Religious

Mingle in Harmony

Civilized Communication

(Dialogue Forum and

Media Literacy)

Being one participant of dialogue forum and media literacy held by KOMINFO in the cooperation with Indonesian Church Communion (PGI) Yogyakarta on Oct, 30th 2018, at Hotel Tentrem Yogyakarta brought me a new knowledge and experience. With theme of "Religious, Mingle in Harmony and Civilized Communication", this forum was attended by 70 church leaders and Christian student envoys. On his speech, Chairman of PGI Yogyakarta, Rev. Bambang Sumbodo mentioned that technology development creates a new culture and it is not only a “need” but also becomes a part of human's life.

First session, moderated by Nugroho Agung (YAKKUM), accompanying source person Farzia Y. Irawady, the Chairman of media team of Politics and Law Ministry, talked about Country Unity.  He explained that Indonesia was vulnerable of war and destruction caused by many ethnics, races and languages. Report result from many world institutions; such as Price Waterhouse Coopers explained that in 2030 Indonesia will become one of 5 big countries in economy, while Gallup Global Law and Order explained that Indonesia is one of 10 safest countries among 144 countries. Unluckily, 43% Indonesians responded it negatively. Before he ended his session, he invited the participants not to spread hoax and hate speech to keep the country unity.

Second source person was Rev. Retno Ratih from Javanese Christian Church (GKJ) Manahan. She started with an explanation about internet user data in Indonesia nowadays. Based on Hootsuite result, the active social media users were about 120 million and in average a user spent  8 hours 51 minutes to use internet per day. The function of media also shifted, which mainly should be information provider than it changed to be a provocative media, should be a socialization media shifted into political media. Christian teaching teaches that humans are created as social beings. The principles of communication in the Christian faith include; equality and peace, participatory, in a side with freedom, building culture and appreciating diversity, prophetic and against falsehood.

Dr. Hendrasmo, the third speaker, an expert working for General Director of Information and Public Communication, stated that hoaxes and hate speech were still one of the main agendas at his office. According to the Ministry of Communication and Information data in 2017 there were 32 thousand complaints related with SARA, hoax, pornography, radicalism / terrorism and online fraud categories. In the past 4 years, the Ministry of Communication and Information has blocked approximately 1 million negative sites. In the question and answer session, Hendrasmo said that the Ministry of Communication and Information has not had yet an application to eradicate hoaxes, but it collaborated with the Mafindo group (Anti-Defamation Society of Indonesia). When people feel hesitant about news, they can check the truth through the application or report it on the site of his office. It is admitted that the government cannot work alone and it still hopes that people play an active and helpful role.

The follow-up activity after question and answer session was Producing Content delivered by Dwitri Waluyo. He gave some tips on how to make a true message. Content must be seen from a different perspective without causing friction by paying attention to hypnosis, namely the selection of words / diction, the size of letters, and containing 5W + 1H. Participants were asked to make a content product in the form of ‘meme’ by creating ideas through pictures and writings in a purpose to invite and persuade people not to disseminate hate speech and hoaxes. All participants participated to create the content, and then finally they were chosen the three best participants. It was the last activity of this dialogue forum. (ITM).