TEKNOLOGI, MODERNITAS, DAN ZAMAN ‘PANTJAROBA’: REPRESENTASI RADIO DALAM DUA ROMAN INDONESIA DI AKHIR ZAMAN KOLONIAL

Abstract

The reception and perception of the Indonesian society on
radio technology in the early period of the appearance of this
technology in the former Netherlands East Indies can of course be
traced in its diverse culture texts, including the literary texts. Even
though such technological invention as radio is an element that is
quite apparent and give colour in many modern Indonesian literary
texts, this element has not seemed to attract the attention of scholars
of Indonesian literary studies. This paper looks at the images of radio
technology in modern Indonesian literary texts by examining how this
technology is represented as a matter of course in early modern
Indonesian literary works. Two works which will be investigated in this
article are Muhammad Dimyati’s Dibalik Tabir Gelombang Radio
(1940) and A. Damhoeri’s Zender Nirom (1940). In this paper, I
discuss them in terms of the explicit presence of radio as an urban
icon and symbol of modernity.