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Understanding Democratic Consolidation 7

Media in the Institutionalization of Uncertainty
In any transition, momentum for change produces broad expectations, including
the belief that democratization will lead not just to fair elections but to more sweep-
ing changes, from better governance to social equity. As a transition takes off , Silvio
Waisbord notes, “High hopes are placed on the democratic press.” Observers have
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identifi ed numerous ways in which the news media could—and should—promote
democratization, including informing and educating the public, fostering coopera-
tion and civic culture, acting as watchdogs, providing accessible forums for public
debate, giving voice to the marginalized, fortifying democratic institutions, promoting

reforms, easing conflict, and facilitating reconciliation.
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While recognizing the importance of these standards in evaluating media
performance in furthering transitions, this book sets them aside to assess the
media’s role in a specific process, institutionalizing uncertainty, that checks rever-
sal and promotes democratic consolidation. This seemingly narrow definition of
democratization, moreover, has surprisingly broad application when examining
the media.
At a basic level, Przeworski’s frame allows us to see political opening itself from
a new perspective, as a process in which the media shift from a subordinate role that
reinforces the certainties of authoritarianism to a provocative, often contentious one
that involves highlighting, even amplifying, the uncertainties of democratic contesta-
tion among rival individuals and groups. Ultimately, this interpretation also helps
illuminate what makes democratization “self-enforcing” (and thereby consolidated),
beyond favorable conditions and good intentions.
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To understand the critical role of the media in transitions, we need to combine
consideration of this sector’s inclination toward transparency, unique among the
major political forces, with a narrative of media actors. The latter, whether publish-
ers, producers, editors, or reporters, often take enormous personal risks to translate
this inclination into concrete actions that together create and revitalize the free com-
munication that is the oxygen of democracy, frustrate the rigging of contestation, and
thereby counter reversion to authoritarianism.
Equally important, however, is a finding that seems at first glance counter-
intuitive: among the chief mechanisms for preventing reversal are precisely the
elements of media coverage that tend to attract the most criticism in stable
democracies, particularly focus on scandal, contest frames, and partisan conflict.
The findings that emerge from this close study of Indonesia’s two-decades-long
democratic transition resonate with comparable cases in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America discussed in the concluding chapter . While the combined dynamics at
work in these countries are uncommon among the many nations emerging from
the authoritarianism of the Cold War, it is in these few cases that democratization
seems to be taking hold.
The chapters that follow probe Indonesia’s ongoing democratic transition to
tease out the dynamics that either drive or curb the media in imposing transpar-
ency and fostering the institutionalization of uncertainty, and to explore the complex
motivations—both self-serving and civic-minded—that can make the media central to
democratization’s success. The analysis offers both an interrogation of Indonesia’s
transition, its progress and limitations, and a model for understanding similar demo-
cratic transitions worldwide.