Indonesian Idol's Hegemony

Indonesian Idol is a very popular singing competition in Indonesia. The 2014 edition is considered phenomenal since most of the contestants sing very well. The atmosphere of strict competition is strongly felt among the contestants and their supporters. The show is aired on Fridays at RCTI and one of the contestants must be eliminated at the end of each show. As we know, Indonesian Idol applies a system for the competition in which the audiences become the determiner of who must be out of the competition every week. Audiences have to vote their favorite contestants by sending SMS, make a call, or vote in Indonesian Idol’s website. All ways of voting take a certain amount of cost. Any contestant having the lowest amount of vote will be eliminated. In other words, audiences have to vote as much as possible to make sure their favorite contestant does not get the lowest rank and get eliminated.

Such kind of persuasion is delivered to the audience in every single week of show and in every single segment of each show. The host is the one who does this. If we see this at glance, this looks and seems okay, usual, and nothing is wrong. But I see this as a form of hegemony. Gramsci says that hegemony is an on-going condition in which the society is unconsciously ruled by the dominant class (in John Storey 79-80). Hegemony requires consensus from the society in the belief that one group’s own interest is everyone’s interest (Storey 80). In other words, what a certain group of people say ‘our purpose’ is actually ‘their own purpose’.

Indonesian Idol here continually tries to imprint hegemony on its audiences through the voting system they apply to the competition. Audiences are always persuaded to vote more and more to ‘save’ their favorite contestant from elimination. They are constantly reminded with endless persuasive speeches that convey the same thing: “your favorite contestant might be in the dangerous position and potential to be eliminated today.”  That idea is what Indonesian Idol gives in each and every single show. It seems like an ordinary condition when the ‘fear’ of one contestant’s elimination is made to be the ‘fear’ of everyone. Such kind of persuasion aims to gain consent or to make the hegemony accepted by audiences. For me, it is quite clear that the interest of a particular group of people—in this case, Indonesian Idol—is to gain more votes and therefore more income.

Gramsci also points out that the process of hegemony is helped by ‘organic intellectual’, people who make the hegemony process seems natural to its most (in John Storey 81).  In my opinion, the organic intellectual in Indonesian Idol is what they say the new feature, by which they are shown the current rank of the first three or four contestants performing. Then, they do the same thing for the next three or four contestants, the next again, until the last. In this new feature, Indonesian Idol emphasizes on the current lowest rank of them. This feature, I should say, helps much to the process of hegemony by Indonesian Idol. Take an example of Nowela, Husein, and Sarah’s ranking. The current count shows that Nowela is in the first rank, the second is Husein, and the lowest is Sarah. By showing this, they have stronger reason to ask for more votes, with this kind of persuasion: “you still have time to make Sarah’s position safe. And it doesn’t mean that Nowela and Husein are safe then you can stop voting, no. They could be in dangerous rank if you stop voting for them. So make sure you keep voting.” This current rank makes them easier to put hegemony to the audiences.

Another nature of hegemony is that it has to be ‘constantly formed and reformed’ (Gramsci in Storey). This is also done by Indonesian Idol. The host persuades the audience to keep voting for the contestants as much as possible at the beginning of the show, after each contestant’s performance, short before the voting line is closed, and also every time the host has ran out of topic to say. This is also important and complementary to the organic intellectual above to keep the idea fresh and ‘important’.

What is important to say here is that hegemony is part of capitalism. It is a tool of making capitalism look ‘acceptable’ and ‘natural’. Indonesian Idol functions basically as an entertainment show for the audiences. However, it shifts a bit when values of capitalism are added. What should wholly be an activity of watching entertainment show has become more complex as the audiences are forced to keep holding their cell phones and keep being online while watching Indonesian Idol. It unconsciously changes people’s habit. For me, quite much distraction comes towards the audience but instead, they—or we—seem to have no problem with that. Let’s decide the best for us.

Thank you for reading,

Na∂ıa SЯ ♥

References:

Storey, John, ed. Cultural theory and popular culture: a reader. Pearson Education, 2006.