Indonesia

Indonesia’s news media serve a population of over 267 million people, most of whom live on the archipelago’s main island Java. Indonesia is home to the largest community of Muslims in the world and has a linguistic diversity of more than 700 languages. The development of media and journalism in the country was strongly influenced by its historical, cultural, political, economic, and legal contexts. News media have operated under tight political restrictions for decades until Indonesia, after a peaceful revolution and takeover by a reform government in 1998, started its—still unfinished—transition to democracy.

Indonesian news media and journalism have been particularly influenced by the advancement of communication technologies and the popularity of the Internet. The Internet, which in the 1990s was used to spread critical journalism ...