Digital Activism for Press Freedom Advocacy in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am very pleased to see you examining two extremely relevant issues to Indonesia's democracy as well as other democratic contexts worldwide; digital activism and press freedom. I am hopeful that this paper can eventually be published, but the author(s) will need to focus on improving its structure and coherence. The current version reads a lot like a draft version, where the key ideas and arguments have not yet been clearly identified and articulated. The reader is left struggling to decipher the main arguments and draw coherent links themselves between multiple ideas. I would suggest taking a step back and considering the key thesis of the paper, "this paper argues xxx because xxx." In the introductory pages, I did not see clear mention of press freedom in the Indonesian and worldwide context. Instead, it focused heavily on digital activism. The methodology is not clear. It appears that you actually engaged a case study approach, but this is mentioned later on. I think this is a key feature of your paper. How you analysed the 'words, sentences, document, or images' is also not made clear. Perhaps remove that line and emphasise the qualitative case study approach from the beginning. Try to present the results of your analysis more thematically so it is easier for the reader to navigate. At least, identify the key points you want to make and signpost them with subheadings so the reader is prepared for the findings you present. I found it overly descriptive and confusing. Finally, you focus heavily on digital attacks, which might be worth emphasising from the start of this paper.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The writing was of a decent standard in terms of vocabulary and grammar, but the coherence was lacking. Engaging the help of an editor may help you in presenting your ideas more coherently, but I would strongly suggest that you take a step back and articulate the key points of this paper, otherwise the reader gets overwhelmed by too many ideas and details, causing them to lose focus. In turn, this plannign may benefit your prose.

Author Response

 

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper takes on a very important topic, specifically exploring the structure of digital activism in Jakarta and Yogyakarta on the issue of press freedom in Indonesia. The authors do this through three specific cases.

While the authors have chosen a worthy subject and have collected quite a lot of interesting and informative data, this paper is in need of a major restructuring. I did not know until the methods section what the actual research was about. Instead, the introduction and literature review provide some general background, but because I don’t know where we’re headed, I don’t’ have a concept of why I’m reading it.

I suggest the authors restructure the paper as follows:

1. Introduction
   1. Explain that press freedom in Indonesia is under attack. Provide enough context for people outside of the country to understand what you mean by that.
   2. Describe how the people of Indonesia are reacting to the attack on press freedom through traditional and digital activism. Again, be a storyteller in the way we would for people who aren’t from Indonesia and who have no background knowledge. Provide examples and citations.
   3. Create a thesis statement/paragraph that describes what gap your paper is fulfilling (similar to what you’ve done) and how you are doing that. “This research fills this gap through content analysis of digital activism communications, interviews with stakeholders and a review of previous research on digital activism in Indonesia. The culmination offers insight into the current state of activism in the country and among its youngest generation." 
2. Literature Review
   1. Describe the issue of press freedom in the country with a short historical explanation.
   2. Describe the historical context of activism in Indonesia. This is especially important as you describe some of the parameters and indicators in your tables. For example, I disagree that the success of activism is based on the number of participants in traditional methods. Usually, one might argue the success of activism is either for 1) awareness of an issue or 2) change in policy. These kinds of statements should be well explained and given more context for those of us who don’t study activism in the depth you do.
   3. Describe the introduction of internet and social media and its use for activism in Indonesia.
   4. Within each of these sections you can tie in the theoretical lines of digital activism and remind us, as the readers, of how your research is asking/answering important questions related to the larger concepts.
3. Methods
   1. Break this down a little more to highlight where you are describing the three cases at the center of your analysis.
   2. Describe your choices more thoroughly. How did you determine where you would collective information to analyze for your analysis? How many documents/channels are describing here? How many people are involved in these discussions/threads/forums? Why did you choose these over other channels that could have been used? If this requires, you might be able to describe this in a table with the case, the documents and the descriptors of those documents in it. You kind of do this in Table 3, but something more specific in the methods section would be helpful.
   3. Why only interview these two people? They offer a small portion of the broader perspective on the digital activism and press freedom. If I’m reading this correctly, both are journalists, as well, which means they are not representative of the layperson- the people who are not financially tied to the wellbeing of the news industry. This paper would be much stronger if you had a larger variety of people interviewed so you could describe trends and patterns. This is not to say you need a much larger sample size, but instead a variety of people with experiences, educational backgrounds and perspectives that might differ from these two could make this a much stronger paper.
   4. The third method you use is confusing. It would be helpful to know a little more about what you mean when you say, “previous research documents” with a description of the interactive model. Specifically, I would like to know how you determined which reports to include/not include and how this portion of your research will work to answer your broader research questions.
4. Results and Discussion
   1. The long quote should be shortened and/or summarized, as it’s repetitive and does not offer context for some of its content (specifically the information about the Creative Commons republication policy). Instead, just state that one form of resistance was the republication of content taken down by hackers, then the last three sentences of her quote.
   2. When you describe the solidarity in readers on Instagram, do you have the data/documents to back that up? Integrate your methods for a fuller explanation.
   3. “The present study found that readers solidarity and nonprofit, independent media networks are models of digital activism in addition to funding support from donors and digital readers” (p. 7, lines 297-298). I don’t understand or have context for how you came to this conclusion. Your research should be explained well enough for others to use similar methods to determine whether the findings you report are also present in other contexts.
   4. Please cite news articles and reports where you have context and background information so your readers can determine independently if they agree with your assessment of the historical events that took place. This is not common knowledge, so it must be cited.
   5. Your discussion should include more depth describing how these cases in Indonesia are different or indicative of a new form of activism, which I feel like you are trying to argue. If that’s not what you’re trying to argue, please be much more clear here as to the purpose of your research and its broader implications.
   6. Add in a limitations section and a section for future research inquiry.

Please go back and really address/check your citations and references for APA style (or whatever publication style appropriate for the journal).  Also check spelling and accuracy.

If you cannot think of the larger implications or broader perspective here, you might also benefit from re-organizing this to be a case study instead of the form of analysis you have chosen here. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I'm not sure if this is because of the research or because of a language issue, but there are several points in here that need more clarity and explanation. Many sentences are difficult to understand. 

Author Response

 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the authors making the effort to incorporate my suggestions into their work.

A few needs still stand:

In the introduction, the imperative point of activism is change- so for a petition of 17,000 online supporters, the success is not in the numbers but instead in the change of policy. What was the result of this action? Was the bill only discussed? Or was it passed? That’s vindication- that’s success in the eyes of the activist.

Additionally, I see/saw the two paragraphs that you use to describe the novelty of your study and wholly agree with that. The previous suggestion was not really focused on adding more novelty or gap-filling in the piece, but instead to describe HOW you are going to do it.

“Create a thesis statement/paragraph that describes what gap your paper is fulfilling (similar to what you’ve done) and how you are doing that. “This research fills this gap through content analysis of digital activism communications, interviews with stakeholders and a review of previous research on digital activism in Indonesia. The culmination offers insight into the current state of activism in the country and among its youngest adult generations.”

1. 5, line 206: I’m fairly certain that you are referring to Creswell, not (Cresswell) in this citation.

The methods would be easier to follow if the explanation of the three incidents you are describing happened earlier- either in the literature review or the methods section. Currently, the context is in the results section, but this could be summarized and highlighted in the methods section.

Overall, the new version is much stronger. While the above changes would be helpful, they are just for strengthening an already well-done article.

Author Response

Thanks for the second review and we really appreciate this careful inspection. We have addressed all feedback directly through/within the updated manuscript, and it indicated by red colour texts located at several parts of the manuscript. Here are point-by point responses to the reviewer's comments. 

 

I appreciate the authors making the effort to incorporate my suggestions into their work.

Response: Thanks. 

A few needs still stand:

In the introduction, the imperative point of activism is change- so for a petition of 17,000 online supporters, the success is not in the numbers but instead in the change of policy. What was the result of this action? Was the bill only discussed? Or was it passed? That’s vindication- that’s success in the eyes of the activist.

Response: The results are vary. Among others, a continued effort of policymakers to produce/amend several related media/press freedom laws (such as Broadcasting Law No. 32/2002, Personal Data Protection Law No. 72/2002, etc. However, broadly, the public discussion on the law making and its enactment is still going on. 

Additionally, I see/saw the two paragraphs that you use to describe the novelty of your study and wholly agree with that. The previous suggestion was not really focused on adding more novelty or gap-filling in the piece, but instead to describe HOW you are going to do it. 

“Create a thesis statement/paragraph that describes what gap your paper is fulfilling (similar to what you’ve done) and how you are doing that. “This research fills this gap through content analysis of digital activism communications, interviews with stakeholders and a review of previous research on digital activism in Indonesia. The culmination offers insight into the current state of activism in the country and among its youngest adult generations.”

Response: We clearly indicated the novelty of this study in the 5th paragraph of page 2 and 2nd paragraph of page 3. We added more methodological description on page 6 (red colour texts). 

 

1. 5, line 206: I’m fairly certain that you are referring to Creswell, not (Cresswell) in this citation

Response: Thanks, the current manuscript addressed this issue. See page 6. 

The methods would be easier to follow if the explanation of the three incidents you are describing happened earlier- either in the literature review or the methods section. Currently, the context is in the results section, but this could be summarized and highlighted in the methods section.

Response: thanks, now this addressed. We added more methodological description on page 6 (red colour texts). 

Overall, the new version is much stronger. While the above changes would be helpful, they are just for strengthening an already well-done article.

Response: Thanks. Really appreciate. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf