Literacy Lessons
The Importance of Media Literacy in Indonesia
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nieke Monika Kulsum
The Indonesian government is currently taking action against hoax spreaders who are increasingly rampant at the level of destabilizing the country. A hoax is normally filled with hate speech or human rights violence in terms of ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations which may divisive the sovereignty of Indonesian state. Social media such as WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook are the common media used to spread the hoax. For this reason, media literacy is required to educate Indonesian people so that they know which news is real and not. The fact that the government has arrested and imprisoned several people who spread hoax news should open people’s eyes that they have to be smart in deploying news. Under the theory of media literacy and social media ethics, this research is descriptive qualitative in nature. The researcher conducted interviews, literature studies, and non-participant observation in collecting data.
When Sharing Is Not Caring: Individual Differences in the Evaluation of News Quality
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Petra Filkukova, Peter Ayton, Steven Sloman, Johannes Langguth
In this study we investigated factors affecting one’s ability to distinguish fake from real news. Questionnaires containing a mix of true and fake news on crimes were distributed to two different samples: students at the University of Oslo and senior citizens aged 65-75 living in Norway. The perpetrator in the fake news stories was either an in-group member (Scandinavian) or an immigrant (between-Ss design). The majority of participants in both samples evaluated their ability to distinguish facts from misinformation as better compared to others. Their confidence was not entirely justified as both samples rated the presented fake news as more trustworthy than the real news. Senior citizens trusted both real and fake news more than the students did and the news also elicited more emotions in them (fear, anger, sadness, worry). Simultaneously, they were also more willing to share the content of the news items with others (both via face-to-face communication and online). Whereas younger participants typically reported judging the news accuracy based on formal attributes of the news items (e.g., news source), older participants more frequently focused on the content of the news (how likely such incident could happen). Women in the younger sample trusted all the news items more than men did, whereas there was not such gender difference among senior citizens. Trust in the news items where an immigrant was a perpetrator was affected by participants’ political orientation in both of the samples: right-wingers had a tendency to trust these news items whereas left-wingers distrusted them.
From Pray to Protest: The Invisible Power of Buddha Alternative Media in Indonesia
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fitaha Aini
The diffusion of religion in alternative media is rooted to soar in Indonesia as the third biggest democratic state and ranked third in the world on the importance of religion in citizenry life. This study aims to determine how religious identity diffuses in media process. Sidney Tarrow's notion about the strength of collective identity (nationality, ethnicity, and religion) to mobilise mass of people is highlighted to identify its influences in media process. Buddhist alternative media, Hikmahbuddhi, was selected as a case study due to its representation of a minority religious group. Diary-interview was selected as the key tools to access micro information on the internalisation of Buddha values in alternative media practitioners. Non-participant observation with interaction was chosen to supplement the data with nano-ethnography of "follow journalist steps" from the meeting point, house of worship, to selected events. This research found that Hikmahbuddhi, existing media for almost fifty years, has shown its critical effervescence by publishing media content to eradicate corruption and organising peaceful movements with 300 protesters for the operation of “Buddha-Bar” in Jakarta. Praying was not only routine rituals during this protest, but it also conducted weekly by shifted activists in Buddha Bar for more than eighteen months while waiting for a court decision. Alternative media practitioners who also played their roles as protesters disseminated information using various media. The result shows that the diffusion of religious identity in alternative media process fosters spirit of solidarity, sincerity, and survivability.
