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The collapse of the New Order ushered in what many had hoped would be a new era of openness and transparency for Indonesia. The loosening of laws pertaining to broadcast and print publication gave rise to a proliferation of new media and cultural production. This had a profound effect on everything, from politics, religion, and the economy to popular conceptions of romantic intimacy and personal accomplishment. The question is whether prevailing approaches to media and popular culture are adequate to the task of accounting for these oft-cited transformations in Indonesian public life. Focusing on issues of piety, class, and romance, this article examines a sequence of films, pop songs, and YouTube parody videos to offer a presuppositional critique of the current scholarship. Its central contention is that closer attention to pop culture as a form of 'argument' offers an important corrective to the reifying tendencies of prevailing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a speech by Richard Fox delivered at the 2007 conference of the European Association for South East Asian Studies held in Naples, Italy in which he discussed how the media impacts the study of the history of religion, focusing particularly on the history of the Indonesian island of Bali. Some of the subjects considered include the popularly used slogan "Ajeg Bali" and its translation in Balinese popular culture, Balinese traditions, and Bali's national identity.

The article focuses on the importance of entertainment television programming and its relationship to mass media in Indonesia through a discussion and analysis of research which has been done on the subject. The differences in Eastern and Western culture which have influenced Indonesian television are discussed. The effect Western reality television programming has had on Indonesian society and television programming is reported upon. The views of Indonesia's elite concerning television programming's effect on lower classes is examined.

The article examines the mainstream Indonesian print and online media coverage of three significant bombings: the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel on August 5, 2003, the Bali bombing on October 12, 2002 and the Christmas Eve bombings in 2000. The emergence of terrorism or the war on terror has become a framework for understanding violence in Indonesia. Mainstream media seemed to be undergoing transformations as a result of foreign discourse on terrorism.