International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 32

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
profit as possible from the communities they cater to’ (p. 3). In the case of Pos Kota, it can
be argued that the commitment to serve the urban workers is based on profit calculation
rather than any idealistic goals.
When Pos Kota was founded in 1970, mainstream newspapers only focused on
Indonesian national politics. In addition, due to rapid development in Jakarta, many people
were attracted to move to Jakarta to work as unskilled workers. This socioeconomic shift
had an immense effect on the media’s target markets. Pos Kota was aware of this change in
demographic and realised that it had good prospects for business. Thus, the decision to
target urban workers who were previously ignored by the mainstream media can be seen as
a smart move by Pos Kota’s founders to cater to a new, promising market. The editor-inchief of Pos Kota testified that there were two reasons behind the decision to target urban
workers as Pos Kota readers. The first was commercial, and the second was based on a
service-orientated factor, as denoted in his statement:
Pos Kota focuses on the urban workers since they are the highest percentage of
people who live in Jakarta and surrounds, and also because this group needs media
to give them access and information so that they can increase the quality of their
lives (Interview with Pos Kota editor-in-chief, 7 August 2012).
The editor and journalists described the aims of Pos Kota as both commercial and
idealistic. One of the journalists depicted the mission of Pos Kota as follows: ‘Just like any
other publication, Pos Kota wants to be a reliable newspaper as well as to earn increasing
profit for the company’ (Interview with journalist 1 of Pos Kota, 25 December 2011).
However, the paper does not employ the two missions—commercial and idealistic—equally.
The space allocated to advertisements during the research period was higher than that
given to editorial content. This data can be perceived as evidence that the paper’s
commercial success is considered more important than its role of serving the public.
Furthermore, data from Litbang Grup Pos Kota (2011) says that the paper is proud to be the
main reference on car pricing, thus emphasising its information role in a commercial context.
This circumstance reflects the influence of market factors on Pos Kota, which affect the
paper’s operation as a business—a standard contemporary practice, as noted by McQuail
(2003): ‘Communications and the media are now predominantly, if not primarily, run as
business organisations’ (p. 233).
As urban workers over the past four decades have become the biggest reader group
of Pos Kota, the paper has made a more conscious effort to ‘maintain’ this market. As the
editor-in-chief described: ‘We devote our paper to the urban workers since they are our
loyal readers. We are committed to taking care of them and helping them to solve their
problems’ (Interview with Pos Kota editor-in-chief, 7 August 2012). In order to enable the
urban workers to be heard, Pos Kota created a specific section to allow the urban readers to
discuss their grievances, as the editor-in-chief explained:

32 | P a g e