Government must balance information flow: Expert

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)