Giving Meaning to Change
Kompas will be 55 years old on June 28. Toward the age of 55, Kompas has been getting along with its loyal readers through various major and crucial events in the country and the world.
Menara Kompas Building on April 26, 2018.
For the Kompas daily, the year 2020 is an important milestone. Kompas will be 55 years old on June 28. This age may not be significant compared with other media in the world, but toward the age of 55, Kompas has been getting along with its loyal readers through various major and crucial events in the country and the world.
When it was published by the name of Kompas, as given by President Sukarno, Kompas founders Jakob Oetama and the late PK Ojong determined that “a newspaper should be autonomous, dictated and directed by nobody other than its own editors. Nor should it be directed by the group or institution publishing it”. The statement was made in its Editorial, 28 June 1975, commemorating the 10th anniversary of Kompas.
The principle that media should be autonomous has enabled Kompas to perform its functions in the pluralist society of Indonesia by providing the greatest possible extent of room for dialogue that expresses the opinions and feelings of different groups in society. “In this way the process of democratization, of consultation, of transparency rather than covertness is manifested.”
A newspaper should be autonomous, dictated and directed by nobody other than its own editors.
As a media that works openly because it aims at covering as many readers as possible, Kompas exercises the function of control and criticism of the government, the business sector and social groups. The function is humbly carried out, for the purpose of “allowing room to the process of accommodation and identification, preventing the accumulation of frustration and broadening the sense of participation” of the public in development.
In its developments over the last 20 years, the role as a social guardian, which is verifying certain events, becomes a challenge to the mainstream media. In the new era of information resulting from the leap in digital technology, reality changes into a matter of belief instead of something objective or verified. In the terminology of Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel (Blur, How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload, 2012), people are virtually shifting from the era of information to that of affirmation.
This development made the word post-truth, according the Oxford Dictionary, the most popular one in 2016. The Oxford online dictionary defines post-truth as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Many experts describe post-truth as nothing new. Historian Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century, 2019) indicates that post-truth has been attached to Homo sapiens since its early existence. Post-truth increasingly causes anxiety to many people in line with the progress of internet technology.
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Management and editorial staff of the Kompas daily take a group photograph on Monday (30/12/2019), after the 2019 year-end thanksgiving gathering at the Kompas head office in Jakarta,.
A friend in change
The world is entering the fourth industrial revolution that fundamentally changes the way people live, work and interact. World Economic Forum founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab in 2016 said the world was on the brink of the fourth industrial revolution, unlike the third industrial revolution that is based on electronics and information technology for manufacturing production automation. The difference from the third industrial revolution involves its speed, range and impact on the system.
Only within three years the disruption as a result of digital technology that forms the basis of the fourth industrial revolution is already felt in nearly all segments of existence, from the government, industries, the business sector and enterprises, trade, to personal life. Personal data that are unsuspectingly given by their owners during digital transactions can be utilized by second and third parties without permission.
One of its worrying impacts is the widespread circulation of hoaxes and post-truth. The most popular example is what has been done by the political consulting company from Britain, Cambridge Analytica. This company obtained Facebook users’ data without the permission of their owners to secure the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections of 2016 and influenced British people to vote to exit from the European Union.
Indonesia was one of 70 countries using digital computation as a tool to manipulate information in their campaigns.
The Netflix online documentary film The Great Hack depicts how Cambridge Analytica targeted would-be voters and sent twisted information to arouse the emotion and provoke a negative belief of voters against political opponents.
The use of social media for spreading political campaigns that manipulate prospective voters is not uncommon. The precarious aspect is the presence of users spreading false information massively via digital technology based social media.
A report from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation, showed that Indonesia was one of 70 countries using digital computation as a tool to manipulate information in their campaigns.
These three file photos show from top: the Google logo displayed on a screen and reflected on a tablet in Paris, France, April 29, 2018; Twitter logos on a computer screen in Beijing, China, March 23, 2018; and the logo of social the network Facebook displayed on a screen and reflected on a tablet in Paris, France, April 28, 2018.
The social media platforms used were Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Parties and politicians used private contractor services to support them, attack their political opponents and divide them. Generally what they did was media manipulation and disinformation as well as strengthening messages by flooding social media to influence their users.
The good news is that the cyber troop had low capacity, working only during the campaigning period with payments worth Rp 1 million to 5 million per contract. For the future, both the government and mainstream media should make sure that information manipulation will not recur in political campaigns, such as when simultaneous regional elections in 270 provinces, regencies and cities are organized on 23 September 2020.
The world order is also changing. Violence keeps going on in the Middle East and Africa; East Asia is under the nuclear threat of assertive North Korea and China. The waves of people’s dissatisfaction with their governments spread over several countries in Latin America, the European Union, India and Hong Kong. The world is also facing an increase in the earth’s temperature, resulting in changes in climate and weather patterns. In the economic sphere, this year is predicted as one that will not be easy in global terms and for Indonesia.
After the 2019 general election, filled with campaigns that seemed to split the public, the two tightly competing presidential candidates were finally united in the government. Toward Indonesia’s 75 years of age and century-old independence, strong leadership is needed in all areas for the unification of Indonesian diversity.
The rapid change taking place, as mentioned by Harari, makes many people feel irrelevant to the new situation. The public needs not only information, but also the capability of understanding information, distinguishing between what is important and unimportant and connecting pieces of information into a big picture of the prevalent situation. In order to find solutions and promote participation, the open mainstream media can serve as a means for the meeting of minds and emotions of various social groups.
Kompas continues to strive to remain relevant to the demand of changing times. In the era of the fourth industrial revolution and the rapid domestic and global change, Kompas will keep executing the function with great care, to the farthest extent presenting complete information, evaluating facts and according meaning to transpiring events.
Ninuk Mardiana Pambudy
Welcoming the year 2020 as well as on the way to the daily’s age of 55 and Indonesia’s 75th anniversary, Kompas is still desirous of becoming a friend in change of readers, joining hands to seek the right direction and find solutions to the problems encountered by the public, nation and state.
The Kompas.id digital service, as an extension of the Kompas daily, having started in 2017, will be further enhanced. This is meant not only to be relevant to the current era and the behavior of the millennial generation and thereafter, but also to offer a better service, reaching readers without being restricted by space and time. The guide to the change is the Message of People’s Conscience that aspires to achieve public welfare with justice and dignity.
