During the decades since the advent of the World Wide Web of the internet with Mosaic browser in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University Illinois, the breakthroughs in communication and information technology has helped the change of the face of the world.
Now, every people has the ability to voice their opinions and access diverse information that is due to the development of information technology. It could even be said, come be with the world press freedom struggle.
Today, variety of events in different parts of the world are available on the internet. Without the need to wait for delayed broadcast by news agencies and printed media, people can now directly view events and search for information from their mobile devices and through social media.
The power of blogging, tweets and podcasts have opened new ways to share information and expression. This has increased the number of citizen journalists who circulated via mobile devices, opening the way to new media to widen the opportunity for dialogue, exchange of ideas, sharing knowledge and information. In fact, in many ways, social media began to show significant strength. On the other hand, the threat to social media is present on both internal and external factors.
Indonesia has seen the development of social media since the popularity of the internet starting 1994. And since then, the internet has given media relation (social), and power.
The Media Disaster
Prior to the year 1994, the Indonesian's citizens still rely on getting information through conventional media: newspapers, magazines, radio and television. The internet was introduced to Indonesia about a year after it has been popular in the United States. Internet Service Provider (ISP) emerged and people began to have a personal email and can surf with Netscape Navigator browser, which was developed from its predecessor NSCA Mosaic. With the internet, people started exchanging information via email, although the tradition of writing letters was still strong.
In the New Order era, the information flow control runs strong, ranging from the rules of issue of license issued by the Ministry of Information, to the editorial desk intervention by the regime. One of controlled information known as Bredel (restrictions), which was considered to be the "death" for critical media. Once the press license was revoked, media cannot operate. Bredel practice is a legacy of the colonial government fears the news media who managed the nationalists. To overcome issued haatzai artikelen, the law that threatens the press that publishes writings that are "sowing hatred" against the government.
On June 21, 1994, three major press media license in Indonesia, namely Detik, Tempo and Editor were revoked by the Ministry of Information. Through Decree No. 123/KEP/MENPEN/1994, three media was closed because they didn't maintain a healthy life of Pancasila (the official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state) that was responsible to disrupt national stability. Although it was contrary to the laws at that time, Law No. 21 of 1982, the existing authoritarian rule led to deadlock of information sharing.
This information deadlock was immediately addressed by the media at that time. After the banning occurs, in August 1994, Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, or the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) was founded, and published a magazine called the Independent Voice. The contents disseminate information that is often contrary to the information that has been driven by the the President of Indonesia authoritarian rule. But before long, the three men were working for the magazine were eventually arrested and jailed.
At that time, information censorship rampant, and the press was at its peril point. Aware that they are unable to move freely, people started to look for alternative information solution. A year passed, and the internet began to become popular to the younger generation. Especially then, Yahoo! has started making free email services so that people compete to have free email. Search engines, mailing lists, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) were getting familiar with the community, and created a new medium in which became an alternate source of information, the substitutes to the earlier impasse.
In 1994, Solidaritas Mahasiswa Indonesia untuk Demokrasi, or Indonesian Student Solidarity for Democracy (SMID), a student movement to fight for democracy in Indonesia has been using email for information sharing and coordination.
The Other Roads
Underground, hidden with a false identity, an internet news service organization was raised and run by a secret network. The originator of this secret network was Goenawan Mohammad, Chief Editor of Tempo magazine . When he came forward to fight for legal status of Tempo magazine in the Supreme Court, he also managed the secret network to work. The secret network became known as the "Block M" and Irawan Saptono become coordinator. He was in charge of organizing fake names, preparing hiding places, and writing reports.
Blok M in partnered with Nusanet and Apakabar mailing list, and made itself extends into private spaces through private emails. The news then spread again across a mailing list and forwarded to others. At that time, Blok M managed six underground news service: Pipa for general news, Bursa for economic news. Then there SiaR for general news, Istiqlal for opinions, Matebeam for news from East Timor, Mambramo for news from Papua, Meunasah for news from Aceh, the TNI Watch for news about the military, and Goro-Goro about political jokes. The first two were soon closed because they were "unsafe".
In addition, Block M also publishes X-Pose and Bergerak! as its printed media.
At the same time, pro-democracy groups are also using email to follow existing patterns, as well as forming a new mailing list with a variety of themes. The goal remains the same: using the internet as "another way" to fight censorship and repression of information by authoritarian New Order.
Outside of the journalist groups, student initiated another way to counter the rule of information. By leveraging the traffic information via email, students build a webzine/webportal to make Indonesian students voice their opinions about the social conditions in the society and about the state.
In May 1998, KQ ONLINE Kampus & Kita was launched, led by Lembaga Pendidikan, Penerbitan, dan Pengembangan Pers Mahasiswa, or the Institute of Education, Publishing, and Developing Student Press, (LP4M), in collaboration with Bubu.net. This new form of media webzine was different from the existing mailing list at that time, and offer a place to comment through an online discussion forum. The same agency printed newspaper pamphlets called Mahasiswa Bergerak, or Students Moving, and build a database of information on the website which contains translations of writings, treatises and news to be freely used by the public. The students work on each campus, send news via email, and periodically, the webzine and the website were updated with new contents. Each time there were new materials, the information was published through existing mailing lists to the public.
It was only in July 1998, appeared Detik.com news portal run by Darsono Boediono, a former Detik journalist and his friends. Since then, the freedom of information has found "another way" because of the development of information technology, and was noted to have the power to make meaningful social change.
Information Explosion
The fall of the New Order in 1998 automatically changed the conventional media landscape. Press license is no longer a scourge to the dissolution of the Ministry of Information. The amount of media has increased dramatically. The share of information was growing immensely fast and information was overabundance. Not only in the conventional media, digital media had also experienced a similar thing.
Unfortunately, most medias diminish overtime, not because of censorship rules, but for reasons that are internal from themselves: mismanagement, failure to master the distribution, small advertising revenue, etc.. The society itself has now understand to sort information from the media because they're familiar with a variety of resources, both through conventional media and digital media.
Threats on the media in this period is the lack of verification and plagiarism news information.
The Rise of Social Media Network
Starting in 2002, the development of information technology into the era of social networking websites or social media. Through Friendster (2002), Myspace (2003) Facebook (2004), each individual can be a "medium" in which he/she can spread his/her opinion more widely and intensely.
The exchange of information through text, photos, voice recordings and video, continuously facilitated by the immense growth of social media networks. Writing activities on the blogs, Facebook Likes, comments, replies in Facebook. Followers, Favorites and Retweets in Twitter. Connections, comments and replies in LinkedIn. Showing interest through Pinterest and others, has made today's society embraced social media as a necessity of life that can not be separated.
The power of social media that was originally located on the pro-democracy groups (1996), then students (1998), is now distributed to each individual. This is in line with the global internet landscape, where the initial two-way communication was only enjoyed by 1 percent of the population in 1993, 51 percent in 2000, and more than 97 percent in 2007.
On the external side, the government issued Law No. 11 Year 2008 on Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE). In the UU ITE, social media activists often hampered by the rules, with threats against offenders more severe than the criminal rules. The freedom of information have to deal with the law to inhibit information: from spreading hatred, contempt, defamation, to hacking. This new threat was then lost when the UU ITE was revised.
On the internal side, the threat comes from other forms of "slacktivism" which forms online activity that has no direct impact on social change. Shape ranging from "Like" status in Facebook page to an online petition that does not change anything in reality. These threats seriously undermine efforts to make social media has impacts on social change.
These slowly began to be recognized as a serious threat because it makes the "social cause" an empty slogan of marketing activities. Because it's difficult to distinguish between slacktivism and social activism in the early stages, many people were trapped, and then accepted a social change to be offered through social media. They feared that the changes offered are only superficial. Skepticism began to also appear to say that the power of social media for social change is nothing but ranting nonsense of social media evangelists . If these skepticism was widespread, social media will weaken.