Indonesia-consultant Manfred Oepen in a
mail to KJS about recent
media-development in Indonesia:
"Radio
almost down to insignificance, TV- and
print-media occupied by BigBusiness and
party politicians, rocket-like rise of
social media and blogs, especially among young people."
Three principles
to be considered:
1. It is for this reason
that we, as Radio Bridge Overseas, never opted
for a radio-only-approach but always included a
multimedia-coverage.
2. In addition, I
recommend a grassroot-approach, intending not to
further institutional but individual capabilities
to communicate cross-culturally, thereby placing
at center-stage what people of another culture do
want to tell us and not what we want to hear from
them.
3. Consequently, we can
accept institutions like the former State-Radio
of Indonesia and/or academic institutions there
and here, for example exchange-programs for
university-students as part of their curriculum,
however, their agendas should never dominate
orientation because of immanent power control.