Abstract
Mass media has the power to build a discourse on public discussion. This strength should be used in carrying out its function as a watchdog in democratic practice. The mass media must break away in a position as part of the executive or legislative because he himself is the fourth force in the pillar of democracy. In the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Election (Pilpres) the mass media showed practices that weakened this position with the presence of affiliated media owners or even became part of the political parties supporting one of the candidate pairs in the 2019 Presidential Election. This paper is critical thinking about how politics mainstream mass media in Indonesia in polarizing support to candidate pairs. The data are collected through observation of media content and in-depth interviews with informants from media workers and informants who have competence in the field of mass media. The results of the study show that mainstream mass media tends to still be positioned as the main source of information in the five-year democracy event. The preaching of mainstream mass media still shows partiality to certain candidate pairs by not expressing criticism and vice versa often showing criticism on other candidate pairs. The mass media that have affiliations to political parties tend to show partiality to the authorities and ignore the critical role in overseeing government practices. The oligarchy of the media industry in Indonesia has not shown the role of overseeing the social and political environment.
Highlights
The 2014 presidential election, the events of the Peace Bela Islam 212 in 2016, the DKI Jakarta Governor Election 2017, Reunion 212 in 2018 and the 2019 Presidential Election were the parameters that many media observers criticized to find out the extent to which the media took the role of watchdog
If we look at how mainstream mass media currently have online media and social media accounts, what really becomes the power of the media cannot be avoided
The question is whether mainstream mass media or even online mass media can carry out their role as watchdog if the owners are administrators of political parties who are directly involved in the process of supporting one of the candidates in the 2019 Presidential Election contest
Summary
The question is whether mainstream mass media or even online mass media can carry out their role as watchdog if the owners are administrators of political parties who are directly involved in the process of supporting one of the candidates in the 2019 Presidential Election contest. B. METHOD This descriptive qualitative study uses data collection techniques in the form of imaginary interviews and observations of the contents of the mass media that clearly have affiliation support to one of the candidates in the 2019 Presidential Election.
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