As experts have shown, journalistic media will always be relevent to the developments of the time.
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·7 minutes read
Kompas/TOTO SIHONO
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Evolution of the media ecology, which has been marked by a social transition from users of old media to users of new media, calls for adaptation and intervention. Because the world of the media as a whole is a multilayered structure, adaptation and intervention must be done at different levels, too. Internally, managers at media companies must adapt to behaviorial changes among the people in how they use the media.
As experts have shown, journalistic media will always be relevent to the developments of the time. However, its managers must make adjustments that focus on: 1) how to serve a public that is increasingly habituated to accessing information digitally; 2) how to formulate media relevance when the issue is no longer a lack of information, but the overabundance of information; 3) how to compete with the new media (social media, search engines, e-commerce, news aggregators, news feeders) with its new mode of communication that is very attractive to the public.
Inequality in competition
The internet is everything and everything is the internet. This is what we are facing right now Extreme technological determinism is taking place, where innovations of information technology is being introduced continuously, quickly changing many things in people’s lives: how media is consumed, modes of social interaction, forms of political participation, lifestyles, and so on. It is in this context that the agenda-setting theory – in which mass media is a key determinant of public agendas – needs to be reviewed. The public now has many sources of information and no longer depends on taking their information from the mass media. This is the real challenge that managers of conventional mass media must face.
Even though adjustments have been made at this level, it does not necessarily mean that conventional media will succeed in defending itself. There are also structural problems at another level that also need resolving. A thorough change in the information/communication landscape creates an unequal climate of competition among media. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Baidu, Yahoo and others are actually media companies. Their business is based on the commodification of information.
Like conventional media, they also live from advertisement revenues. The technology used and the public relations model being developed are different. Ontologically, however, the position of the new media is the same as that of the conventional media: a duality of social institutions that serve the public with information that are, at the same time, business institutions whose main motive is financial profit.
However, in practice, the new media has thus far not been treated as a media company in terms of legal entity. They are still reluctant to pay taxes on the advertising revenues they earn. Compare the taxes that must be paid by conventional media for each advertising transaction they make! Social media companies have also not been held fully accountable for the information they disseminate to the public. Hoaxes are still considered as being entirely the affair of the social media user who made them. Whereas in fact, social media companies play the greatest role in disseminating hoaxes, and even take advantage of them.
The more controversial the hoaxes, the increasingly crowded the discourse on social media, thereby leading to the collection of increasingly bigger data on the behavior of internet users that social media companies manage. This is later correlated with the increase in stock prices of social media companies and their advertising revenue potential.
However, when a hoax like the cases of Buni Yani or the Saracen appears, impunity is enjoyed by the social media companies that played an acitve role in the case. Let us compare this to the responsibility of newspapers, television and radio for the media they publish or broadcast! For each information considered detrimental to certain parties, conventional media can be ordered to publish the right of reply, be reported to the Press Council or the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) or even face lawsuits.
However, the new media has not been institutionalized in this way. We are facing a new media with formidable influence, including influence on the survival of the old media.
Factually, social media companies and search engines operate to serve the public with information and communication. They also commodify information with a great volume of growth in ad revenues. However, legally and normatively, their position is not yet clear.
Are they media companies? Do they move in public spaces or private spaces? Do they operate on the level of the mass communication or interpersonal communication? Do they have to abide by certain standards of norms and laws? If yes, which standards will be used? If a problem arises, what is the settlement mechanism?
Institutionalization of new media
In this way, an unequal climate of media competition is created. On the one hand, the old media has to move within various rules, restrictions and prohibitions as mentioned in the Press Law, Broadcasting Law, Taxation Law, Law on Limited Liability Companies, the Journalistic Code of Ethics, Public Broadcasting Guidelines and Program Standards (P3SPS), Cyber Media Reporting Guidelines, and others.
Even though they are frequently violated in practice, the existence of these regulations is proof of the existence of institutionalization. On the other hand, the new media appear to operate without standard regulations or restrictions. They have not been institutionalized, but are already operational.
The new media is not exactly the same as the old media, so that its arrangement cannot be the same. However, their arrangement or institutionalization is still necessary because their business and social activities deal directly with public interests. More than that, the new media is not all that different from the old media, especially in that they also depend on the commodification of information.
Institutionalizing the new media is highly urgent. The motive is not to hinder the practice of digital giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo, but to place them within the national framework of the legal system for media. The objective is to encourage a healthy climate of balanced competition in the media and information field.
Therefore, if a mass media is forced to stop operating, this is simply because of its failure to adjust to the changing situation, not because it was left behind in a business climate of unequal media competition. Here, state intervention is needed to create a business climate for media and information that is conducive to the development of the national media industry.
The trend in a number of countries shows governments are "protective" of the national media industry in facing the above mentioned digital giants. Not by expelling or forcing them into difficulty, but once again, by integrating them into a national communication system that is limited in its favoring the national media industry.
Another consideration is the fact that institutions of the press or journalistic media are crucial to the quality of a nation’s democracy. They cannot be fully replaced by the new media. Social media is no substitute for journalistic media.
Social media offers something new that strengthens democratization, but in many cases, it is counterproductive to the principle of civilized public spaces. Without ruling out the new media’s potential for public discourse, the existence of journalistic media has to be maintained within the framework of national interests to maintain a healthy democratic climate.
