The medium is as important as the message
The medium is as important as the message
Why has the government information campaign basically failed
in Papua?
The answers may have to do as much with the low penetration of
the media among the Papuan people as with the message itself.
The IFES polling survey of 3,450 respondents found that many
people in the province have no access to any type of media at
all, making them virtually isolated from the rest of the world,
and not just the rest of Indonesia.
The survey found that 52 percent of Papuans own radio, 41
percent have television, 17 percent read newspapers and one
percent read magazines.
But as many as 34 percent of the population have no means of
keeping them abreast of what is happening in their own vicinity,
and in the rest of the world.
The provincial figures conceal a darker reality about the
disparity, not between rural and urban (which is heavily skewed
towards the urban), but more disturbingly, between the eight
major different tribes (Table 4).
Table 4. Which media do you have access to in your home?
.tb0.1" 1.0" 2.0" 2.5" 3.2" 4.0" 4.6" 5.4" 6.0"
Lani/Dani Yaly Asmat Marind Biak Sentani Moi Baham
Radio 49 39 8 26 63 84 58 68
TV 15 10 4 2 61 71 42 47
Newspaper 15 7 3 2 28 48 6 34
Magazine - - - - 5 - - -
None 42 58 92 73 18 7 28 23
Source: Public Opinion Survey Papua Indonesia, IFES
.tb0.3"
Newspapers are mainly read for news purposes (88 percent),
while radio is mainly listened to for news purposes. Television
is used to access both news (52 percent) and entertainment (46
percent). The survey found no significant difference in media
usage between different tribes.
Most television (88 percent) and radio (90 percent) owners
watch and listen every day. Newspapers are read mostly on a
weekly basis (55 percent) though 31 percent of respondents read
them everyday.
While the low penetration may have to do with Papua's
difficult terrain and poor infrastructure that makes distribution
or access difficult, there is certainly a strong need for
significant improvement.
The onus is more on the government to try to reach out to all
the Papuans if it wants to win their hearts and minds and keep
the territory part of the republic.