by Lenore Lyons
Merlyna Lim is Assistant Professor at Arizona State University School of Justice and Social Inquiry in joint appointment with Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. Her current teaching and research interests revolve around the socio-political shaping of new media and ICT, in relation to issues of globalization, identity politics and democratization. Prior to her appointment at Arizona State University in 2006, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California from September 2005 – August 2006. She received her PhD, with distinction, from the University of Twente in the Netherlands in September 2005. She has held the following awards: Henry Luce Southeast Asia Fellowship (2004), Wotro Fellowship (2003-2005), Social Science Research Council ITIC Grant (2003-2004), Oxford Summer Doctoral Fellowship (2003) and ASIST International Paper Contest Winner (2002). Her recent publications include a monograph entitled Islamic Fundamentalism and Anti-Americanism in Indonesia: Role of the Internet (Honolulu: East West Center, Hawai’i). For a complete list of publications, see http://www.merlyna.org/pubs [1].
Merlyna recently gave a public lecture as part of the Association of Internet Researchers conference,
held in Brisbane, Australia, from September 27-30 2006. Her lecture, entitled Democracy, Conspiracy, and Pornography: Politics of the Internet in Indonesia, explored the social history of the development of the Internet and its uses in Indonesia. The lecture was sponsored by Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong (www.capstrans.edu.au [2]).
LL: I’ve had the opportunity to listen to you present at several different venues during your stay in Australia so it’s wonderful to have the opportunity to follow-up with you on some of the issues you’ve raised. Let’s start though at the very beginning - how did you get interested in studying the Internet in Indonesia?
ML: There were four major occasions that led me to do what I am doing now. First, I had always been interested in computers. I used to hang out with some guys – male friends who were studying electrical engineering - they were experimenting with IT, assembling computers, using emails and other stuff. So, naturally I almost became one of those computer-nerds! In 1995 I had already started using email and was among those classified as the earliest Internet users in Indonesia. The second occasion was when I was studying architecture as my major. My thesis was originally not about cyberspace at all, but about architectural design. However during my studies I got very ill for nearly 3 months and I couldn’t get out of the house. So I decided to install a dial-up connection at home. My parents complained about the phone being used all the time but I was sooo fascinated! I used the Internet mostly not for communication but just browsing the Internet and found so many articles about virtual architecture, and this whole home-Internet contemplation and meditation resulted in a very theoretical thesis entitled “The emergence of cyberspace as a new paradigm in spatial conception of architecture.” It marked my shift of interests from physical dimensions to social/virtual dimensions of space. Third, I was a student in 1998 and was on the streets, involved in the demonstrations against the President Suharto. It was a whole new experience that connected my being an Internet user with political activism. Fourth, in 1999, I got an opportunity to be a research assistant for someone who was doing research on societal constructions of information and communication technology (ICT) where I found an interest in doing social science research and started to investigate political studies of the Internet. All of these personal experiences shaped my current research interests and paved a perfect natural path for me to become what I am now.
LL: Where did you study architecture?
ML: In Indonesia. I did my Bachelors Degree in Architectural Engineering at the Institute of Technology Bandung, and then a Masters of Theory and Philosophy of Architecture at the University of Parahyangan.
LL: At some point you decided to go on to your PhD?
ML: Yes, that was 2001.
LL: What made you decide to do that?
ML: Well, it was pretty much related to the Societal Construction of Technology project I was involved. As I mentioned previously, in 1999 I got a job as a research assistant for that project, to assist Professor Joshua Barker, an anthropologist from Cornell University, who worked for University of Twente’s project. After working with him for sometime, he encouraged me to apply for a PhD at the University of Twente and he said I could use the data from the project for my PhD research. I did apply and got a fellowship, too. I did my PhD in Science, Technology and Society Studies, STS. It was just by chance because I was involved in the ICT project I mentioned previously, which happened to be hosted by STS department at Twente.
LL: So, tell me more about your dissertation – “@rchipelago Online: the Internet and Political Activism in Indonesia”.
ML: My dissertation tries to provide insights into the dynamics of Internet-politics relations by looking at how the Internet was used in transition period, within two different political circumstances in Indonesia, which are the late period of Suharto and the post-Suharto period. Using Indonesia as a local site of the next struggles over choice, use and transformation of the Internet, in my dissertation I attempted to show how the Internet interplays with power struggles, and how the creation and assertion of identity become a focal point of contests over power. Exploring many contemporary ideas from existing theories and linking these ideas together, my dissertation gives a multi-layered, richly textured analysis that draws from key perspectives such as the idea of conviviality which argues against both a utopian view, that the Internet is a democratic tool, and a dystopian view that claims the Internet as an undemocratic tool. I also look at the concept of network society, theories on collective action and identity formation, meta-narratives ideology and hegemony, and materialist explanations of social discontent. In my dissertation I demonstrated that in studying Internet-society relations, one cannot stay only within the ethereal realm of cyberspace, not isolate the Internet as a secluded space that is separated from any activities in a real world setting. In facilitating political activism, the Internet is not detached from the non-cyberspace realm, but rather, corresponds with it. In addition, my dissertation also demonstrates that while the Internet does change the global-local dynamics of political activism, it also corresponds with the socio-political terrain of nation-states and other localities.
LL: The 1998 overthrow of Suharto is often described as a Net Revolution. My understanding of what you are arguing is that is too strong a term.
ML: Yes, you’re right. I don’t think any technology can be isolated from other technologies or even from non-technological artefacts. OK, my case study of 1998 shows that, of course, the Internet has a role, a very significant role in establishing a network of political activism that led to the political revolution. But it wasn’t a sole player. When it comes to the realisation of street politics, I found that the Internet did not play a direct role. It was other media that played more substantial roles. What the Internet did provide was an opening for political activism to, first, break through the barriers of state monopoly over the production of knowledge and flows of information and, second, to reach a national and even international audience through the cascading of information from the Internet to people on the street using other media technologies. In the case of Indonesia, through successful popular movement, made possible through openings created by the Internet, other ‘more traditional’ media could also at last play their roles in giving voice to the ‘people’. These more traditional media were also changed by their linkages with the Internet. They were renewed and given new meanings and new values.
LL: You gave the example in Wollongong at the Workshop on Understanding the Internet in the Asia-Pacific [http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/conferences/2006/conferences-2006-understand-inet.html] of how during the student demonstrations against Suharto in May 1998, Internet content was distributed in more traditional offline media. Can you talk a bit more about how that happened?
ML: What was happening in 1998 was that activists still had to make Internet based information from the Internet available for a wider range of society by transforming it into readable printed media. The exemplary journey of one piece of information that I traced in my in-depth study, shows that in order reach the masses, electronic information from the Internet needed to be transformed into printed flyers and information sheets, which were then given away or sold by newspaper sellers in the streets. For example, CNN was one of the major sources of information that previously unavailable in Indonesia. When one student surfed the Internet from a warnet [Internet Café] and read one piece of information from CNN online, the information, this student felt obliged to share it with more people. He or she then printed the information and faxed a copy to a friend, brought another to his or her family, and without charge gave some to one newspaper-seller. The friend and family members would perhaps also disseminate the information in a similar way, multiplying it exponentially throughout major cities in Indonesia. At the same time, thinking about the economic value of this information, the newspaper-seller made more copies and sold them on the street to people at the same time as selling newspapers. In Bandung, a one page copy of a list of Suharto’s wealth was sold for just 1,000 rupiah, which was about the hourly wage of an unskilled worker at that time. He might also sell it to his colleagues -- other newspaper-sellers -- who would also sell it, rapidly disseminating the information to a vast audience far beyond the Internet itself. Empowered by new information and new sense of collective opposition, people turned from resistance to a more proactive project of finding the right means and moment to confront the state and bring down Suharto and his New Order. Using different means of communication not overtly controlled by government -- telephone, fax, cellular phone, and particularly e-mail -- students and others mobilised people to move to the streets and to occupy parks, plazas, and frontage of governmental buildings. And then, political revolution just began.
LL: As I understand it, what you are arguing is that the digital divide doesn’t make sense in this context. A divide between Internet users and non-Internet users, that in fact there is much more fluidity between the two.
ML: Right. I feel that the digital divide, when you define it straightforwardly as those that have access and those who do not, well technically it is correct, but socially it is only partially true. I would prefer digital inequality or information asymmetry. Because even among Internet users there must be inequality. When it comes to politics, measuring the effects, uses, and impacts of the Internet based on strict division of have-nots and haves is misleading. The worlds of haves and have-nots are separated but they are connected in one or some ways. What is the difference between those who have access and those who do not? It’s actually the information that they access. And, there is also a leaking of information from the virtual or online to the offline. And there are never any people who have and those who do not have – they are connected in some way. Media technologies, information technologies, all kinds of information technologies overlap. They are in different layers of networks, they are connected to each other and not in very rigid ways.
LL: You argue that to understand the Internet in Indonesia is to understand the warnet or Internet cafe.
ML: True, it’s imperative to understand the warnet in order to understand the Indonesian Internet. First you have to understand what the warnet is, if you are doing a study like me over one decade you also have to see how the warnet is changing. The warnet that I studied before 1998 is not the warnet of today in Indonesia.
LL: You used the example of the warnet as a site of gossip and that replicates the condition of the warung [small shop] more generally. Do you think that is specific to Indonesia or have you seen examples in other places?
ML: While I haven’t done any thorough research somewhere else, I can speculate that it is not specific to Indonesia, yet in other places it takes different form. For example in the Philippines, they have something called a sarisari [small shop] which is very common – one every few hundred metres. In other places there are these nodes of networks that function as something else--selling food or other stuff. Such artefacts are or potentially can become networks for information flows.
LL: How do you see that changing in Indonesia?
ML: In Indonesia I can see clearly that after 1998 corporations started to take over cybercafés, seeing it as a potential space for business. If you look at Jogyakarta – there used to be 20-30 warnets along certain streets but suddenly many of them died because they couldn’t compete with bigger, mega cybercafés. When the warnet business was taken over by corporations, it was transformed into a less intimate kind of place. However, corporations were not successful in taking over the Internet. At the same time schools and university based networks started to establish cybercafés, so if you look at the statistics right now, there is a decline in the percentage of warnets now, but there are more Indonesians who have access to the Internet, from schools; from PesantrenNet – that is Islamic boarding schools which have pretty good Internet these days; offices; universities. It is becoming more institutionalised. So warnet develops from being individually owned to privately owned, to becoming corporatised and now institutionalised.
LL: How has that impacted on Internet usage in Indonesia? Is it limiting access for certain individuals?
ML: Compared with ten years ago, the Internet user profile in Indonesia today more or less unchanged, which is typically young Indonesian who live in an urban area. The majority of Internet users have always been students, high school and university students. Now, after ten years of development, naturally those who were high school Internet users ten years ago have grown up and they are still using the Internet. Most of the major Internet users who are in their 30s are now surfing from home or offices, no longer from warnets. The new generation are still high school or university students. So the development of the Internet doesn’t change the characteristics of Internet users much.
LL: There is evidence in other countries that the Internet is dominated by men, do you see the same thing in Indonesia?
ML: Yes to some degree. Up to 5 years ago it was predominantly male. Highly educated and from the middle class upwards. But these days – I don’t know the official statistics – for example if you look at blogs there are more and more women. While not dominant in number, female Internet users are actually more productive, I mean they write and communicate more. For example, female bloggers – they blog more frequently than males. There are more and more young, female, Muslim housewives who stay home, and they are starting to be networked through the Internet. I don’t think there is any huge gap anymore between male and female users in Indonesia. Of course there is still a gap, but it’s decreased.
LL: Is there a different focus of their blogs?
ML: Generally, very different focus and very different ways of addressing issues. Female bloggers in Indonesia, the majority of them tend to tell personal stories, stories about their families yet not really individual stories, but more about their children, their relationships, and women’s related stuff, conventionally defined of course, like sharing recipes. They are much more networked than males. Of course, there are always some exceptions to the rule. When it comes to the anti-pornography bill issue there were more female bloggers blogging about that compared to male bloggers. There are more female bloggers opposing the proposed bill. The difference in addressing issue is apparent for example in addressing global political issues. And also the differences when they address global issues for example. When they deal with the same issue men tend to be less personal, they tend to be straight political postings. Females go for more emotional reflections. For example, when discussing about the conflict between Israel and Lebanon they care more about personal stories of children whose parents were killed, or mothers who lost their children, rather than the politics of it. So there is a different way of expressing opinions.
LL: You mentioned in your lecture last night that the anti-pornography bill is an example of the Internet being used for more personal-political reflections rather than overt political or party-political actions against the state, it’s more focused on the personal as political. Do you see that as a change in politics more generally in Indonesia or about the way this particular issue is being addressed?
ML: When the political issues really tap into personal interests, there are more Indonesians who are willing to be engaged in such issues. Or perhaps, engaged is not the right word, they want to express their opinions because they feel they are connected to the issues. And, I guess it is related to the fact that the political narratives in Indonesia are generally changing. In the past the government was pretty much preoccupied with issues such as terrorism, bombings, ethno-religious conflicts and separatist movements. Now, with a more stable political situation, the government, or at least some individuals and groups in it, has started to deal with some more practical issues that tap into people’s everyday lives, such as pornographic/porno-action issues. So, naturally Indonesians too are shifted to these issues, too.LL: Has the anti-pornography issue been expressed differently on the Internet than in the offline world?
ML: The Internet is more convivial. It is just so hard to get into mainstream media as an ordinary person, to express your opinion you can always write a letter to the Editor [of a newspaper], but is it just so hard, and the mainstream media is not yet sensitive to see the nuances within the range of opinions. So when it comes to certain issues such as the anti-pornography bill it’s just convenient for the media to see the pro and the contra and they don’t really see how important it is to see those spaces in between. Of course because the Internet to some degree gives you more ease to publish things, naturally it can potentially lead more voices, a wider range of opinions, to emerge.
LL: You argue that in the mainstream media you have these two extreme views, but on the Internet you see a range of shades of grey, do you see those views being transported off the Internet into the mainstream as you saw with Suharto?
ML: It is similar but different. In the case of Suharto, an anti-Suharto discussion was simply non-existent in the mainstream media. And on the Internet there was no pro and contra, everything unified into one voice, opposing the mainstream, opposing Suharto, at least at that moment. Since then, the 1998, the whole landscape of mainstream media has changed. Now diversity exists to some degrees in the mainstream media. I think the mainstream media is influenced by the Internet is some ways. The mainstream now has become more open. At the same time the Internet for Indonesians is becoming a different venue, it used to be the place where you debunk the mainstream media, but now it is becoming more or less complementary to the mainstream media. Still retains its alternative-resistant characteristic, but no longer in a clear-cut way.
LL: Does that mean that the people who are blogging on this issue, arguing for different viewpoints, are they just talking amongst themselves then? Is there any opportunity for these alternative views to jump that divide?
ML: I suppose there are some occasions that enable people to cross the boundary between mainstream and alternative. Sometimes some issues or discussions that initially emerge in blogosphere are taken up by mainstream media. But it is arbitrary. There is no fixed mechanism that enables discussions or issues to jump to a more mainstream form of communication. Occasionally it happens, on certain issues, it is not mechanistic, there is no clear pathway on how to do so.
LL: Is that about the issue or the changing nature of warnet or the changing nature of access to the Internet?
ML: Both. The Internet is changing, the availability of platforms on the Internet is changing. And at the same time, certain issues get more airplay and audience, and other issues don’t.
LL: You also mentioned to me your own blogging experiences. I wonder if you could talk about that?
ML: I have these blogs, in both English and Indonesian. Originally I didn’t really tell people about them, except some very good friends of mine, but eventually my blogs did get popularized. One day, I wrote a controversial piece and apparently it got picked up by search engines and came up as one of the top results. I became curious and wanted to know how it got picked up. Since I am doing research on blogs, I wanted to know how people got to find out about blogs that they didn’t know about before. So I did a small experiment. In my blog, I wrote in reaction to the anti-pornography bill, it wasn’t a really scholarly work, it was a poem, a satire actually. It was in Indonesian, saying: “I’m so sorry that I’m a woman, that I’m evil, that every time I move the curve of my body is like fire that gets men burnt and leads them into sin and hell”. One night I posted that poem and the next morning when I woke up, I got some people attacking me in my comments box. They were trying to find my email address as well and wrote to me privately and sent me some very harsh comments. Observably, it happened that they came in clusters, as if one or two people found me through searches using search engines and suddenly their friends also came to my blog. By reading and commenting in my blog, they didn’t necessarily want to have a dialogue with me at all. It was interesting that I experienced it myself. It gives me a deeper understanding on the way blogs work. Here we see a palpable connection between the online and the offline. The connectivity between me and some commentators was not visible online. There was no link (inlink-outlink) between my blog and their blogs or websites. But I was connected anyway with these people. In my other little experiment, I found out that most readers found a way to my blog not through search engines, only a handful of people found me through these search engines. Most of people came to my blog from yahoo emails, meaning the link to my blog was spread through emails that were being forwarded in bloggers or blog readers’ social networks. I’m very pleased that I experienced that myself because I am now convinced that even when it comes to hyperlinked based platforms such as blogs, technical links don’t not always reflect existing social links and they don’t mean as much as social links. There are so many things overlooked when you only look at online technical links.
LL: Related to this issue of social links, I wanted to ask you about Jihad Online. You were arguing in your lecture and in another talk you gave recently, that what we see on the web in relation to Jihad doesn’t reflect community attitudes towards Islam. So if one relied solely on what you read on the web your image of Jihad would be very different.
ML: If I never went into the offline field, if I just read the web and looked at comments of Indonesians who joined the mailing list of Laskar Online for example, I would assume that they all could become terrorists. Because these Internet users just assume that all political conflicts in Indonesia were perpetrated by Israel, America, the West. But when it comes to the offline field, and dealing with those people who say harsh and very radical things online, I found out that they didn’t want to go to Afghanistan. So what they said was textual, it was only rhetoric. It’s different if compared with the case of 1998 overthrow of Suharto. It’s easier to go into streets for demonstrations, but not to the battlefield. It is a completely different kind of politics. The street politics and the holy war are two different things. I don’t see any evidence that the Internet would single-handedly perpetuate Indonesian Muslims to go on Jihad anywhere in the world. There were some people who joined Laskar Jihad and some Jihad activities in the Middle East by searching the Internet. They did find a way to join certain organisations by using the Internet, but they weren’t perpetuated to join just because of what they read. They have a pre-existing desire to join. I think we have to be careful to see who these people were before. I am sceptical about that the claim that people would join any radical movement just by reading something from the Internet.
LL: What does that mean in relation to your views about censorship of the Internet or attempts to regulate content on the Internet?
ML: It is a difficult question. I personally think why should you regulate it? First, in fact, to be able to find something radical, or if you want to find pornography, you would search for it. So, if you don’t have pre-existing desires for it, you wouldn’t search for it anyway. And let’s say if you couldn’t find it online, you will find it another way. Of course there is spam problems, where pornography sites are promoted through spam mails and pop ups, that’s a separate matter and that should be regulated. The real problem is that while we are concerned in relation to pornography and other negative things in relation to the Internet, the cost of strict censorship is too big. If we censor too many things, we could censor things that are useful and would eventually lead to the violation of privacy and freedom of expression. Also I don’t’ think less freedom can lead to a more responsible society. I really think that the whole problem of pornography or radicalism is not merely located online, it is also located in other aspects of society, and mostly offline.
LL: Taking the example of Laskar Jihad then, in your argument about the intersection between the online and offline worlds, you argue that in the case of the overthrow of Suharto, people who were in the warnet looking at the list of Suharto’s wealth, and then that became transformed into emails, that transformed into photocopies, and then spread. If we take the example of Laskar Jihad what you are arguing is that it is very much about the social context, it is about how something is going to be received. So just because something is on the Internet, doesn’t mean that someone will copy it and paste it, and create a chain effect for a massive movement.
ML: In fact, Laskar Jihad did apply the intermodality method. As an organization they copied the way information was spread during the student movement. They replicated it. But they were not fully successful. They were successful to some degree because by using the Internet and other media, they got people’s sympathies and support in the form of words and money or donations. But like I mentioned previously, even with the use of such intermodality, Laskar Jihad’s use of media did not transform the Internet based narrative, which is Laskar Jihad’s propaganda, into a chain effect for a massive movement such as in the 1998 anti-Suharto movement. My study found that indeed the Internet has potential to amplify the narrative. The narrative of Laskar Jihad was strengthened by the Internet because you can combine images, and bring the conditions of Muslims in other countries closer to the minds of Muslims in Indonesia. So many people had some sympathy for Laskar Jihad because they saw the visualisation of ideology. True that is not good, even though they didn’t go for jihad themselves, they might become less tolerant to other religions for example. So it does have some negative effects. But it is not as simple as perpetuating jihad.
LL: Is that what you argue in your book Islamic Fundamentalism and Anti-Americanism?(East West Centre, Hawai’i)
ML: Yes.
LL: Tell me about your latest project.
ML: The first six months of this year (2006) I’ve been looking at Muslims in Iran and Indonesia in blogosphere. This project is stemmed from much current speculation that argues that proliferation of new information and communication technologies are promoting a greater ummah consciousness, a heightened sense of belonging to a global community of believers. It is true that recent development of the Internet, marked by a storm of blogs and social exchange and networking software, has enabled more people to be engaged in global conversations. Blogs can potentially be a venue for global dialogue and the formation of global community such as global Ummah. Using a comparative study of Indonesian and Iranian blogospheres, my research shows that these do not, however, sum into a single global metanarrative or a single advocacy for a course of action. Local contextualization of global discourses result in a diverse mosaic of interpretations, positions and identification of sources of discontent. Even when dealing the same global issues, discourses that took place in Iranian Muslim blogosphere are pretty much different than those in an Indonesian one.
LL: It doesn’t sound like a new claim, that these issues are localised, but what you are arguing is that in the current post-9/11 world, there is a hegemonic view of what Islam is, and you are trying to challenge that.
ML: Right, blogs are not monolithic and neither is Islam. The blog means different things to Iranians as compared to Indonesians. And being Islam could mean the same for both, but also it could be different, even for people in the same country, from different places and different backgrounds. That’s my point.
LL: Are you also looking at the interaction between bloggers in different countries?
ML: Some scholars assume that language is one of the major barriers as to why people don’t engage in cross-communication. Well, that’s obvious, Iranians speak and blog in Persian and Indonesians in Indonesian. Yet I found a huge number of bloggers in Iran who blog in English, there are a significant number of Indonesians who blog in English, and they are addressing the same issues. However, even Indonesians who discuss the issue of the Iranian President, they don’t engage in cross-communication. It’s not just about language, it’s also about networks, whom you want to network with. You want to be connected with ones whom you are similar to. In this case, the nation-state still retains its role as a basis of community formation in the blogosphere.
LL: We saw that at the Internationalizing Internet Workshop [http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/conferences/2006/conferences-2006-inet-studies.html ] where in the case of lesbian websites in Taiwan and the PRC. Taiwanese lesbians were more likely to access Taiwanese sites, and vice versa, even though they could read the same texts. Although there are differences in the scripts it was more about cultural and national similarities based on the nation-states, so that even where language can facilitate communicate, people are very much bounded by the state. So what you are saying is that although Islam is a global phenomenon, even where you have religion as the basis for transnationalism, the nation-state looms large in the way people communicate online. So the countries you are looking at are?
ML: Iran, Indonesian, Egypt and Malaysia. Very preliminary. I’m excited about it. I believe I can see more clearly the differences and similarities in these four country cases.
LL: I wonder if you could give some examples of the differences that you’ve observed?
ML: One case I use is the Danish Jylland Posten cartoon case. Obviously, most Muslims in Iran and Indonesia felt offended by the cartoon. The reaction from the Indonesian bloggers was to condemn the Danish publisher and they had this collective movement or call for action boycotting Danish products, they had a competition to choose the best banner and they put the banner everywhere. Indonesians are very collective, so they acted collectively. I found no Indonesian blogger who defended the Danish publisher, not at all. There were some who tried to give more context, or condemned the abuse of freedom of expression saying that we shouldn’t react in such a way by burning the Danish flag, but is was a small group of bloggers. In Indonesia the division of bloggers is clear, those who said yes, boycott the Danish and those who said nothing. That might be something cultural about Indonesians, when you say nothing you actually say “No” and people really know it. So if you didn’t make any comment about it, they know what your views are. That is something cultural. In the case of Iran people might expect the same reaction, right, assumingly Iran too is predominantly Muslim and Iranians have similar attitude towards Americans, Israel and the West. What I found is that in Iran people are more individual, they express different views on this issue. Most of them of course agree that the cartoon was not appropriate, but they did not feel like they had to boycott the products. I think one blogger said “We love Danish pastries! No matter what!!” And I think this case also implies an important claim about Islam itself. Indonesian Muslims are predominantly Sunni Islam and in Iran it is Shi’ite Islam. In Shi’ite they actually acknowledge the pictorial representation of Mohammad. That could be one reason why Iranian bloggers reacted less strongly. The other thing is that surprisingly there were some Iranian bloggers who defended freedom of expression, they are Muslim, they didn’t agree with the Danish newspaper and questioned why the Danish publisher published the cartoons, but at the same time they said “We have to defend it. It is their right”. So, very different dynamics between two countries.
LL: Did you see these differences in the mainstream press?
ML: No, not at all. Media in Iran is very much controlled by the government so what you see were condemnations, very harsh and even more radical or more extreme than the Indonesian press. The Indonesian mainstream media nowadays always tries to appear moderate, they don’t want to sound too radical. So what they said mostly was: “This is not good, it is blasphemy” or echoing the President of Indonesia who said that “we shouldn’t react too strongly by going to the embassy and burning the flag.” Predictable, official viewpoint.
LL: One of the points you ended your lecture on last night was that we shouldn’t be talking about ‘the Internet’, one singular phenomenon, but rather that we should be talking about ‘Internets’ in plural. Could you talk a little bit more about that idea?
ML: Perhaps if we go back 30 years ago, 1960, the Internet was one “thing.” TCPIP, and then go to the early 1990s, everything was about BBS or emails. Not quite monolithic, but these applications have very similar mechanisms. But these days the Internet is maturing and it consists of various applications that are not based on singular technique and cover so many social uses. Look at the platforms, so many platforms. How can we see the similarity between blogging and emailing? Technically, don’t even look at the social aspects of it, just look at the technicalities, they are so different. How could you call them one Internet? And when it comes to research, when I said “I am doing research on the use of the Internet in Brisbane”, what does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything any more. So I think the Internet has become ubiquitous, not really new any more, yet some new applications like blogging are new, YouTube is another thing. What would we call YouTube or CyWorld which is not a regular portal? Why should we call them all as if they are the same. It is kinda silly and meaningless to call everything ‘the Internet’. At the same time, of course the Internet as an umbrella term is still useful. I am not serious in suggesting the term “Internets” in plural. Yet, when you think more about it, it actually does make sense….so, perhaps I am really serious! (laughter).
LL: So does that mean there is no place for Internet Studies or is it more accurate to talk about Studies of Internets?
ML: I have a big dilemma about Internet Studies. I guess 5 years ago I was much more enthusiastic to say “I’m an Internet researcher”. But nowadays it doesn’t really mean that much anymore. I would like to call myself an Internet researcher, but at the same time I hesitate a bit because what is more important is where and how and what kind of Internet that I seek to study. Eventually, if we still want to have Internet Studies maybe we should also branch it out to Blogging Studies? Google Studies? YouYube Studies? Sounds silly? However, like I mentioned previously, I should admit that as an umbrella term the Internet retains its usefulness. While it has no precise meaning, at least for now, it continues to function to lend coherence to a variety of differing yet related phenomena. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if someday the term would render meaningless. Having said that, I still see the significance of having the Association of Internet Researchers to continuously exist. I truly think the main goal of AoIR, which is to provide an interdisciplinary organization for promoting scholarly and critical research into social, cultural, and political aspects of the Internet, is important to pursue and AoIR indeed has contributed greatly to the establishment of new media studies internationally.
LL: That’s certainly food for thought as we sit here on the last day of the annual conference of the AoIR! Thanks so much for your thought-provoking comments.
Lenore Lyons, Director of CAPSTRANS, interviewed Merlyna Lim during the AoIR 
conference. Lyons has published extensively on civil society in Singapore and is currently conducting research on migrant worker activism in Malaysia and Singapore, and a study of borderland identities in the Indonesia-Singapore border zone (with Dr Michele Ford, University of Sydney). The latter study includes an exploration of the ways in which sex and pornography has become representative of the Riau Islands, revealing a disjuncture between the ways in which Islanders imagine their communities and how they are represented in the virtual world of the Internet.