ABSTRACT
In the context of this tremendous proliferation of print media in Indonesia, the case of the Islamic press7 warrants particular scrutiny for two reasons. First, statistically 88 per cent of the total Indonesian population, or 215 million, is Muslim, which constitutes the largest potential readership for Indonesian print media. Consequently, studying the Islamic press enables us to capture the aspirations of a large majority of Indonesian readers. Second, since Reformasi there has been a proliferation of Islamic media, both in number and diversity of content. Throughout the New Order, there were little more than a dozen. In 1994, there were only 13 Islamic publications from a total of 275 publications in Indonesia.8 It was somewhat surprising for many foreign observers that, while the majority of the Indonesian population was Muslim, two of the largest daily newspapers were associated with Christian interests.9 There were also very few studies on Islamic media in Indonesia especially during the New Order era. Exceptions include Liddle’s study on the scriptural tradition of Media Dakwah,10 Hefner’s
study on the rivalry between Republika daily and Media Dakwah,11 and Siegel’s study on ‘Kiblat and the Mediatic Jew’.12 The scope of these three studies was limited to only two publications, the leading daily Republika and the magazine Media Dakwah.
