| With Suharto's resignation in May 1998, Indonesia entered a precarious transition from the entrenched authoritarianism of his New Order regime. In examining the press's role in the events that followed, this study finds that what is critical in the success of a democratic transition is not how free a country's media are but what individual news outlets do with this freedom. The key function news outlets play in using their new freedom, this study argues, is to foster what Adam Przeworski calls the institutionalization of uncertainty---a process essential to, if not also synonymous with, democratization. Yet this study also expands on Przeworski's model to argue that in emerging democracies, such as Indonesia, where other institutions remain compromised by the certainty of fixed outcomes, the news media serve as the principal arena for both generating and institutionalizing the uncertainty necessary to democratization. Ironically, in this process, some of the same media tendencies faulted for degrading debate in advanced democracies---horserace coverage, focus on conflict, and scandal-mongering---can serve an emergent function in political transitions, warding off democratic reversal even after other institutions fail. More specifically, it is these tendencies, above all the relentless pursuit of political scandal, that make the news media a primary vehicle for intra-elite contestation and the circulation of leadership---the very dynamics that drive democratization in developing nations and, arguably, prevent democracy's decline in any modern society. Finally, these findings on the press in Indonesia's transition may serve to illuminate the dynamics of democratization and reversal in other societies undergoing similar transitions, notably Russia and the Philippines. |
