Yogyakarta, July 16th 2021─The Department of Communication Science (Dikom) of UGM held the second series of Book Discussions “Women and Digital Literacy” on Friday (16/7). The topic was “Women in the Digital Revolution: Dimensions of Digital Knowledge and Competence”. On this occasion, Dikom presented the speaker Jackelin Lotulung, Lecturer of Communication Studies at Unsrat Manado and a member of JAPELIDI. Also, the three speakers as the writers are lecturers of Communication Studies UGM, they were Zainuddin Muda Z. Monggilo, Syifa Tania, and Dewa Ayu Diah Angendari. The event took place on Zoom Meeting and Live Streaming on the Youtube channel of the Department of Communication Science of UGM.
Departing from concerns about women who are increasingly seen as objects in digital literacy, Zainuddin Muda wrote a section entitled “Indonesian Women in the Whirlpool of Hoaxes and Hate Speech”. In this article, he described three cases, such as the spread of hoaxes by Ratna Sarumpaet, Veronica Koman’s hate speech about Papua, and three wives of TNI members who spoke hate speech in political contests. However, Zainuddin Muda or who is familiarly called Zam, believes that there are still many women out there who are digital literacy activists, not only as objects or spreaders of hoaxes. “If we dig deeper, I am sure there are more women out there who may not have been exposed by the media that have carried out consistent digital literacy activities to eradicate hoaxes and hate speech,” he said.
Meanwhile, Syifa Tania wrote a section entitled “Women Social Media Influencers, Advertising Literacy in Digital Advertising Practices”. She provides an overview of the role of women in the context of digital marketing communications. The practice of integrated marketing communication, which is currently becoming more horizontal, is influenced by the presence of social media, which initially only became a network medium, but in its development it has become an increasingly subtle marketing communication medium. In this case, women have a large portion as influencers. But in principle, the idea boils down to the concept of advertising literacy. “In the media literacy ecosystem, there is one concept that we need to pay attention to, such as advertising literacy about our ability to not only become media capable figures but also media literate,” Tania said.
Finally, the article entitled “Adoption of Information and Communication Technology by Women in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Peer to Peer Lending Users Based on Financial Technology” written by Dewa Ayu Diah, is part of a collaborative research between CfDS and Amarta. Departing from the anxiety of the digital inequality in Indonesia, the author wants to see how the adoption of information and communication technology between lenders and borrowers is. As a result, it was found that only a few of the women who used Amarta were able to adopt the information and communication technologies. “This paper looks at what factors influence technology adoption and what platforms or other stakeholders can do to increase technology adoption for these women,” Diah said.
Regarding the contents of the book, Jackelin Lotulung provides a reflection on women’s perspectives and digital literacy. According to him, the gap in IT adoption is due to women in rural areas experiencing gaps in education and knowledge, including when it comes to digital literacy.