Government must balance information flow: Expert
JAKARTA (JP): The government should play a stronger role in balancing the flow of information to help educate the media public, a mass communication expert says.
"As the government has opened the door to a free flow of information, both negative and positive, then it must try to balance this flow," Astrid Susanto said yesterday.
Regarding television, Susanto suggests that the government- owned TVRI station provide equal air time for social messages to balance consumption attitudes ingrained through advertising.
"Measures to ban certain advertisements like alcohol would not be realistic," she said during the last of a three-day international annual conference of the Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Center.
Yesterday's discussion included "Communications, Culture and Development".
"But the government must take responsibility for educating the audience to become critical," she told The Jakarta Post.
Susanto, one of the founders of the center, which organized the conference, discussed how audiences in Indonesia and Asia need to be less gullible.
She quoted the Minister for Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave, who urged the Center to be more active after its 24 years of existence and especially in the face of the rapid changes in telecommunications technology.
Susanto agreed with the minister, who opened the conference, and his idea to work with Asian experts in developing "cultural" programs which are "more Asian".
Emily Abrera, the president of the McCann-Erickson advertising company in the Philippines, stated that access to interactive technologies such as the Internet have "engendered an amazingly well-informed consumer with the ability to discern truth from hype."
Advertisers are now more challenged in delivering "thought provoking" ads, she said.
But a conference participant, environmentalist John Laird, criticized advertising companies for their "pervasive" messages which go against campaigns like sustainable development.
He suggested equal air time for advertisements and educational programs.
Susanto said the "counter messages" could only work if they were packaged like the entertainment programs they are supposed to balance.
"TVRI should air attractive, not propaganda-like, programs to counter programs which contain negative influences like violence," said a staff member of the National Development Planning Board.
Funds, she added, should be made available through the state budget.
Non-governmental organizations could also buy air time through their funding agencies for such efforts, Susanto said.
Other topics in the conference included the information superhighway and "Asian Values and the Media".
Akiyoshi Kobayashi, the president of the Japanese NHK television network and Jakob Oetama, chief editor of the Kompas daily, also spoke at the conference. (anr)