sen’s (1997) preliminary survey of the internet’s 
democratizing potential in Indonesian politics. With their 
study on the politics and culture of Indonesian cybercafe or 
warnet in Yogyakarta, Hill & Sen (1997) opened up a new 
terrain for exploration. Since then, a handful of scholars have 
emerged as the first generation of researchers who have 
conducted in-depth research in various social, political, and 
cultural aspects of the internet. Such research is exemplified 
by scholarly work on: the relationship between the internet 
and democracy (Hill & Sen, 2000; 2005; Lim, 2003; 2004a; 
2006), roles of the internet in conflicts and in shaping 
collective identity (Hill, 2002; Brauchler, 2003; 2004; Lim, 
2004b; 2005; 2011), online election (Hill, 2003), CSOs’ use of 
the technology (Nugroho, 2008; 2010a; 2010b; 2011; Nugroho 
and Tampubolon, 2008), urban spatiality of the internet 
development (Lim, 2002), internet adoption in educational 
institution (Kuntoro & Al-Hawamdeh, 2003; Thompson, 
2004), e-government (Furuholt & Wahid, 2008), politics and 
culture of the blogosphere (Lim, 2009), and socio-economic 
aspect of the internet access (cybercafe or warnet) 
(Kristiansen et al, 2003; Wahid et al, 2006), among others. 
While these works can be considered as pioneering, certainly 
there are many other unexplored terrains in this novel field of 
study.  
This special issue aims to enrich the intellectual discussions 
much needed in the field. Five articles showcased here look at 
a wide variety of the uses of online media technologies and 
Introduction to the Special Issue on 
Social Implications of the ICTs in the Indonesian Context 
 
Merlyna Lim and Yanuar Nugroho 
I 
2 INTERNETWORKING INDONESIA JOURNAL Vol. 3/No. 2 (2011) 
ISSN: 1942-9703 / © 2011 IIJ 
platforms and what implications these uses have on people, 
organizations and society in the Indonesian context as the 
technology becomes more widely available. This issue also 
includes works that look at the other side of the coin, those 
who focus on the cultural, social and political shaping of the 
technologies by Indonesian society. We briefly introduce them 
in turn. 
In the first article, Tiastuti and Rakhmani investigate the 
relationship between Indonesia blogging culture and 
primordialism. Providing a rich analysis of the Indonesian 
blogosphere, these authors argue that in this new sphere 
nationality is shaped by old languages but mediated through 
new models. Further, they argue that the blogosphere emerges 
as a network that facilitates ethno-symbolism where the trace 
of ideological hegemony of nationalist ideology merges with 
the ethnic sentiment. Following this, in a comprehensive study 
of the broadband access in the country, the second article by 
Rohman and Bohlin attempts to identify the demand and 
supply factors that determine mobile broadband access. 
Findings from this study show that geographical 
characteristics play more important role than income in 
developing the broadband access.  
In the third article, Wayansari provides an interesting 
exploration of the role of Web 2.0 based websites in 
influencing politics in Indonesia’s new democracy. Through 
the case of Politikana.com, Wayansari demonstrates that user-
generated content platforms can potentially contribute to the 
widening of online public sphere by providing an 
“associational space” for rational and critical discourse. 
Widodo’s study of use of the Internet for public participatory 
democracy by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in the 
fourth article, argues along the same line. The author 
demonstrates that citizen journalism or community-based 
journalism is an effective medium to develop participatory 
democracy. His findings, however, show that while there is a 
mutual relationship between internal and external use of the 
internet by NGOs, the advancement in workplace participatory 
democracy does not directly correlate with public 
participatory. Finally, Dewi shares her research on the 
application of local e-government in rural areas. Using the 
case of Terong village, the author demonstrates that the 
successful development of community based e-government in 
bureaucratic reform is determined not only by the application 
of the e-government system itself, but also influenced by the 
media convergence and structural factors such as strong 
leadership and good governance from the related local 
government. 
These articles sit nicely together and are complementary to 
each other. Through their cases, studies, analysis, and 
theorization, contributors of this issue together have 
contributed to a broader understanding of how the internet and 
society have mutually shaped each other and theoretical 
considerations of the links between social implications and the 
internet. It is our honor to edit such a collection. As editors, 
we are also proud to pronounce that the contributors are, 
predominantly, young Indonesian scholars who never 
published in peer-reviewed outlet before. We sincerely hope 
that the launch of this special issue marks a significant 
milestone, not only for these young scholars, but also for the 
advancement of the Indonesian internet study.  
We thank the contributors for their hard work and extend 
our gratitude to Dr. Thomas Hardjono for his valuable support 
and assistance in finalizing this special issue. 
 
 
References  
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Merlyna Lim is a faculty member of the School of Social 
Transformation and Consortium for Science, Policy and 
Outcomes at Arizona State University. Her research and 
teaching interests revolve around the mutual shaping of 
technology & society and socio-political history of 
technology, in relations to issues of globalization, 
democratization, and social equity, and has published 
extensively in these subjects. Lim is interested in 
theoretical challenges on how we understand how 
ideologies and power relations—between state, corporate 
economy, and civil society—being inscribed the 
production and uses of spaces, offline and online, at the 
local, regional, national, international and transnational 
level. In investigating these dynamics, she is interested in 
co-evolution of information (digital) technology and 
society and in the cultural and political implications of the 
production, consumption and exchange of information in 
both cyberspace and (physical) urban space. Professor 
Lim's past and current research projects are 
predominantly conducted in Asian setting, particularly 
Indonesia, and since 2008 also include Middle Eastern 
and North African (MENA) countries. Currently, Lim is 
leading three major projects: (1) The National Science 
Foundation funded project Cyber-Collective Movements: 
Novel Socio-Computational Approaches in Studying the 
Blogosphere (2011-2014) (2) The Office of Naval 
Research funded Blogtracker – Analyzing Social Media 
for Cultural Modeling (2010-2013) and (3) The Ford 
Foundation funded project Advancing Public Interest 
Media in Indonesia (2010-2012). More about her and her 
work see: http://www.merlyna.org. 
 
 
 
 
Yanuar Nugroho is a Research Fellow with the 
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR) and 
core member of the Centre for Development Informatics 
(CDI) at Manchester Business School and School of 
Environment and Development, the University of 
Manchester, UK. He holds Hallsworth Fellowship in 
Political Economy 2010-2012 and was awarded the 
Outstanding Academic of the Year 2009 by the 
Manchester Business School.  
His research interests are concerned with 
technological innovation and in particular the adoption 
and diffusion of innovations in the third sector (non-
governmental and not for profit organizations); 
innovation, development, and sustainability; new 
communication media and social change; and knowledge 
and science dynamics.  
In particular, Yanuar focuses on the role of innovation 
in development, mostly in sustainable development 
and/in developing countries. He also investigates factors 
other than innovation (e.g. democracy, civic engagement, 
among others) that play important roles in the success of 
development and pays attention to intermediaries and 
intermediation process in the systems of innovation. He 
pays attention at the link between new media and 
information technologies and social change and their 
interaction in the fabric of societal life. Lastly, he looks at 
the mobility of researchers, impacts of research funding 
schemes, the influence of journal rankings in academic 
careers, and knowledge management in third sector 
organizations and services sectors. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Introduction to the special issue on social implications of the ICTS in the Indonesian context

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Introduction to the special issue on social implications of the ICTS in the Indonesian context

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