Your Voice, Your Weapon

The most captivating side of the street art here in Jakarta comes from a social movement that goes by the name of Citizen Journalism. Also known as participatory journalism and grassroots journalism, Citizen Journalism is proclaimed not only on the underpasses of Jakarta, but also by amateur journalists through online social networking sites and blogs.

Born out of the oppressive Suharto-era and baptised in the 2004 tsunami disaster in Aceh, Citizen Journalism aims to shift control of information from business empires who own the major mass media organisations to more widely distributed networks of independent journalists.

Although this type of undertaking is open to a flood of personal biases and uninformed opinions which lack in-depth analysis, the idea as I see it is a democratisation of the media, a kind of open-source wikinews.

 

                        Remind you of something? 

Indonesia has been called "one of the world’s worst places for the press to operate in because of alarming rates of repression suffered by journalists" and has a democracy index lower than East Timor’s. I won't go on about it as it has been covered in two interesting articles, here and here.

Much of the street art expresses a sentiment of justice, a discontent with political and celebrity corruption and degeneration. As far as I can tell, the graffiti pieces aim to expose or criticise the unethical affairs of public figures and corporations, as well as give a voice to the young people in Indonesia.

Not everyone appreciates street art as much as me :(