Indonesia notes: mobile tech and local disruption

Right now I’m in the middle of a research trip to Indonesia looking at the use of social media here (yes, it’s a bit of a broad brief, especially in a country that famously somehow managed to get over 40 million Facebook users registered in a couple of years… I’ve started describing it as research on ‘social media, and the rest of the universe’). This is another gig for Internews and involves some travel to South Sulawesi, Java, Nusa Tenggara Timur, and maybe Bali, working together with Dian Purnomo (seconded from OnTrack media) who’s a great co-researcher in the field.

I’m not even halfway through the trip yet, so any details on the research itself will have to come later. For background, there are a couple of great reports that have come out in the past few months – including the excellent one by Merlyna Lim / Ford Foundation and Arizona University which I’ve mentioned before; a great overview of telecommunications by LIRNEasia; and some extensive research by Hivos / University of Manchester earlier this year. With this background I’m hoping to look at some more fine-grained localised examples of practice from some of the places visited, or at least, to the degree that one can gather in a couple of weeks. In any event, I’m already learning a lot. (And re-learning; this trip includes fumbling around with the Bahasa-Indonesia-language parts of my brain that have barely been touched for around seven years.)

There have already been several small but striking (for me) anecdotes though, some of them well-known here but of which I was unaware. A common observation in general international debate on the use of internet-enabled mobile technology is on the way it can help communities to ‘leapfrog’ the lack of hardwire technology, and form bridges across the digital divide. There’s a huge wealth of data and stories to support this narrative.

Yet a new, thriving business here, often-reported, is for people to buy a mobile phone (or HP, ‘hand phone’) – and then they pay the vendor to set up their Facebook account, which it’s said usually costs around IDR 50,000, or USD 5.50, not an insignificant amount in many communities. In other words, while many people are using Facebook, not all of them necessarily understand either the platform, or the Internet more generally, to the level needed to perform what in other contexts is a simple online function of setting up an account. It also means users don’t own the email addresses to which the individual Facebook accounts are linked, and so don’t control their own Facebook profile; if they forget their password they have to go back to the vendor to get it.

Social change and video chats

Last week the Engage Media (EM) crew spent five days reviewing current projects and mapping out directions and priorities for the future. (I’ve been on the Board for a bit over a year, which has been a great pleasure.) For a small organisation we’re scattered over a pretty wide area – for those of us at the meeting who are not based in Indonesia, it was great just to be in the same room for a few days. And we couldn’t really complain about the temporary office space…

The first part of the week was spent going over some current projects and upcoming activities, ranging from Asteki’s work with local TV stations to upcoming Camp Sambel II in Malaysia. I might be biased but really (cue trumpet), there’s a lot to be happy about with all of them, and given they’re carried out by such a small team of people the number and value of projects is really something. We think, anyway.

Back to the Source

Last week was the UTS’ ‘Back to the Source’ conference on investigative journalism / IJ (ok, so I’m clearly not a blogger who keeps tight deadlines – c’est la vie).  This was one of the most enjoyable conferences I’ve been to in a while, with lots of great presentations and interaction. One of the things I liked most was its focus on good IJ practice – rather than a heavy emphasis on the worries of broken media business models and anxiety on how to keep ‘journalism as we know it’ alive. Those issues were of course in the background and a thread throughout several of the talks – but we all know plenty about these challenges now, and those of us engaged in the debates also realise that we don’t and can’t know the solutions, yet. The only way to find out, is to keep experimenting… 

Libya speaks up!

Back in May and June, together with colleague Ben Moran I was lucky enough to head to rebel-held Libya to take a look at the media that was emerging. What was taking place added up to one of the most extraordinary media environments I’ve ever been lucky enough to find myself in; so much energy, so much enthusiasm and eagerness to get started, get talking, and make things happen. It was really a charge. Most of the coverage of Libya we see – for obvious reasons – is of the rebel fighters, now taking over Tripoli and rushing towards Sirte. In Benghazi in May and June, there were certainly a lot of guns about; but there was also a great surge of energy as civil society networks tried to grasp and use this new space they had, and media was a big part of that. That, too, is an extraordinary story, experienced day-to-day by every citizen who often could still hardly believe it was happening.

The report from that research came out a week or two ago; I won’t re-hash it or go into too much extra commentary here. That was for Internews, for whom I often work. There are many, many unanswered questions about what will happen in Libya now, and I don’t intend to start commenting or speculating on all those possibilities – which is beyond my capacity anyway, after such a short trip. One of the most evocative statements I heard, though, and which was mentioned by several people, was that now ‘Libyans are finding out who they are.’ After several decades under Gaddafi’s regime, unable to speak and share ideas, information, and everything else, the possibility of finally exploring what Libya and Libyan society could become appeared – at least to my eyes – both exhilarating and daunting to many.