The Strategic Role of the Press and Students to Create a Conducive Situation in the Community
By: Neni Ramadhani )*
With a group of people who want to overthrow the government or who want to divide the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, they are very easy to spread terror even without weapons, they spread the terror through the internet, especially social media, which is felt effective in spreading fear without having to take up arms.
Responding to these problems, the press must be a bridge of positive and objective communication between the government and the community in the interest of the people’s prosperity. The press can also be used to achieve maximum benefits to create a sense of unity of various ethnic groups and religions.
In this digital age, the media is increasingly made easy to spread a variety of information, slowly but surely news in conventional media is slowly being abandoned and the public begins to access all information from their devices without the need to wait for the deliveryman to throw a newspaper at the door.
In the realm of online media, quantity can be more important than quality, in contrast to mainstream media such as print media which must wait 24 hours to publish, whereas online media, almost every second fills various lines of social media, whether the information is true or misleading is important the information was conveyed.
No less dangerous are media that contain seditious / provocative content and are far from cool, such as invitations to disobey democracy, or invitations to carry out unconstitutional activities such as incitement to frustrate the inauguration of the President and Vice President.
If the information provided by the media is a shady information, far from being provocative, it will affect the attitude of the recipient of the information after consuming the news he reads.
At present the press can be likened to a kitchen of various facts and opinions, the media has the power to upload any news, even mass organizations or even radical groups can easily create media either through platforms or through social media which is the consumption of young people.
The press also has the additional task of maintaining political stability, because like food, if the information provided is nutritionally laden, the recipient of the press product in the form of news and information, will be able to respond to the news wisely.
Moreover, Indonesia has a diversity of ethnicities and religions to political views, the press is also required to be able to become a forum that is not offensive about SARA.
According to George Fox Mott, the Press is a community servant, community liaison, community leaders and knowledge sellers. Whereas according to Law number 40 of 1999 concerning the press, what is meant by the press is social institutions and means of mass communication which carry out journalistic activities including searching, obtaining, possessing, storing, processing and conveying information in the form of text, sound, pictures and data and graphics.
The press plays an important role in various aspects of community life. In the press function generally affect the article, editorials or online media.
While young people also have a strategic role in supporting a legitimate government, young people today do not need to wait for the newspaper tomorrow morning to find out news that is outside their area, in just minutes, updated information can be digested from the device.
As the successor of the nation in the future, youth must certainly be able to realize national ideals and goals by having 3 basic capital that makes it capable of being called an agent of change.
The young generation must have a strong character to develop their nation and country, have a high personality, a spirit of nationalism, be competitive, be able to understand knowledge and technology to compete globally.
Meanwhile, history records that youth acted as pillars and motorcycles for achieving national independence. Therefore youth must have an active role in all aspects of development and support a legitimate government in accordance with the constitution.
Young people and the Press certainly have a role in maintaining the unity and integrity of the nation, although there are many challenges to be faced, but it must be driven by young people to narrow the radical movement that wants to destroy democracy in Indonesia.
)* The writer is an activist of the Indonesian Student Forum and Youth Guards