Program Studi Ilmu Komunikasi Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana Jalan Diponegoro No.52-60 Salatiga 50711
email : [email protected]
Abstrak
Artikel ini merupakan hasil penelitian yang didanai oleh Kementerian Riset, Teknologi dan Pendidikan Tinggi Republik Indonesia. Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi karena banyaknya pengguna Facebook di Indonesia, disertai munculnya grup-grup etnis di Facebook. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif. Tahap awal penelitian ini adalah identifikasi status anggota kelompok etnis yang berkaitan dengan penyebaran nasionalisme. Data posting status tersebut kemudian akan dianalisis. Untuk memperdalam analisis, peneliti melakukan wawancara kepada pengelola akun grup kelompok etnis di Facebook. Peneliti juga mewawancara ketua kelompok dan anggota etnis di grup Facebook tersebut. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah Imagined Community dari pemikiran Benedict Anderson. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kelima kelompok etnis menggunakan grup Facebook untuk menjalin komunikasi dan menyebarkan nilai-nilai kebangsaan Indonesia.
Kata Kunci: nasionalisme, etnisitas, Facebook, akun grup
Abstract
This article is the result of research funded by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of Republic Indonesia. This research was conducted because of existing a lot of facebookers in Indonesia and raising many groups affiliated to ethnicities which used facebook. This research was qualitative approach. First stage in this research is to identify members status within groups in related to spreading of nationalism. Data of postings in facebook were analyzed. To sharpen analysis, researcher also interviewed chair person of group and member of group. The theory that was used in this research was imagined community from Benedict Anderson’s thought. The result showed that the fifth group used facebook group to inter-connecting for communication and spreading of Indonesia nationalism values
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IntroductionThis article is the result of research funded by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of Republic Indonesia 2016 in Penelitian Dosen Muda scheme. The research is to discuss about nationalism. The discussion about nationalism is certainly familiar. The study of nationalism has been written and conducted many times. The paper written by Bambang Purwanto entitled Memahami Kembali Nasionalisme Indonesia which was published in Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik in 2001 is one of the examples of scientific study discussing about nationalism in Indonesia. Furthermore, the paper written by Winner Silaban in 2012 entitled Pemikiran Soekarno tentang Nasionalisme which was published in Jurnal Dinamika Politik also talks about nationalism from the perspective of Indonesian national figures. These two papers are examples of researchers that discuss about nationalism in the abstract level.
The discussion about nationalism in the empirical level has also been conducted many times. For example, several Indonesian movies have promoted nationalism. In 2009, a movie entitled Garuda di Dadaku talks about an Indonesian boy who dreams to become a professional soccer player and play for his country in international competition. A movie entitled King which was also released in 2009 tells about a biography of an Indonesian badminton player, Liem Swie King who was victorious in 1980s. Movies entitled Minggu Pagi di Victoria Park and Tanah Air Beta are two movies released in 2010 that also tell about nationalism. In 2015, there was a plan to release a movie about a national figure, HOS Tjokroaminoto.
There is another different empirical fact in online media. Detik.com in March 31, 2015 stated that to stop the advance of radicalism, especially ISIS in Indonesia, Ministry of Communication and Information of Republic of Indonesia (Kominfo) blocked 22 sites that were considered to be radical (http://news.detik.com/re ad/2015/03/31/152723/2874887/10/). Moreover, Indonesian National Counter-Terrorism Agency
(BNPT) defined radicalism as: (1) wanting to make rapid changes by using violence in the name of religion; (2) practicing takfiri or accusing members of other religions as apostasy; (3) supporting, spreading and encouraging other people to join ISIS/IS; (4) interpreting jihad limitedly (http://www.cnnindonesia.com/ teknologi/20150401093434-185-43429/kriteria-situs-islam-radikal-versi-bnpt/).
Scientific study and movie about nationalism in the empirical level did not appear suddenly. Discussion about nationalism in the abstract and empirical levels starts from the social fact faced by Indonesia. Geographically, Indonesia has an area of 1,904,569 km2 which consists of 17,508 islands (http://www.indonesia. go.id/in/sekilas-indonesia/geografi-indonesia). Indonesia has more than 1,071 ethnicity groups. With the wide area and variety of ethnicity, nationalism has become an interesting topic to discuss. The discussion about nationalism nowadays has faced a new challenge. As explained in the previous section, nationalism discourse is not only limited to scientific study and discussion in mass media, or to be exact in movie. It is also challenged by the development of communication and information technology. This new challenge is a form of convergence from mass media. For example, movies in 1990s which could only be watched in the cinema now can be watched in our home using VCD player. We can even watch movies in Youtube if we have a computer, laptop or cell phone that is connected to an internet. This convergence of media then becomes the new challenge for nationalism.
Internet, which specifically is a technology that is able to converge the functions of mass media, has social media which currently are favored by Indonesian people. One of the social media that is used by many Indonesian people until now is Facebook. It is supported by the report from eMarketer which stated that Indonesia ranks third in the world after United States and India in the use of Facebook (http:// www.emarketer.com/Article/Facebook-Closes-on-1-Billion-Mobile-Users-Worldwide/1011881 Dewi Kartika Sari dan Ester Krisnawati, The Spread of Nationalism using Social Media
/1?ecid=PR1002).
Some ethnicity groups in Indonesia also use Facebook to build friendship and relationship between the members of their ethnic. They can share their perspectives, upload the photos of their group activities, etc. which can support the existence of the group itself. Therefore, the use of communication and information technology also becomes a challenge for nationalism in Indonesia.
This research focuses on the spread of nationalism in social media, especially Facebook by the ethnicity groups that have Facebook group accounts. This study is important to be conducted because so far, there is no study on nationalism issue in social media. Furthermore, this study is important because the use of internet in Indonesia, which has the potential to disintegrate society, has increased significantly. Therefore, this research is conducted to find out how is the spread of nationalism in social media, especially Facebook.
According to Soekarno, as the Father of the Nation (in Silaban, 2012), nationalism is the basis in building the independence of a nation. Independence of a nation is needed as it is the major principle in realizing the nation’s dream to be an independent, sovereign, just and prosperous nation without any kinds of colonialism.
Anderson (in Adisusilo, 2010), defined a nation as “an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. According to Anderson, the use of the term “imagined” is important because the majority of the members of this nation have never met each other. However, at the same time, there is an imagination in their mind that they are parts of a particular community. Therefore, the meaning of nationalism here is further understood as something that is alive and dynamic. This perspective presupposes that nationalism is something that is alive, dynamic and developing which look for new forms along with the development and future demands.
This research uses Benedict Anderson’s concept of nationalism. An interesting thing
about Anderson’s concept is that nationalism is something that is alive, dynamic and developing which look for new forms along with the development and future demands. Based on this concept, the era of communication and information technology will give birth to new interpretation of nationalism and forms of the spread of nationalism according to the development of communication and information technology nowadays.
According to McQuail, new media is a place where communication channel is decentralized; message distribution via satellite; …. ; the involvement of audience in the increasing communication process; the increasing frequency of interactive communication (two ways) and the increasing flexibility to determine the form and content using digitalization of message (Nicholas 2006:56).
Ron Rice emphasized on the capability of two-way use or operation of a computer and telecommunication in defining new media. He defined it as a communication technology which specifically involves the capability of a computer (microprocessor and mainframe) to allow or facilitate interactivity between users or between user and information (Rice, 1984:35)
New media is a terminology to explain the convergence in computerized digital communication technology which is connected to a network. An example of media which can represent new media is internet. According to McQuail in his book entitled Teori Komunikasi Massa (2011:43), the main characteristics of new media are the existence of interconnectedness, access to individual as a message receiver or sender, interactivity, various benefits as an open character and its omnipresence.
New media, in this case is internet, influences how an individual communicates with other individuals. Internet exists to fulfill human’s necessities in communicating and getting information. Internet functions as a global network to communicate from one place to another place in the world. It also plays a role as an information provider that has no limitation.