Already from its start, Indonesian television has broadcast traditional Javanese drama. The dramatic genres were adapted to and appropriated by the television industry, as well as inspired the medium to create new genres, all of which had an impact on live performances. The study will reveal how national, regional, public and private television stations in Indonesia – each in their own ways and for their own aims - represent aspects of Javaneseness.

The way traditional drama has been used by the Indonesian television industry for several purposes – the representation of the ‘local’/’the regional’, the preserving and nurturing of ‘national culture’, culture as commerce or propaganda, diversification as a counter voice to global or ‘Jakartan’ influences, and multiculturalism – will be put into the framework of discursive practices concerning local and national culture in the electronic media as well as into the framework of meta discourse about these themes in the disseminated dramatic genres themselves.

The analysis will focus on the changes in the contents, form and status of Javanese drama because of and on television from the nineteen nineties to the first decade of the twenty first century. The approach will be both chronological and thematic.

• indonesian language and culture
• javanese language and culture
• media studies