Representing Islam: old myths in the new medium

Asian Journal of Media and Communication E-ISSN: 2579-6119, P-ISSN: 2579-6100 Volume 2, Number 2, October 2018 Representing Islam: old myths in the new medium Muzayin Nazaruddin Department of Communications Science Islamic University of Indonesia Abstract This study focuses on the adaptation of Islamic-mystic magazines into religious soap operas in Indonesia. This study concludes that for the producers, Islamic soap opera plays an economic function: to get more audiences and more economic profit. But, for the audience, religious soap opera plays a cultural function: to maintain and reconfirm their traditional beliefs. It leads us to the theoretical conclusion that this adaptation practice is a mechanism of self-translation of Javanese culture. Keywords: Islam representation; Islamic-mystic magazine; religious soap opera; market orientation; cultural self-translation. 1. Introduction In the Indonesian society, religion plays important roles in almost all aspects of the everyday life. The representation of religion, especially Islam, has a long history and happens in almost all types of media. One of the recent popular media is religious soap opera, first emerged in 2004. In May 2005, according to AC Nielsen survey, there were 35 titles of them (Khudori & Pitakasari 2005). Even, I found at least 44 titles of religious soap operas in all Indonesian television during 2004 to 2007 (Nazaruddin 2008). During 2017 – 2018, this genre was popular again, especially in the Indonesian television. The aim of the study is to understand the very basics norms underlying the adaptation. The materials of the study are Hidayah magazine, one of the most popular Islamic- mystic magazine in Indonesia, as the source texts, and Rahasia Ilahi (The Secret of God), the highest-rating religious soap opera, as the target texts. 2. Method The study was conducted through two stages. Firstly, I did general analysis of the religious soap operas and Islamic-mystic magazines. It was hand in hand with my daily activities as audience who had routinely watched and read them. Secondly, I have analysed some editions of Hidayah magazine, randomly chosen from 2003 to 2006 editions. I have also analysed some episodes of Rahasia Ilahi, an adaptation of Iktibar column in Hidayah magazine. A methodological weakness should be noted here. Watching the soap operas on YouTube, I am not able to identify the specific 19 Volume 2, Number 2, October 2018 time when the soap operas aired on the Indonesian television, since YouTube does not mention it. However, rechecking the title of these soap operas with another sources in Internet, I strongly suppose that they were aired between 2004 and 2007. In general, this weakness did not make a methodological lack of this study because the purpose of the observation is to identify the narrative structures of the religious soap operas, so that the data on show times could be ruled out. In this research, I follow a model proposed by Cattrysse (1992), consists of four steps: the selection policy of the source texts, the adaptation policy of the texts, the function of the target text within its contexts, and the relations between selection–adaptation policies and the function of the target text within its context. In the previous publication, I have described the selection and adaptation policies as the first and second steps. I have concluded some norms underlying the adaptation of Islamic-mystic magazines into religious soap operas, which are related to one another in certain hierarchical relations (Nazaruddin 2017). I have emphasizes (Nazaruddin 2017: 7): The most fundamental norm is the popularity or market preference, determining the choice of adaptation from popular Islamic-mystic magazines, into soap operas that are also extremely popular. Thus, it is not a matter of Islamic propagation, but commodification of Islam. This economic motivation determines two subsequent norms, i.e. the narrative standardization and faithfulness. The flexible narrative sequence in the magazine should be standardized into fixed cause-effect narrative structure of soap opera. It creates a more specific norm, namely extreme binary opposition, which are already exist in the source text but amplified in the target text. Meanwhile, faithful norm has three aspects, namely adequacy, factual, and Islamic teaching conformity principles. This three-aspects of faithfulness is specific feature of the translation of religious texts. 20 This paper is actually the second part of this previous publication, focusing on the issue the adaptation function and the relations between function and policies of adaptation, as the third and fourth steps as proposed by Cattrysse (1992). 3. The function of adaptation Generally, translation studies assume the existence of distance between the source text and the target text; it could be linguistic distance, cultural distance, historical distance, or combination of them. The linguistic distance exists when the source text comes from different language with the target text, which also means cultural distance. Jakobson (1966: 233) call it as interlingual translation. The linguistic distance makes exoticization and naturalization concepts become important (Delabatista 1993). The historical distance occurs when the source text comes from different historical period, long before the historical period of the target text. This makes modernization and historization concepts become vital (Delabatista 1993). The combination of them appears if the source text comes from the past as well as from different language with the target text. However, in the adaptation of Islamicmystic magazines into religious soap operas, there is no linguistic, cultural, or historical distance. The source text comes from the same linguistic, cultural and historical contexts with the target text. MD Entertainment, a big production house in Indonesia, even adapts the stories in Hidayah magazine with a very close time gap. They produce soap opera of the stories of the latest edition of Hidayah magazine, and broadcast them on TransTV, one Indonesian television, not more than one month from the publication of Hidayah magazine as the source text (Majalah Hidayah 2005: 107). The distinctive aspect is the medium: written (magazine) and audio-visual (soap opera) form, which Jakobson (1966: 233) said as intersemiotic translation. According to Delabatista (1993), no difference between the source text and the target text in linguistic and cultural codes. But, the difference exists in textual codes. Hence, in this case, the Muzayin Nazaruddin, Representing Islam: old myths in the new medium soap opera as a textual code becomes very important. Here, we should ask, why do the producers select soap opera as the adaptation form of the journalistic report in the magazine? In my opinion, this question should be answered through the exploration of the positions of soap opera within the television industry in Indonesia (...truncated)