In early 2015 the British comedian John Oliver travelled to Moscow to interview the exiled NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for a TV show. In the interview, which soon went viral, Oliver reacted to Snowden's laborious attempts to explain the privacy implications of the US government's mass surveillance programs by exclaiming: ‘This is the whole problem. I glaze over. It's like the IT guy comes into your office and you go, “Oh shit—don't teach me anything. I don't want to learn. You smell like canned soup!”’ The comedian then proceeded to ask Snowden a series of questions about the hypothetical fate of shared pictures of his—Oliver's—penis under the NSA's digital surveillance regime. By using his own privates to explain privacy, he succeeded in bringing Snowden's dry discourse to life (whilst extracting comedic value from it).

This hilarious exchange raises three intriguing questions. First, Oliver correctly identifies a fundamental problem at the heart of today's increasingly digitalised power struggles: digital activism ‘nerds’ such as Snowden are often not the best translators of key technical issues for the general public. For this reason, they frequently rely on intermediaries such as journalists, film-makers and even comedians to communicate their political views (Chadwick and Collister 2014). Second, and more problematically, Oliver's gag relies on the lazy popular stereotype of digital activists as young, white, male, Western ‘geeks’ (or hackers). In reality, this is a highly diverse constituency made up of women and men of all ages, races, nationalities and technical abilities, including people with no knowledge of coding or hacking (Postill 2014). Finally, it follows that the expanding transnational space of digital activism epitomised by WikiLeaks, Anonymous, the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Global Voices is itself highly heterogeneous. Therefore, we must differentiate between its various subspaces, or fields, of political action—between digital rights, data activism, social protest or institutional politics, for example (Postill, forthcoming).

In this chapter we take these three observations as our guiding lines. Drawing from recent ethnographic and archival research in Indonesia, we explore how digital activists in that country translate or ‘modulate’ (Kelty 2008) key digital issues—which are sometimes highly technical and abstract—to reach diverse publics, often with remarkable success.

This chapter provides an insider's perspective on some aspects of the digital strategy of the Joko Widodo (Jokowi) administration—both authors hold positions in the Executive Office of the President (Kantor Staf Presiden, or KSP). Among the priorities Jokowi has continuously emphasised is the need to enhance the nation's competitiveness (Ministry of State Secretariat 2014). As he often said during his presidential campaign, one way to achieve this is to make all government services available and accessible online. Another motivation for promising to introduce a full range of electronic services, from e-planning and e-budgeting through to e-catalogue, e-procurement and even e-complaint handling, was to realise the benefits of e-governance for government administration. Jokowi anticipated that the roll-out of electronic government would help to reduce corruption and improve the transparency and accountability of the bureaucracy, in addition to widening the participation of citizens in policy-making (Ministry of State Secretariat 2014). That is, he saw putting government services online as a means not only to deliver better public services and facilitate collaboration, but also to bolster the credibility of his government (Raharjo 2015).

E-governance has transformed the way governments deliver services to citizens, increasing the convenience, efficiency and transparency of interactions (Carter and Belanger 2004). The core elements of e-governance are information and communication technology (ICT), organisational change and new skills (Pina, Torres and Acerete 2007). E-governance improves public services and democratic processes and strengthens public support for government programs by increasing the quantity and quality of government interactions with citizens and businesses (Denhardt and Denhardt 2000).

This chapter offers a critical perspective on the Jokowi administra-tion's e-governance strategy. It aspires to draw out some of the lessons that have been learned so far: what has worked and what has not; which factors have enabled or constrained implementation; and the strengths and weaknesses in the overarching framework. This is important, because there are always consequences—both intended and unintended—that need to be taken into account when implementing any ambitious government program (Chen et al. 2006). Through an examination of how e-governance is being implemented by the Jokowi administration, we hope to reach an understanding of whether the president's vision is on track to be realised, or will remain in the realm of political promise.

Like ‘non-digital Indonesia’, ‘digital Indonesia’ is a realm of diverse religious expressions and practices. This is true in particular of those digital spaces that are inhabited by Indonesian Muslims. Today, we can observe myriad ways in which the internet and social media are turned into platforms of Islamic mediation. As I will show in detail in this chapter, the popularity of online Islamic practices has increased hugely in Indonesia due to the growth of ‘smart’ communication technologies and social media. The latter provide ample opportunities for Muslims to exhibit both visual and textual material, including people's expressions of piety, and to explore new forms of religious practice and sociality. Social networking sites in particular have become a focal point for displaying Indonesia's many ‘Islamic faces’. Appearing pious on social media has evolved into a major ‘cultural genre of content’—to borrow the phrase used by Daniel Miller (2011: 212) to designate the prevalent forms of online presence in particular (national) contexts. My own interest is in Indonesian ways of being digitally pious as these are reflected in both online and offline Islamic practices. I also attempt to tackle a bigger question, namely what the consequences of these digitalisations of Islamic practices might be for Indonesian Islam at large. My conclusions are necessarily preliminary, since the changes taking place in Indonesia today are being driven not just by religious verve, but also by new social formations, cultural ambiguity and rapid technological change.

Even the naive observer of religious life in Indonesia today would quickly realise that Indonesian Muslims have embraced social media in their daily religious lives, where we find great creativity and variety in the use of smartphones and apps (Barendregt 2012: 215). A devout Muslim I interviewed in Yogyakarta told me, for example, that when picking up her children from school, she likes to wait in her car where she can recite the Qur'an undisturbed thanks to a digitised version of the Qur'an she has saved on her smartphone.

Worldwide, debate is raging over the growth of app-based transport ser-vices as companies like Uber transform the way transport is provided and how consumers access it (Isaac 2014; Aloisi 2015). Often referred to as ‘ride-sharing’ or ‘peer-to-peer’ services, these companies connect passengers with drivers typically not formally registered for taxi work or car hire services through a smartphone app. Passengers pay a set rate, determined by the company, from which a percentage is deducted before the driver receives the rest.

Like other large countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has enthusiastically embraced app-based transport services. Indeed, Indonesian consumers have adopted app-based transport services with alacrity, hailing cars, motorcycle taxis (ojek) or even the noisy three-wheel vehicles known as bajaj with just a few taps on their phones. The proliferation of what is known locally as ‘online transport’ (transportasi online) has benefited from commuters’ increasing frustration with traffic congestion and poor public transport, as well as the growing use of smartphones.

One of the most popular app-based transport services operating in Indonesia is Go-Jek, a locally owned venture whose drivers’ signature green helmets and jackets can be seen on the streets of most major cities across the archipelago.1 Such has been the rise of Go-Jek that it is not so much a form of transport as a phenomenon. As one journalist observed, ‘school children, university students, office workers, even the governor of Jakarta … everyone is talking about Go-Jek’ (Kompas, 18 June 2015).

Even President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is on record as a strong supporter of Go-Jek, having invited its chief executive officer to accompany him to the United States to sell Indonesia's digital potential (Tribun News, 22 October 2015). Jokowi's confidence proved to be justified, with Go-Jek raising $550 million in new capital in 2016 (Digital News Asia, 5 August 2016).

The introduction of this ‘disruptive technology’ by Go-Jek and others has not, however, been without its challenges.2 Indonesian consumers may have embraced it, but there has been fierce resistance to Go-Jek and other app-based transport services from conventional transport providers, who have pressured authorities to rein in online providers.

It is well known that the business models of the mainstream media industry have been thrown into disarray by the arrival of the internet, which has enabled widespread diversification of media content, mostly delivered for free. In fact, of all industries, digitalisation's impact has affected the media industries first, and most compellingly. Although Indonesia's official internet penetration rates remain low, Indonesians with internet access are living in a time of tremendous choice for online news, informa-tion and entertainment. Individual citizens can also maintain their own participatory media sites, including blogs, Facebook pages and YouTube channels. For the mainstream media companies, digitalisation is bringing enormous challenges, but also significant opportunities. This chapter explains how digitalisation has favoured the larger media companies, whose owners have become wealthier and more politically powerful, and has hindered smaller news sites, some of which are dying out. Despite the fragmentation of media content caused by the internet, digitalisation has enabled further concentration of the mainstream media. Industrial media remains a key avenue by which elites exert power in Indonesia.

In the early days of the internet, many scholars predicted that the ‘new’ online media platforms would replace the ‘old’ or ‘traditional’ media of print, radio and television. Rather, what occurred was that the platforms converged, and the distinct delineation between online and print or television media became largely redundant as old and new media began to ‘collide’ (Jenkins 2006). All major news companies in Indonesia began to acquire digital television and radio stations; online news and social media sites; citizen journalism ventures; and even new daily print publications as newspapers merged and converged.

The mainstream media companies believe that to survive financially in the digital era, they must swiftly morph into multiplatform news services. New digital technologies are allowing for a convergence of social media with print, television, radio, telecommunications, cable television, satellites, gaming, citizen journalism and much more. The previously traditional media companies are now branching out into other digital business ventures such as e-commerce, creating larger digital ‘ecosystems’. This has led many in the media industry and those who study it to rightly ask: ‘What exactly is a media company in the digital age?’ (Economist 2006).

This chapter presents an insider's account of the Indonesian e-commerce industry from 2011 to 2016. Despite several years of impressive growth, the Indonesian digital economy remains in the relatively early stages of inception. This chapter traces the origins of the tech industry from its beginnings in pioneer companies such as KASKUS, Rocket and Go-Jek, through to the now diverse array of start-ups and tech initiatives that are sprouting across the country.

It is hard to believe that only a few years ago, few people in Indonesia believed in the prospects of a domestic e-commerce industry. At that time, newly formed technology companies were struggling with the same problems that beset many other industries, causing many in the market to doubt that a robust industry could ever emerge. The ecosystem yearned for the sustenance of stronger physical infrastructure. Ageing, pre-digital logistics companies groaned under the pressure of parcel delivery growth. Powerful banks and a thicket of financial regulations had failed to nourish a simple, user-friendly online payments provider. Slow, labyrinthine bureaucracy complicated the process of establishing companies and of meeting corporate obligations. Financiers looking at these conditions wondered why they should invest in Indonesia. Most struggled to find an affirming answer.

Over the period from 2011 to 2016, Indonesia's technology industry blossomed despite these many headwinds. A small number of pre-dominantly non-transactional, information-sharing internet companies were overtaken by a vast ecosystem of operators providing physical and digital wares as diverse as food delivery and bridal services. These new companies navigated and exploited the conditions they found in the archipelago—the ebb and flow of industry regulation, the weaknesses of ancillary industries to support their growth and the shortage of people with the experience to help them chart a successful course through these challenges—and were able to build large, well-financed technology companies that attracted the attention and investments of global financiers.

Today, Indonesia's growing digital economy is often touted by econ-omists, entrepreneurs and even President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) as a flagship industry for Indonesia's future economic success. At a stretch, some would even argue that the country has built an internationally relevant technology industry. Several factors provide evidence for this claim. First, Indonesia has its own ‘unicorn’ (a company with a valuation in excess of $1 billion), as confirmed when private equity firm KKR invested $550 million in ride-sharing company Go-Jek in August 2016.

This chapter presents an overview of the digitalisation of knowledge, specifically in relation to education, libraries and archives in Indonesia. After providing background on the broader academic field to which this study relates, I demonstrate how the tropical, humid climatic conditions of the archipelago, and the historical contexts of colonial and autocratic regimes, have affected libraries and archives in Indonesia. My main theoretical and empirical focus is on the digitalising of knowledge, which started around the turn of the twenty-first century. I analyse not only the library and information science (LIS) profession in the higher education and government sectors, but also initiatives involving open-source mate-rials, the visual arts and music, among others. I conclude by highlighting various historical precedents and arguing for more socio-political analysis of the construction of knowledge in both conventional and digitalised libraries and archives.

I also have to mention my own position and limitations: while I have a longstanding interest in the field, I have never undergone any formal training in LIS. My encounters, instead, have been facilitated by my position as the founder of an independent library in 2008, which put me in contact with various interlocutors involved in archiving processes both within and outside the LIS profession. LIS, and technical systems in general, requires very careful attention to mechanisms and precise detail. In Indonesia, the ‘great divide’ (Bowker et al. 1997) between social sciences and cultural studies on the one hand, and LIS and the analysis of technical systems on the other, remains wide. Readers interested in more in-depth discussions of education, libraries and archives in Indonesia are therefore encouraged to follow up on the relevant references included in this article.

BACKGROUND

Over the past two decades, the ways in which we acquire, access, exchange and interact with information have changed dramatically. All over the world, the ubiquitous growth of digital technologies has brought massive changes to the ways information is collected, stored and accessed. The new technologies have had a significant impact on the traditional gatekeepers of information storage and access, such as educational institutions, libraries and archives. The rise of digital technology has also triggered numerous academic and popular publications on the future of learning (Davidson and Goldberg 2009), the changing functions of libraries (Lankes 2012: Palfrey 2015) and the role of archiving in the digital age (Herr-Stephenson et al. 2011; Xing et al. 2011).

A remarkable development in Indonesian art since the early 1990s has been the experimentation with unconventional new media such as video, the internet, the mobile phone and biotechnology. This is a product of global trends in art and the media, the enhanced accessibility of consumer technology in Indonesia and the increased freedom of speech since the fall of Suharto's totalitarian New Order regime (1965–98). Digitalisation here is not merely about new electronic communication strategies and financial transactions surrounding art, but affects art at the very core of its production, circulation and appreciation. Thus, contemporary art and the broader creative economy to which it belongs constitutes an important form of expression and area of social life—on a par with electronic finance, governance, health care and education—for analysing and putting into critical perspective the idea of a digital revolution in Indonesia.

This chapter is meant as an early inquiry into the much flagged idea of a digital revolution, by putting both the ‘digital’ and the ‘revolution’ into critical perspective. I discuss how the contemporary art market, as an essential part of Indonesia's creative economy, has been shifting interest from traditional media such as painting and sculpture to new media such as digital art. Some artists and art collectives have remained under the commercial radar, however, due to the nature of their work, ideas and interests. They frequently engage in collaborative projects with local communities to creatively and critically address urgent social issues such as health care and food security. I argue that their ideas and practices are not the product of a digital revolution only, but build on a longer history of social engagement in Indonesian creative practice.

I specifically focus on the idea of ‘hacking’ in the context of Indonesian digital art. Hacking in this instance does not mean sabotaging information and communication networks, but rather creating open lab-oratories for exploring and executing alternative scenarios for more sus-tainable, socially inclusive and environmentally friendly futures. Some digital artists use new, techno-cultural hacking strategies to go beyond the market, and establish creative connections with various groups in society that are ignored or underrepresented by mainstream politics and business.

Romulo's schemes to discredit Guerrero had finally lost their power. Serrano appointed Guerrero member of the UN delegation for the Fourteenth Session of the General Assembly starting on 15 September 1959 headed by former Senator, now Ambassador Francisco Delgado, with Lopez as the vice-chair. He could have gone to the Twelfth Session when his name was removed from the list of members because Romulo insisted to Garcia to revoke the appointment. Prior to his departure, in the wake of the Serrano-Bohlen military bases negotiations, Guerrero urged Serrano via cable to advocate an affirmative SEATO action to the communist problem in Laos to test SEATO's reliability if the need arose in the Philippines.

At the United Nations in New York, Guerrero was having a good time when on the last day of September he got involved in a verbal tiff with Walter Robertson, a member of the American delegation and former Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. At a U.S.-hosted diplomatic luncheon for the General Assembly's Special Political Committee in one of the U.N. dining rooms where diplomats from Japan, the Netherlands, Canada and several other nations were also seated, he was listening to Robertson on the issue of Tibet scheduled to be tackled in the following week. Then, he joined in saying that some Asian nations were hesitant to have a full-blown debate on Tibet because it would revive Cold War issues into the assembly when the East-West relations were starting to relax. The talk came to the issue of Communist China. Known for his pro-Chinese Nationalist views, Robertson boasted that the United States was the only defence against communist aggression and that he believed that countries had to avail themselves of “free world” security.

It turned to Philippine-American relations dealing with those irritants that continued to vex the bilateral relationship, but Robertson argued that America had taken an altruistic policy towards the Philippines. Guerrero replied that the Philippines offered parity rights in exchange for the war damage payments, where full settlement was still wanting. Robertson remarked that Guerrero's views echoed “the Recto line” to which Guerrero retorted, “I don't care if it is the Recto line. That's my line, too.” “You're not used to hearing Filipinos speak to you frankly,” he added, “You're used to listening to Romulo. You're used to hearing only what is pleasing to you.”

Three months later in April 1969, Guerrero hit the news. A daily reported that “Guerrero would scrap annual report”. The news was based on the release of his “anti-report” by his sympathetic colleagues in the Foreign Affairs Department, which was actually written in September the previous year. Instead of submitting the usual annual report which he dutifully made his staff do in Madrid, this time in India, he was fed up with it. For his first three years in India, he submitted not an annual report but an “anti-report” because “it is a report against traditional reports … a report designed to end this type of reports”, contrary to the law requiring each embassy and consulate to annually submit 300 copies for the various offices of the government with twenty earmarked for the office of the president. How could he scrap the annual report when he was not authorized to do so? But he did — in New Delhi and perhaps even to his subsequent posts. It was a waste of money and effort costing the government which had seventy-six diplomatic missions. No one read or would read it except the employee assigned to the task or a newspaper reporter or columnist, he argued.

He did not object to the other reports required of each post such as the Post Report, monthly financial reports and quarterly inspection reports. He found it amusing that annual reports recorded the calls the chief of mission did on his colleagues and the trifling details of the visits made by various VIPs. Other contents of the report such as summaries of consular services rendered, financial statements, number of diplomatic notes, telegrams, letters and other communications sent and received, which he described as “the nadir of bureaucratic small-mindedness” as well as requests and recommendations could be taken into account in other reports sent to the Home Office.

Asked in a news conference about it, Romulo said unsmilingly: “Who says nobody reads the annual reports? I do!” Romulo in the following weeks sent Guerrero to London as the Philippine representative to the International Sugar Council's Special Hardship Relief Committee. Based on Article 44 of the council's constitution, the committee granted special concessions to the Philippines and Indonesia. All of the forty signatory countries were subjected to quota limitations but developing countries could have 60,000 tonnes each year with prior approval.

Selected editor-in-chief in March 1931, Leoni dominated the journalistic scene at Ateneo and became a champion of Catholicism, another area of contradictions in his formation (modern-American, Catholic-Hispanic). Under previous editors, Guidon was an outlet for programmes and activities for Catholic action. Under his management, Leoni believed that Catholic college newspapers such as Guidon were necessary to define the position of school authorities like the Ateneo. As editor, he had to beat the deadline for the timely release of the bi-weekly, compelling him and his staff, including Skeezix as associate editor, to work till the wee hours of the day. Believing that four associate editors were enough to fulfil the job, he eliminated the position of news editor but organized the news staff. While constantly on the lookout for innovations and strictly following the schedule, although late releases had to be occasionally put up with, he created a large following because of his witty and funny column.

Initiated prior to his editorship, Leoni's longest-running column “Totoy to Momoy” or “Momoy to Totoy” — patterned as correspondence between two friends — was read by many even beyond Ateneo. Having derived inspiration from American humorist Irvin S. Cobb and English comic author P.G. Wodehouse, Leoni wrote on anything, from plays to carnivals, Christmas to personalities. Outwardly a gossip column, he would occasionally use humour to lampoon various subjects. An American university publication, The Creightonian, praised the peerless humour in every letter, followed by recognition from University of the Philippines (UP) Professor Carlos P. Romulo, adviser to the College Editors Guild (CEG), an umbrella organization of leading student publications from different universities in Manila. While funny to some, others, however, were hurt when they were the subject of Leoni's humour.

Annually, Saint Theresa's College would hold a fair to raise funds for the benefit of the Belgian missions. For one to enjoy the fair and at the same time support the missions, one had to buy tickets sold in booths displaying items for sale or offering games like Truth or Consequence. Leoni, a fair-goer, wrote about the tickets thus: “They'll fleece the sheep and they're fleecing them still.” An irate colegiala confronted Chitang and told her: “Tell your brother he's a real brute!” When she told this to Leoni, he shrugged and laughed it off for he was still the darling of Theresian girls.

Philippine foreign policy was the subject of Guerrero's lecture delivered before the Indian Foreign Service Probationers in early January 1967, at the Indian School of International Studies at Sapru House in New Delhi. At the outset, he observed that although the Philippines and India had rather similar problems and aims, and both had shared the benefits of democratic processes, they had enunciated different foreign policies. Regarding the foreign policies of developing countries such as the Philippines and India, he noted that each country has to solve a diplomatic problem according to their unique circumstances. He coined here the term “diplomacy of development” that Philippine foreign policymakers would later adopt.

Sources of Philippine foreign policy, he said, were uniquely different from the foreign policies of its Asian allies and neighbours. Neither inflexible nor unchanging, Philippine foreign policy was being re-examined, alluding to the latest pronouncements of President Marcos. It was a policy that was mostly concerned with Philippine relations with the United States, which he discussed by tackling the historical underpinnings of Philippine-American relations in a nutshell. The Philippines’ anti-communist stance was the result of policies taken such as having American air and naval bases in the Philippines as well as the threat of communist rebellion. He did not believe that it was possible for the Philippines to have chosen a different path by severing ties with the United States and to start anew after the war since, unlike the Germans and the Japanese, the Filipinos still left in the farm without technical skills, were unable to industrialize.

He discussed Philippine-American economic relations, particularly on the free trade, expiring in 1974. In an echo of his speech to the Manila Lions Club two years ago, Guerrero said that there was growing realization in the Philippines about the relevance of the parity rights, which aimed to help the Philippines build its shattered economy but never generated substantial American investments. Moreover, Filipinos realized that American assistance was never proportionate to Filipino loyalty and American aid was niggardly and less to the Philippines than to other countries.