Continued from previous writting entitled History Of UI’s Communication Dept.

Haryanto managed to collect UI Communication Department data from various sources. For example the data of Professor of Communications at UI and his dissertation, changes in names and faculties, and keenly seeing the tendency of social sciences in Indonesia due to the tight supervision of the Soeharto New Order.

In the discussion via zoom conference video application also emerged several new facts that were completed from the participants who were mostly speaking as UI academics. For example Ade Armando, Pinckey Tri Putra, Nina Muthmainnah. There are also I Gusti Ngurah from UGM, Masduki from Communication Science Department of UII and others.

“This is a preliminary search. It only opens doors and hopefully my talk will provoke other campuses to also explore the same data so we can see,” Haryanto said.

Other facts, for example, “Why does UGM only have one professor / professor? I haven’t checked further. Hasanuddin University (unhas) has at least quite a lot. This means it’s interesting, Unhas is younger, there are already many professors. UGM is older, how come I only have two professors? “Is this administrative or what? UGM should answer.” said Haryanto. “UI even though it is younger, but has 12 professors. Why? Let’s examine it further,” he said.

I Gusti Ngurah answered, as a UGM lecturer, this fact could have happened because of stagnation in the 80s. At that time the Chair of the UGM Communication Department was stagnant. He served too long and many lecturers did not continue their studies. It was only in the late 80-90s that a new generation of renewed spirits emerged.

Is There Indonesian School of Communication?

Masduki from Communication UII also asked, “as far as observation until now, whether the phenomenon of two academic camps in UI: positivist-empirical-quantitative developmentalist vs. critical-normative-qualitative in the last twenty years and then productively produced a scientific synthesis / approach this new study of communication that is uniquely Indonesian or continues as an open or latent scientific confession? ”

There is no final answer. But Pinckey Tri Putra tried to answer. He said, until now there has not been

the formulation as mentioned by Masduki as a typical Indonesian scientific communication study at UI. The UI is still far away, he said. He still continues to process and develop. According to him, this process has not yet found anything unique to Indonesia.

Yus Ariyanto, one of the participants, also asked. “It seems that (almost) all UI communication professors were born from publicist / mass communication” wombs. What’s with the realm of public relations or advertising? ” he asked.

“In the early 1980s, there was a specialization in Public Relations, Advertising. Mass Communication, and Development Communication. Then Development Communication was abolished. Later the interest in Journalism developed. Mass Communication turned into Media Studies,” Nina said. He, and Haryanto wanted to say, that this could have happened because there was a great influence on the thoughts brought by his lecturers. For example, earlier explained the great influence of Prof. Dedy Nur Hidayat with his critical thinking.

Historical Research and Reading Archive Guide

In this study of the history of communication, it can follow a very basic guide. Luthfi Adam, speaker of the first session of the AES Forum said, we can use a very basic historical research guide through a book by Mary Lynn Rampola entitled “A Pocket Guide to Writing in History.”

As for the guide to reading the archive, “you can use the book” Allure of the Archive “by Arlette Ferge. If the guide is conducting research on humanities try to check” How to Write a Thesis “by Umberto Eco,” explained Lutfi in the Zoom Chat feature. He at last tries to complete the discussion the research of history of communication.

History of Communication at Universitas Indonesia can not be separated from the lecturers who color it. Starting from the influence of American graduates, Famous professional journalists, to the new generation of generations who gave a new color in the millennial era. Although in the 70-90s some UI’s Communications lecturers returned from America, but in fact UI’s Communication Science did not follow the American Communication school.

That was a brief note from the discussion in the 3rd Amir Effendi Siregar Forum. The event that was held by PSDMA Nadim Communication Communication Science Department of UII was able to attract more than 80 registrant participants. The AES Forum which was held on July 18, 2020 presented Ignatius Haryanto, a scholar from Universitas Multimedia Nusantara and a doctoral candidate from the Universitas Indonesia.

“This is an UI Communication Science case study, so this is the unofficial history. this is my disclaimer,” Ignatius Haryanto said, starting the AES Forum this time. Haryanto explained some of the findings of his UI communication department history research.

For example, he found a series of lecturers and students in Indonesia who were dismissed after Indonesia’s darkest case in mid-65. Haryanto, citing Abdul Wahid’s research, noted that 115 Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM) lecturers were excluded. 3000 UGM students too. Unpad (Universitas Padjadjaran) 25 lecturers were dismissed. “While the UI lecturer has no data,” he said.

Haryanto added, the unrest in the national arena was more or less exposed and affected to campus. While  UI do not want to talk much about this.

“In this case Abdul Wahid wants to talk about these tragedies. UI is still closed about this tragedy,” Haryanto said.

Many American Scholars But Not Followed Americans

Why is the UI not influenced by American Communication Scholars thinking? Why is positivistic style not dominant in UI Communication? Haryanto, and then strengthened with the opinion of Dr. Pinckey Triputra, M.Sc. , UI Communication Senior Lecturer, UI Communication Department actually influenced a lot of critical thinking after returning Prof. Dedy Nur Hidayat.

“There is a lot of thoughts of Prof. Dedy behind the movement of students at UI from the 80s. He focused on critical thinking at UI. He even had critical thinking since he graduated from undergraduate, and continued after his doctoral. It colored the Faculty, not only communication department,” Pinckey said . “At the beginning of his career as a lecturer, the first he introduced was a way of thinking,” he continued.

Nina Muthmainnah also confirmed that the thoughts of Wilbur Schramm and her students were actually brought by Prof. Alwi Dahlan when returning from America. “There are stories in the class about Mr. Schramm who is Pak Alwi’s teacher, those conversations that are not in the book sometimes.”

The thinking and practices of quality journalism are also obtained from the influence of lecturers from senior journalist practitioners. For example, let’s call Rosihan Anwar who teach Bahasa for Journalistics , Aristides Katoppo, and Jacob Oetama, whose name is now enshrined as one of the buildings in UI.

To be Continued to next writing entitled History of UI’s Communication Dept.

Previous Writing Amir Effendi Siregar Forum # 2: Soeharto’s Regime Influences Indonesian Communication Science Curriculum and Research (2) Soeharto’s Regime Development of communication science

Alwi then began to become part of the authority of publicist knowledge and began to participate in discourse to change ‘publicist science’ to ‘communication science’. “The results of his studies in America, of course there is friction, influence, and all kinds,” he said.

Tito, who also completed his masters in the UGM Culture and Media Studies Department, said that his research based on empirical experience might become multi methodological. “From my empirical observations yesterday, this might have to be a survey for communication scholar who have experienced teaching and lectures in 1980-1990,” he explained to strengthen the argument.

There is something unique, if not exactly strange, according to Tito. Tito’s tracking, if indeed the paradigm of communication science shifted from continental Europe to the Anglo-Saxon, then the study books by Laswell, Lazarfeld, Hovland, and American scientists were truly studied in detail, intensive, and seriously.

“If I look at it from the curriculum and reading books and others, the 1980-1990 period is not a lot of books that become a reference. Usually we, the communication scholars, will learn the science of communication from translation books, summary books, introductory books whose contents do quote Lazarfeld “It could also quote Laswell, Hovland, and so on. But none of the original references,” said Tito in surprise.

This is what later became a note of Professor Alwi Dahlan’s argument in his writings in 1980. Daniel Dhakidae in 1980 also said that indeed many Indonesian social science scholars who received scholarships were sent to America. “They go to school or just visit, which ultimately makes them build imagination about how the social science discourse should actually be developed,” said Tito. Then from there the possibility of an expansion of the ‘communication science’ discourse.

After the 1965 incident, Suharto rose to power. The Ministry of Information in turn became a weapon to strengthen its government. “In his language Hill, as a warhead for banning press,” said Tito referring to Australian academics, David T. Hill, who has long been researching the press and media in Indonesia.

Tito’s presentation explained that the Information Department was based on Sukiman’s research notes, which examined the history of information science in Indonesia, “he said that the information department was mainly absorbed by graduates of communication science. Mass media employees or journalists were also drawn from communication science graduates,” Tito said reading the screen his presentation.

Tito’s tracking explained, in the 1970s, communication science graduates at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences in Indonesia were at that time prepared to become employees in the Ministry of Information. “Of course not all of it, but the focus of learning the skills honed by his scientific teaching departs from there, meeting the needs of the information department.”

Then where are the rest who don’t work at the Ministry of Information?

Not Only State Servants, Journalists Are Also Influenced By Information Science

Tito revealed, those who did not enter the Information Department, usually entered into journalists or journalists. Interestingly, continued Tito, the values ​​that were instilled in teaching communication majors were also embedded in these journalists. Tito found that the curriculum majoring in Communication Studies was also adjusted to the Department of Information. Tito’s emphasis was that the values ​​of this ‘information science’ also ultimately influenced the knowledge of journalists in the 1970s. “Especially those from lighting science,” said Tito.

“Imagine the Information Department taking part in influencing the information science curriculum, whereas at that time the Information Department was trying to control, especially after the 1974 Malari incident,” Tito explained.

In mid 1974, the Government and the Ministry of Information wanted to discipline the mass media and students. But at that time the department also had control over the information science curriculum on campuses in which journalists would also be candidates. They eventually became part of the journalism discourse at the time. “The information department made communication science an epistemic authority to control journalism even at the time there was the term development communication. There was even development journalism at the time,” Tito said, explaining the development and developmentism communication discourse trends that were rampant and intensified by the Suharto government in the 1970s .

“This is interesting because in 1974 it was a moment when the science of publicism tried to be shifted into the science of communication,” Tito added. At that time, he said, Dean of the Faculty of Publications Astrid Susanto, who eventually moved to UI, offered to replace the publicist’s image as a communication science.” He said at one of the workshops in Bandung. The 1974 moment was an important milestone, because, according to Tito, the date refers to the end of the five-year plan of the Republic of Indonesia (Pelita 1) approximately 1969-1974. During that time, Prof. Astrid who served as Head of the Information, Science Bureau , and Culture of BAPPENAS, offering scholarly scholarly publicities to transform publicist science into communication science.

“This makes a big question mark. My initial argument, if we look at the plot, the transition from publicist science to communication science is part of the development of the new order. So it is not about the epistemic shock of American communication science, not that,” said Tito.

According to TIto’s initial findings, what happened was not a shift in the German publicist school to America. He alleged that there was momentum when Prof. Astrid introduces what is called development communication. “For sociology, there is development sociology. For anthropology, there is development anthropology,” Tito explained.

Tito’s search found several books by Prof. Astrid, who in every book, always found inserts or sub-chapters on development communication. and of course if your friends read his book Prof. Astrid, the definition of development here is community service. Devotion to the new order and everything related to it, “said Tito.

In addition, Tito also emphasized that, “the shift in publicistism to communication science is part of the govermentality undertaken by the state authorities to bring this publicist social science discourse closer to being a tool of state governmentality,” Tito said.