CITIZENS IN ACTION by Yanuar Nugroho

Citizens in @ction
Collaboration, participatory democracy and freedom of information
Mapping contemporary civic activism and the use of new social media in Indonesia

A joint research project by
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research and
HIVOS Regional Office Southeast Asia

August – December 2010

A research project report by

Yanuar Nugroho
Principal Investigator
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Except where otherwise noted, content on this report
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

University of Manchester’s Institute of Innovation Research &

March 2011

Citizens in @ction

Published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom

Published in Indonesia in 2011 by
Jl. Kemang Selatan XII/No. 1
Jakarta Selatan 12560
Indonesia

Cover illustration by Blontank Poer, all rights reserved.
Translation into Bahasa Indonesia by Aresto Yudo Sujono.
Editing in Bahasa Indonesia by Blontank Poer.

This report is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Some rights reserved.

How to cite this report:

Nugroho, Yanuar. 2011. Citizens in @ction: Collaboration, participatory democracy and
freedom of information – Mapping contemporary civic activism and the use of
new social media in Indonesia. Report. Research collaboration of Manchester
Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester and HIVOS Regional
Office Southeast Asia. Manchester and Jakarta: MIOIR and HIVOS.

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Acknowledgement

The research was commissioned by HIVOS Regional Office Southeast Asia
to the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester, UK

Contract No. QL119I01

Principal Investigator : Dr. Yanuar Nugroho
Co-investigator : Ms. Shita Laksmi
Research Assistant (Manchester) : Ms. Mirta Amalia
Research Assistant (Indonesia) : Ms. Maria Santi Widyartini
Research Administrator/Support : Ms. Deborah Cox
Academic Advisor : Professor Ian Miles

Throughout the research, the team received huge support and assistance from numerous Indonesian
civil society contacts and partners, and who also participated in our study in survey, interview, focus
group discussions and workshops. We particularly owe thanks and gratitude to Ilarius Wibisono and
Tasha Setiawan (Aceh); Aquino Wreddya Hayunta and Victorius Elfino Sadipun (Jakarta); Gustaff
Harriman Iskandar and Tarlen Handayani (Bandung); Akhmad Nasir, Farah Wardani, and Nuraini
Juliastuti (Yogyakarta); Blontank Poer (Solo); Triarani Susy Utami, and Anton Muhajir (Denpasar).

Cover illustration of this report is kindly provided by Blontank Poer, who retains all the copyrights.
Kathryn Morrison read and corrected the language of this report. Aresto Yudo Sujono translated it
into Bahasa Indonesia and Blontank Poer edited it.

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Executive Summary

The purpose of this research is to empirically examine the ways in which Indonesian civil
society organisations and groups engage in civic activism by means of the use of Internet
and social media; and how this civic engagement impacts upon the shaping of civil society
in Indonesia.

1. The fieldwork data states clearly that civil society in Indonesia is obviously a vibrant
sphere. This vivacious realm is apparently not only a result of the engagement of
Indonesian civil society groups and communities with global civil society, but is also
shaped by the internal dynamics of the civil society over time. This widening of the
civic space, as a result of civic activism, is also attributed to the use of the Internet,
and lately social media, in Indonesian civil society.

2. Our research findings show that the Indonesian social media landscape is very
dynamic. Both as an online sphere and as a market, it is big, growing and highly
active. Social networking media such as Facebook and Twitter have become very
popular for various reasons: the affordability of mobile phones; the strong sense of
community in the Indonesian culture, and trends that spread quickly. Indonesian
civil society groups and communities are also active users of the Internet and social
media. The characteristics of new social media make it convenient for civil society to
use, in order to assist them in achieving their missions and goals. Yet not all civil
society groups and organisations use it strategically. A strategic use of the Internet
cannot therefore be seen as just a direct output of using the technology.

3. Our observations suggest that a strategic use of the Internet and social media in civil
society should be beyond technological, rather it should be about the widening of
the interaction between civil society groups and communities and the beneficiaries
they work with and for. Only when civil society can maintain a dynamic interaction
with the public through their strategic use of popular new social media, can we
expect the impact of the civic activism to be more significant. The diffusion of the
Internet and social media in civil society itself is not, and will never be, a black-box
process. Here, in the core, is a process of sociotechnical alignment underpinning the
diffusion of technology, by putting the agency, not the technology, at the centre.

4. Two trends are noticeable here: the growth of civil society activism, and the use of
the Internet and social media. The difficulty lies not in the way we understand the
growth of the two, but in the link between them. What we expose and present here
are the dynamics of civil society in Indonesia and the impact that the use of the
Internet and social media has had upon them. Our main discussion shows that civic
activism in Indonesia is characterised not only by their use of the technology (one-
direction) but also by the co-evolution between technology use and the
development of civic activism itself. There is a two-way relationship between the
ways in which civic activism is shaped by Internet and social media use, and the role
that the Internet and social media play as a platform for civic activism.

5. Networks of civil society may be both an intended as much as an unintended
consequence of civic engagement. Networking should be strategised as networks

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provide dynamic ways for civic activisms to be mediated. The implications are
twofold: at the organisational level, the focus of attention should be on to what
degree the strategy of using the Internet and social media to mediate the
networking of civil society is reflected in their organisational strategy at large.
Secondly, at the inter-organisational (social movement) level, there is a need to
facilitate a sphere where civil society groups and communities can meet and
network, not only with other groups, but also with the wider public. Our fieldwork
indicates that a few groups have started this initiative, but much more effort is
needed.

6. Concerning the future, the study features a modified Foresight exercise, in which
the participants envisaged a desirable scenario. It is a plausible future where the
wider society is more cohesive, participatory and at the same time interacts in a
knowledge-based engagement, facilitated by equally accessible technology for all
citizens. It is also a future where the economy is driven by production; the
environment is treated carefully, and people live in a vibrant, democratic society. To
arrive at this scenario, the suggestion is that the Internet and social media, should
be utilised in order to strengthen social cohesiveness and widen participation in
socio-political life, as well as to foster economic activity. The Foresight exercise was
found to be useful, but should not stop here. There is a need to follow up this
exercise, to evaluate how the recent exercise would have directed the future
trajectory of the use of the Internet and social media in civil society, and also to
build the capacity of civil society for future thinking about their involvement in the
information society.

7. In facilitating socio-political activism, the Internet and social media are not
detached from the off-line realm, rather, they can work with it. Within civil society,
the Internet affects the dynamics of social, economic and political activism. It has
the potential to globalise local socio-political dynamics and at the same time to
localise global issues. However, in order to ensure this to happen, groups and
organisations within civil society have to document their works and engagements
by themselves. Our observations uncovered that whilst the groups and communities
under study were willing to do it, they noted that their capacity was still somewhat
limited

With technology and its use continuously shifting and being shaped, the appropriation of
the Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society is more about process than
outcome. The technologies are continuously modified and adapted to bring them into
alignment with the organisations’ routines. ‘Citizens in action’ are therefore never fixed in
format, but rather ‘constituted and reconstituted’ through the everyday practices of the
civil society groups and communities involving citizens and activists alike in ongoing
actions – where technology serves as a convivial means.

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Content
Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................................... 2
Executive Summary............................................................................................................................................. 3
Content .................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Figures and Tables ............................................................................................................................................... 6

1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
1.1. Background and rationale .......................................................................................................... 8
1.2. Objectives .................................................................................................................................... 10
1.3. Questions and research undertaken ....................................................................................... 10
1.4. Structure of the report.............................................................................................................. 12
2. Indonesian civil society in the spotlight: A vibrant sphere .................................................................... 13
2.1. Organisational profile ............................................................................................................... 14
2.2. Organisational dynamics .......................................................................................................... 17
2.3. Organisational network ............................................................................................................ 20
3. Internet and social media in the contemporary Indonesia .................................................................... 25
3.1. At the backdrop … ...................................................................................................................... 26
3.2. ICT: Bridging or dividing?......................................................................................................... 28
3.3. An ‘always online’ generation: Networking and social media............................................ 30
4. Indonesian civil society online: Profiles and patterns............................................................................. 36
4.1. Internet and social media: adoption, use, and appropriation ............................................ 37
4.2. Drivers and barriers to Internet and social media adoption .............................................. 42
Drivers ......................................................................................................................................... 43
Barriers ........................................................................................................................................ 44
Perceived attributes .................................................................................................................. 45
4.3. Beyond communication tools? ................................................................................................ 46
4.4. In hindsight and summary ....................................................................................................... 49
5. Transformation of the civic realms: Intended or unintended?.............................................................. 51
5.1. What transformation?............................................................................................................... 51
5.2. Role of Internet and social media............................................................................................ 55
5.3. Collaboration and networking revisited ................................................................................ 58
5.4. In hindsight and summary ....................................................................................................... 62
6. Towards the future of Indonesian civil society on the Net: A Foresight exercise............................... 64
6.1. Horizon Scanning: Events and trends .................................................................................... 66
6.2. Drivers for change ..................................................................................................................... 70
6.3. Plausible Scenarios .................................................................................................................... 73
6.4. In hindsight and towards a roadmap...................................................................................... 76
7. Citizens in @ction: Synthesis and reflection............................................................................................. 78
7.1. Internet and social media: A sui generis? ................................................................................ 79
7.2. Does agency matter? Real engagement v. ‘click activism’ .................................................. 80
7.3. Beyond individual, collective, and network: The role of technology................................ 81
7.4. In hindsight................................................................................................................................. 82
8. Conclusions and implications ...................................................................................................................... 84
8.1. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 84
8.2. Implications ................................................................................................................................ 85
8.3. Limitations .................................................................................................................................. 86
8.4. Closing remark ........................................................................................................................... 86

References........................................................................................................................................................... 87
Appendix 1. Notes on impacts ......................................................................................................................... 92
Appendix 2. Respondents, interviewees, and participants of workshops and FGD ................................ 93

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Figures and Tables
Figure 1. Phases of the study .......................................................................................................................... 11
Figure 2. Organisational profile...................................................................................................................... 16
Figure 3. Organisational concerns and issues .............................................................................................. 16
Figure 4. Organisational activities ................................................................................................................. 17
Figure 5. Source of funding ............................................................................................................................. 18
Figure 6. Feedback effects in measuring performance of voluntary organisations .............................. 19
Figure 7. The expansion of the national network ....................................................................................... 21
Figure 8. The expansion of the international network .............................................................................. 22
Figure 9. The diffusion of warnet (Internet kiosks) in Indonesia .............................................................. 26
Figure 10. Villages with cable (left) and wireless (right) telephone connection ................................... 27
Figure 11. Growth of cable’s and wireless’ network (left) and customer (right) ................................... 28
Figure 12. Existing fibre optic in Indonesia.................................................................................................. 30
Figure 13. Mobile vendors in a street in Yogyakarta .................................................................................. 31
Figure 14. Facebook vs Friendster in Indonesia ............................................................................................ 32
Figure 15. The dedicated Facebook page to support for Bibit-Chandra .................................................... 34
Figure 16. Map of blogger communities in Indonesia ................................................................................ 38
Figure 17. The use of new social media in Indonesian civil society communities and organisations 40
Figure 18. The use of conventional media in Indonesian civil society groups and organisations ...... 41
Figure 19. Website Jalin Merapi ....................................................................................................................... 42
Figure 20. Organisational internal reasons for using Internet and social media................................... 43
Figure 21. Organisational external reasons for using Internet and social media .................................. 44
Figure 22. Negative aspects caused by Internet and social media use..................................................... 44
Figure 23. Difficulties in the use of Internet and social media.................................................................. 45
Figure 24. Map of the followers of @JalinMerapi ........................................................................................ 48
Figure 25. Benefit of Internet and social media use in civil society groups and organisations........... 56
Figure 26. Network map of national links of respondent groups ............................................................. 59
Figure 27. Capacity building trainings organised by Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan, Solo ...... 61
Figure 28. How confident are you about …? ................................................................................................. 64
Figure 29. Five phases of Foresight and activities involved in each phase ............................................. 65
Figure 30. Foresight exercise: Identification of events and trends .......................................................... 69
Figure 31. Foresight exercise: Identification of drivers for change ......................................................... 72
Figure 32. Foresight exercise: Creating plausible scenarios...................................................................... 75

Table 1. Establishment of CSO respondent ................................................................................................... 14
Table 2. Number of staff: Fulltime and part-time........................................................................................ 15
Table 3. Number of organisation/group/community members............................................................... 15
Table 4. Annual turnover................................................................................................................................. 15
Table 5. Top-20 most visited sites by Indonesians when online ............................................................... 32
Table 6. When did your organisation start using the Internet?................................................................ 37
Table 7. The use of Internet technologies..................................................................................................... 38
Table 8. The provision of Internet access in civil society groups and organisations ............................ 46
Table 9. Provision and access of information on the Net........................................................................... 47
Table 10. The use of Internet and social media in civil society groups and organisations................... 47
Table 11. Impact of Internet and social media use and adoption in civil society .................................. 55
Table 12. Benefit of Internet and social media use to wider society ........................................................ 57

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1.
Introduction

We believe that if we, civil society, want to work in a new fashion, we need new modes of
interaction and communication. Consequently we need a new paradigm to devise new
tactics and strategies. To us, information and communication technologies like the
Internet and social media are innovations that we can use to make our work more
efficient, strategic and have wider impact. We have to build our capacity so that we can
tactically and strategically take advantage of publicly available information and
knowledge.
(Rini Nasution, Satudunia, interview, 7/9/2010)

Only two days after the Tsunami of 2004 devastated Aceh, Northern Sumatra, volunteers of
Airputih (airputih.or.id) managed to restore the communication and provided Internet
connection without which, arguably, humanitarian relief to work to help the casualties
would be impossible (Nugroho, 2009). Similarly, when Mt. Merapi in Yogyakarta recently
erupted in October 2010 claiming the lives of hundreds and forcing tens of thousands of
people to evacuate, Jalin Merapi (merapi.combine.or.id) took advantage of the Internet and
social media to mobilise volunteers and distribute aid. In a different way, but in a similar
vein, this technology has stolen public attention in Indonesia (and probably beyond) in the
case of Prita Mulyasari and Bibit-Chandra – when Facebook was used as the tool to organise
rallies and mobilise support for those who represented the ‘oppressed’ in Indonesian
society. Arguably, in the Indonesian context, such a phenomenon symbolises - or more
precisely- strengthens, the notion of a ‘new’ social movement in which social media use has
characterised both the organisation and the magnitude of the movement.

However, this is not solely about Internet technology and social media innovations. At the
centre are the undertakings of civil society groups and communities who organise
themselves in the wake of crises, or societal challenges. Technology, in this perspective,
comes second – serving civil society communities to help meet their goals and fulfil their
purposes. For example, in disasters like in Aceh or Merapi, the government itself was
paralysed and unable to react, forcing civil society groups to take care of themselves – with
the help of the Internet and social media technologies. Likewise, the technology was central
in mobilising support for social causes like the ones supporting Prita who was unfairly tried
and prosecuted in her effort to complain about the treatment she received from a private
hospital, or to organise massive rallies backing Bibit and Chandra in their efforts to combat
corruption. Certainly, this does not stop here.

Today, more and more civil society communities and groups have been using these
technologies to effectively manage and expand their activism. To borrow Ivan Illich’s term ,
these communication technologies, Internet and social media, have indeed become new
‘convivial’ tools (1973) that civil society can use to foster activism. Civil society is now
facing a new array of challenges, from the ‘traditional’ issues of promoting democracy and
development, to the modern issue of freedom of information. This is no exception in
Indonesian civil society.

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Despite all this, systematic research into the use of the Internet and social media
innovations in civil society is fairly limited, especially in developing contexts like Indonesia
(among the few, focusing on the Internet more generally, see Lim, 2002, 2004, 2006;
Nugroho, 2008, 2010a, b, 2011; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008). As a result, not only do we
know little about patterns of use and adoption of these technologies; we do not know the
extent of the processes involved in such use and how these impact upon civil society
organisational functions. It seems natural that such research would be not only
academically important in itself, but also beneficial both for policy and practical purposes,
especially when taking into account the roles that Indonesia plays in the societal
development and technological uptake of the Southeast Asia region, which is one of the
fastest-growing regions in the world.

This is what motivates this HIVOS-Manchester research collaboration.

1.1. Background and rationale
The emergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly the
Internet, has given new impetus for the birth, or more precisely, the reinvention, of civil
society (Hajnal, 2002). That is, a networked amalgam of organisations, groups and
movements within civil society aiming to achieve civic agendas such as democratisation
and freedom of information (Anheier et al., 2001; Bartelson, 2006; Kaldor, 2003) – at local,
national, regional and global levels. This coalescence is important not only because such
civil society movement operates beyond the confines of the traditional boundaries of
societies, polities, and economies (and actually offers transnational opportunity for
debates), but because it also influences the framework of governance, even at the global
level (Anheier et al., 2001:11; Kaldor et al., 2004:2). This argument is worth examining in a
context where democracy is still in its infancy, such as in Indonesia.

This study examines the patterns and processes of collaboration of civil society groups in
Indonesia in promoting participatory democracy and freedom of information using new
social media and ICTs. It builds on and extends earlier work by the Principal Investigator
(Nugroho, 2007, 2008, 2010b; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008) which looked at the ways in
which civil society organisations (CSOs) in Indonesia innovate by adopting new media
innovations. The research is also informed by two recent studies (Berkhout et al., 2011;
Gaventa and Barrett, 2010) on civic driven change and citizen engagement respectively, in
which HIVOS has much interest. Here we advance the arguments and underline the
rationale for the research. Civil society has become more pivotal in social dynamics;
challenging and shaping the working of the state/public (first sector) and of the market
(second sector) in both familiar and new ways. However, this study does not focus on civil
society groups as self-contained units; it will seek to build understanding about the ways in
which these organisations and groups –both formal and informal—innovate by using new
media and ICTs and thereby shape the dynamics of civic engagement leading to societal
change. As such, an innovation perspective is used in this study to examine various
innovation processes within the groups (here, we expand the argument already posited in
Nugroho, 2011).

This research focuses on formal and informal civil society groups and organisations in
Indonesia for two reasons. First, Indonesia is an interesting latecomer economy in which
civil society has been very active. Second, in their endeavours to address latecomer
8

development issues, various Indonesian civil society groups have actively been networking
and collaborating both nationally and globally and, as a result, this activism has made
Indonesian civil society an important player in the development agenda. Therefore it is
expected that showcasing Indonesian groups could shed light on the workings of the civil
society sector across geographical space, and the ways in which economical, social and
cultural influences shape these processes.

In Indonesia, various civil society organisations and groups have established themselves in
pivotal positions in the social, economic and political landscape. They started networking
with their partners, nationally and internationally, before the 1997 Asian crisis hit
Indonesia and thus were already embedded in a network society during, and in the
aftermath of, the crisis. Surprisingly, a large body of analysis of civil society in Indonesia
has neglected these networking dimensions of engagement, despite the fact that civil
society networking is not a new phenomenon (for a pioneer research into Indonesian civil
society networks, see Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008). This research therefore aims to
better understand the impacts of the collaboration of civic engagements in Indonesia in
promoting participatory democracy and freedom of information by means of the use of new
media and ICTs. It will do so by mapping the civic groups and their activisms and examining
the motives of such engagements and the perceived current and future impacts.

Collaboration is not assumed to be an unalloyed good. It may have helped foster the
democracy that has developed since the 1990s, but it could also be seen as an element in the
divisive radicalisation of religious movements, for example. It may have given civil society
groups more outreach; but is this at the cost of certain changes in relationships with their
previous constituency of citizens? Through exploring the ways and contexts in which
collaboration is built, and the impact of such collaboration on the transformation of
Indonesian civil society, it helps one to understand the role of civic networks, which may
provide a valuable lesson for other countries.

The study will combine sociological and innovation research traditions. Two main
sociological theories are mobilised for this research: (i) the Theory of Structuration
(Giddens, 1984) and its adaptations (DeSanctis and Poole, 1994; Orlikowski, 1992, 2000, 2002);
and (ii) the Theory of Civil Society (among many prominent scholars we refer to Deakin,
2001; Edwards, 2004; Hall, 1995; Kaldor, 2003; Keane, 1998). We examine the processes,
patterns and dynamics of the diffusion of new media and ICTs in various civil society groups
and organisations, and how it affects and is affected by civic activism. We approach the
understanding of the work of Indonesian civil society groups from two sides. Firstly, the
link between civil society and the adoption of new media and ICTs will be grounded in
Science and Technology Studies (i.e. building on Callon and Law, 1997; Callon and
Rabeharisoa, 2003, 2008), Social Shaping and Social Construction of Technology (Bijker et al.,
1993; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985) as well as Sociotechnical Alignment (Molina, 1997,
1998). Secondly, in order to understand how civil society groups and organisations
construct and structure the civil society sphere, our investigation will be guided by work on
civic movement and collective action (Blumer, 1951; Crossley, 2002; Della-Porta and Diani,
2006). Lastly, as the construction of civil society involves networks and networking, we use
the well-established framework of actor-network theory (Latour, 2005; Law and Hassard,
1999).

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1.2. Objectives
The purpose is to empirically examine the ways in which Indonesian civil society
organisations and groups engage in civic activism by means of the use of new media and
ICTs; and how this civic engagement impacts in the shaping (i.e. construction and
structuration) of civil society in Indonesia. Internally, we expect to see new ‘organisation
models’ that frame the creation, organisation and sustainability of such activism..
Externally, we anticipate the identification of a taxonomy of groups and organisations in
civil society and to identify patterns or trends in the use of new media and ICTs that shape
the capacity of the groups to perform and to network.

1.3. Questions and research undertaken
This research addresses three main questions:

1. What processes are involved in the creation of and contribute to the organisation,
expansion and sustainability of civil society groups and organisations when they
adopt and use new media and ICTs?

2. To what extent and in what ways has the use of new media and ICT characterised
the ways in which civil society groups and organisations perform and address their
goals as well as engage in collaboration and networking?

3. What are the implications of this for the current and future development and role of
civil society, in Indonesia in particular?

The answers are sought through an exploratory study carried out between August and
December 2010, using a non-conservative approach and involving a combination of
methods and research instruments in a number of phases. We outline here the stages of this
research.

We started with PHASE 1. The study launched a large-scale, online survey, targeting as
many civil society groups (formal and informal) as possible, using a snowballing method
with the ‘seed list’ generated with the assistance of HIVOS Indonesia Office. This survey
collected data on the organisational profiles, patterns of new media and ICT adoption and
use, and the relations between such adoption and organisational performance and
collaborative networks. The survey was made available online and offline between 20
August and 10 November 2010, with the participation of 286 organisations 1 . After cleaning
the data, 258 are included in the analyses. Some simple statistical descriptive analyses are
used to explore the nature of these organisations and groups, their use of new media and
ICTs, and the relations between their technological use and organisational performance. In
particular, network analysis (cf. Batagelj and Mrvar, 2003) is carried out to reveal the
structural features of these organisations’ collaboration networks. As English is not spoken
widely in Indonesia, we translated the survey to Bahasa Indonesia.

PHASE 2 was based on the analysis of Phase 1, which informed us in the construction of
case studies through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. From 19 August to 1 October
1
As reported in the First and Second Interim Report of this project.

10

2010, we carried out telephone interviews with 35 civil society communities/organisations
to obtain in-depth understanding of the use of new media and ICT in those groups. The
interviews were analysed with help of CAQDAS. We also organised a series of direct
observations covering Aceh, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, and Denpasar in October
2010 involving 12 organisations/groups/communities 2 .

In PHASE 3 the results of the quantitative and qualitative approaches from Phase One and
Two were combined and reported to our informants by means of organising a reflective
workshop in October, attended by 11 participants, purposively selected 3 . The workshop was
designed for the participants to give us their reflections on the finding from the survey and
interviews.

Finally, in PHASE 4 we synthesised the results from the fieldwork (interviews, observations
and workshops) and communicated the findings to the sponsor (HIVOS) as well as the
participants of the study. This was organised in a foresight exercise aimed at building some
scenarios (Miles, 2002, 2008; Miles et al., 2008) in order to envisage the future of civil society
groups and organisations in Indonesia. The exercise was conducted in December 2010 and
attended by 14 participants selected by both HIVOS and MIOIR.

The phases are summarised in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Phases of the study

Given the exploratory nature of this study, we acknowledge that the civil society groups
and communities covered here are predominantly Java (and Bali)-based — and biased
towards ‘modern’ and ‘Internet-literate’ organisations. In part this is because we believe an
exploratory approach has helped us to describe in detail the ways in which civil society
engage with the Internet and social media technologies. Such level of detail has enabled us
to come up with some basic characteristics (or ‘models’) with regard to technology use and
uptake in civil society. However, we realise that civil society groups operating in a
developing economy and infant democracy like Indonesia face very different opportunities
and challenges –compared to those in developed, democratic countries— with regards to
their technology adoption and use. We have therefore integrated our insights in these

2
See the First Interim Report and Appendix 2.
3
For complete list of attendees, please consult Appendix 2.

11

areas 4 , but we do recognise the need for further research to address more fully and
thoroughly the wider issues related to the use of technology in and its implications in
various sectors of Indonesian society 5 .

Clearly there is a world of civil society communities, and beyond that a broader civil society
sphere, that is not fully represented in this report. Nonetheless, albeit small, our survey,
interviews and workshops do represent a significant community of civil society
communities and other leaders. It is on this basis that our conclusions are drawn.

1.4. Structure of the report
This report presents a cross-disciplinary study, engaging with research into the diffusion of
the Internet and social media and civil society. The early chapters focus on the dynamics of
Indonesian civil society and review how Internet technology diffuses in the archipelago.
Empirical results from the study are presented to assert some relevant notes in these
chapters. Then the report continues with the examination of the use of the Internet and
social media in Indonesian civil society in order to explore how the use came to be
constituted in such a way that it affects the organisation of civil society and the dynamics of
social movement. Having established the discursive context in which the adoption and use
of the Internet and social media in Indonesian CSOs emerged, the report returns to the
landscape of Indonesian CSOs to explain its constantly changing realm. The remaining
chapters synthesise the empirical explorations of the adoption, implementation and
impacts of Internet use in Indonesian CSOs, including how possible future scenarios might
unfold. Finally, some conclusions and implications are drawn.

In detail, following this introductory chapter, Chapter Two highlights the features of
Indonesian contemporary civil society by presenting results from the study, which aims to
provide a background to explain the current dynamics. Chapter Three then presents some
facts and figures, and also analyses, of the penetration of the Internet and social media
across the country. Then, putting these two big pictures together, the report showcases the
profiles and patterns of Internet and social media adoption and use in Indonesian civil
society in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five the report highlights some important
consequences of this technological adoption and use, focusing on the transformation of
civic realms in Indonesia, including the networks of civil society. Chapter Six synthesises
the study, emphasising the empirical findings and important priorities to take those
forward. Chapter Seven discusses the possible future trajectory concerning Indonesian
civil society and Internet and social media use, reflecting the outcomes from the foresight
exercise. Finally Chapter Eight concludes and highlights some implications of this study.

4
Both HIVOS and MIOIR have long experience in working in this area.
5
For example a study into new media and its socio‐political implications on citizen’s and human rights
would provide an obvious further research agenda.

12

2.
Indonesian civil society in the spotlight:
A vibrant sphere

Ideally social change should aim at providing and widening space for each and every
societal group. It should be snowballing: getting bigger, wider, and involving more
people over time. Civil society groups should create mechanisms in which they can build
socio-political agreements for the sake of achieving common good. … This requires civil
society groups and communities to have spirit, to be highly enthusiastic and committed
to a better social order. Social change necessitates intelligent civil society.
(Haris Azhar, KontraS, interview, 6/9/10)

Scholars often perceive civil society, theoretically, as one of the cornerstones of a vibrant
societal sphere, providing voices for the disenfranchised and creating centres of influence
outside the state and the economy (Anheier et al., 2002; Anheier et al., 2001; Deakin, 2001;
Keane, 1998). A loose, yet operational and descriptive definition of civil society is offered by
the Centre of Civil Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), i.e.
that civil society constitutes a sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organisations, networks,
and individuals located between the family, the state, and the market (CCS, 2006). This
concept traces itself back to the entity of the sphere of social life which organises itself
autonomously, as opposed to the sphere that is established and/or directly controlled by
the state (Deakin, 2001:4-8). As Gramsci (1971) understands, civil society is not only the
sphere where existing social order is grounded, but also where new social order can be
founded. This notion is important because this helps us to understand the strength of the
status quo so that a strategy for its transformation can be devised – a raison d’etre for civil
society entities. We therefore propose a working definition of what we refer to as civil
society groups, organisations or communities, i.e. the autonomous, democratic entities, as
expressed in organisations independent of the state and of corporate structure, whose aim is to
transform existing social order towards a better one.

Studies on Indonesian civil society have existed for some time (some earliest, relevant
academic works found in this area are Billah, 1995; Sinaga, 1994), and have been relatively
well documented from different perspectives (among many, e.g. Bunnell, 1996; Eldridge,
1995; Fakih, 1996; Ganie-Rochman, 2000; Hadiwinata, 2003; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008;
Pradjasto and Saptaningrum, 2006; Warren, 2005). It is worth-noting, however, that in
Indonesia, the terms civil society organisation (CSO) and non-governmental organisation
(NGO) have a rather complicated interpretation and understanding compared to what the
literature states. This has a long history, which can be traced back to the New Order’s era
when even using a term might provoke government repression. It seems that Indonesian
social activists have never reached a consensus on what term they will use. We noted, that
only after the political reform in 1998, they started using and popularising the term
Organisasi Masyarakat Sipil (civil society organisation/CSO) to distinctively distinguish civil-
and community-initiated organisations from those run or initiated by military, government
or business. This study uses the term CSOs and civil society communities interchangeably to
include all kind of organisations within the scope of the definition we set earlier.

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In our earlier work (Nugroho, 2007; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008) we proposed a
periodisation to understand different characteristics of civil society across different time
periods. Four main periods were covered: Pre 1995 (authoritarian) when civil society was
weak, depoliticised and fragmented; 1995–1998 (transformation) when civil society started
expressing its discontent more openly leading to the reform that toppled Soeharto’s
presidency; 1999–2002 (euphoria) when civil society was blooming partly as result of the
chaotic political change due to the euphoric reaction after the displacement of the
authoritarian leader; and 2003 and after (stability) when civil society played a very
important role in the Indonesian transition towards democracy. We built on this
periodisation and slightly modify it in our study to reflect the latest change. We use this
periodisation to explain the dynamics of groups and communities within civil society that
will become the focus of our study.

In sum, this research aims to enrich those all abovementioned studies by presenting and
highlighting some features found in the empirical work that may contribute to an
understanding of the character of contemporary civil society in Indonesia.

2.1. Organisational profile
In total 289 groups, communities and organisations within Indonesian civil society
participated in the exploratory survey, of which, after the data cleaning, 258 are included in
the analysis. To achieve deeper insights, 35 senior activists were interviewed.

Most of our respondent groups (74%) were established after the 1998 reform. In other
words, they are part of the new wave of social movement groups as a result of the political
openness of the post-New Order regime.

# When was your organisation Response %
established
1 Before 1995 49 19%
2 1996-1998 17 7%
3 1999-2001 48 19%
4 2002-2004 33 13%
5 2005-2007 55 21%
6 2008-2010 56 22%
Total 258 100%
Table 1. Establishment of CSO respondent
N=258

Being established in a relatively more open socio-political sphere might affect the ways
these groups manage themselves. Most are small and effective in that they have a small
number of full-time staff (68% have ten or less) and more part-time workers or volunteers
(50% have six or above), but have a large number of members. (56% have 50 or more). See
Tables 2 and 3.

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# How many fulltime staff does n % # How many part-time staff n %
your organisation have does your organisation have
1 None 18 7% 1 None 37 14%
2 1-5 persons 83 32% 2 1-5 persons 65 25%
3 6-10 persons 74 29% 3 6-10 persons 50 19%
4 11-15 persons 33 13% 4 11-15 persons 35 14%
5 16-20 persons 11 4% 5 16-20 persons 19 7%
6 More than 20 39 15% 6 More than 20 52 20%
Total 258 100% Total 258 100%
Table 2. Number of staff: Fulltime and part-time
N=258

# How many member does your n %
organisation have
1 Less than 10 18 7%
2 11-20 persons 28 11%
3 21-30 persons 26 10%
4 31-40 persons 22 9%
5 41-50 persons 19 7%
6 More than 50 145 56%
Total 258 100%
Table 3. Number of organisation/group/community members
N=258

Concerning annual turnover, the biggest proportion of our respondent group manage a
relatively small fund, i.e. IDR100million (USD10k) or less (29%). Altogether, those
administering IDR1billion (USD100k) or below per year make up the biggest part of our
respondents (61%). See Table 4.

# Annual turnover in IDR n %
1 Less than 100 million 74 29%
2 100-500 million 54 21%
3 500 million - 1 billion 28 11%
4 1 – 2 billion 20 8%
5 More than 2 billion 18 7%
6 Prefer not to disclose 64 25%
Total 258 100%
Table 4. Annual turnover
N=258

Using existing parameters in the categorisation of civil society groups (Eldridge, 1995;
Ganie-Rochman, 2000; Hadiwinata, 2003; Kendall and Knapp, 2000), we asked our
respondents what best describes their organisation, in order to understand their profile as
they perceive it. We found the following features: Firstly, these groups are characterised as
formal, open in membership, founded based on interests, and networked. This is typical of the
character of organisations within civil society in an open, democratic society.

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Figure 2. Organisational profile
N=258, multiple answers allowed

Secondly, our respondents are quite diverse in their organisational issues and concerns, yet
retain shared interests typical of civil societies across the globe. Among the most salient
issues covered are the environment, education and civil society empowerment. Also of
great concern are human rights, development, democratisation, women/gender equality,
children and youth, rural issues and poverty. Some of the latter issues might be common in
a developing economy context.

Figure 3. Organisational concerns and issues
N=258; multiple answers allowed

Third, to address these issues and concerns groups and communities within civil society
engage in a number of main activities. In our study we find that these activities tend to be
skewed towards capacity building, followed by activities that focus on communicating ideas to
public like publication and dissemination. Research and advocacy come next, and, rather
surprisingly, not many engage in mobilisation.

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Figure 4. Organisational activities
N=258; multiple answers allowed

It is not difficult to see that capacity building is the most prevalent activity of Indonesian
CSOs, consistent with the earlier finding that civil society empowerment is the highest
concern of these organisations. Moreover, research, publication, dissemination and
advocacy look to have characterised the biggest part of the respondents.

We realise that more analytical, rather than the currently descriptive, statistic analysis of
our respondent’s profile could have been conducted had the time permitted. Yet as the
terms of reference dictates, the timeframe was limited.

2.2. Organisational dynamics
The fieldwork data says very clearly: civil society in Indonesia is obviously a vibrant sphere.
This vivacious realm is apparently not only a result of the engagement of Indonesian civil
society groups and communities with global civil society (which becomes more evident
when elaborated upon later), but is also shaped by the internal dynamics of the civil society
in Indonesia from time to time. Of course, there are two sides –civil society cannot be seen
as a homogeneous sphere. Whilst realising the dark side of civil society (e.g. uncivil groups
claiming to be part of civil society), we focus on its bright side (e.g. civil groups working on
empowerment, advocacy, development and other programmes aimed at the betterment of
livelihoods). We highlight some findings on the organisational dynamics, following the
pointers we proposed in one of our earlier studies (Nugroho, 2007):

The first aspect is that of financial sources. Since early research into civil society began,
scholars have noted that one of the biggest challenges for civil society groups is
accountability –more precisely financial accountability (among many, see Edwards and
Hulme, 1995, 1997). Financial matters affect not only organisational accountability, but also
agenda, independence and self-reliance, management, and even organisational change. We
look more closely at the financial sources of our respondent organisations and find that
most of the groups in the survey have, on average, two or more sources of income, with
international donor and income-generating activities as the most common sources. Quite a
number of respondent groups benefit from charging a membership fee. The least accessed
source is the domestic private sector.

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Figure 5. Source of funding
N=258, multiple answers allowed

These circumstances are likely to impact upon organisational management. Managing
multiple sources of income sometimes puts a higher burden on the organisation (which is
the case with the majority of civil society groups and communities). On top of this, relying
on funding from donors, particularly from international ones, might be problematic. A
typical issue with regard to international donors, as stated by a senior human-rights
activist, is that:
They [the donors] often do not stand at the same side as us. They do not show their clear standing
in the [sensitive] issues and [are] not always willing to see the process. Instead they focus more on
the result, … whether we [the civil society groups] follow the so-called log-frame and other [result-
based] indicators. They paid much less attention to the capacity building of the staff, unfortunately.
(HA, Jakarta-based human-rights CSO, interview, 6/9/10)

The second aspect to consider is spectrum of activities. The above descriptive statistical
analysis shows that capacity building is the most prevalent activity, followed by idea
dissemination endeavours like public communication and publication. In other words, it is
around and about empowerment, be it for their own group or others, that most civil society
groups focus their activities on. It is not surprising, as there is mounting pressure for civil
societies to be more competent in their area. A story of a senior activist in an arts-based
civil society group in Yogyakarta sheds some light on this issue:
[A]t that time, there was no competent organisation working in the field of art to create vibrant art
communities. To do so we need more than just infrastructure; we need people capable dealing with
the complex development of arts. Consequently we need repositioning, sharpening of our focus,
showing to the world we know what we do, we know what we are talking about, and so on and so
forth. And there is only one way to do that: capacity building. When I was recruited, it was just
natural to me to go for it … because I do what I am interested in. That’s it. But entering the arena I
gradually realised that here there was, and is, a vast vacuum: we have no, or very limited at best,
experts in this area. For example, just to recognise and communicate the concern on how valuable
arts database is need a huge effort. We need transformation and revitalisation of activism. (FW,
Yogyakarta-based arts CSO, interview, 31/8/10)

Clearly the need for expertise in civil society is now imperative. It is not just that the world
has become much more complex, but that inherent in civil society organisations is the drive
to deliver a ‘result’ – a societal transformation. We borrow the framework developed by
Kendall and Knapp (2000) to measure performance in voluntary organisations (including
civil society entities). It is obvious that unless civil society is equipped with skilful workers
it is impossible to create a dynamic sphere within which civil society organisations, groups

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and communities can transform society. This is because there are no linear links between
inputs and outputs in civil society activisms. Rather it is a feed-back effect mechanism,
linking not only resources and outcomes (at the organisational level), but also in constant
interaction with the organisational networks (at the meso level) and the societal context (at
the macro level). See Figure 6.

Figure 6. Feedback effects in measuring performance of voluntary organisations
Source: Kendall and Knapp (2000:120)

Another story from a community organiser working with young people in the capital
Jakarta helps substantiate these non-linear relations between resources and outcomes of
the organisation, as conceptualised above, when it comes to the real agenda of transforming
society through their activism:
Our organisation [CH] was initiated when JP started its campaign against the Pornography Law.
The initiative attracted many young people. They came to our office, joined our discussions. We
realised that there was actually a need for a civil society group for young people which had
programmatic support. What we had were just volunteer groups, or internship schemes in big
organisations. Then our colleagues in JP started to facilitate the group [CH] and include the
activities in one of their programmes. They also shared their office with us. What we wanted was to
routinely publish a magazine, targeted to the young people at the high-school age. We wanted the
magazine to be free and reach as many young people as possible. So we started establishing the
editorial board, pool of writers, and distributors too. They all consisted, and still do, of young people.
They developed their own concepts in each edition. JP only helped make sure that gender and
human rights issues are incorporated there. Now, two years later, the magazine has been
publishing routinely. We have 20 issues. In many high-schools students have become familiar with
gender as well as human rights issues. They now understand that against pornography law is not
the same as pro pornography; instead, they realise the deeper issue about victimisation of women
and gender inequality inherent in the law. Now those students also want us to organise discussions,
workshops, gatherings, and trainings around the issue. (AWH, Jakarta-based youth group,
interview, 6/9/10)

This account shows the duality of the relationship between civil society groups and
organisations and the society in which they exist. Civil society groups engage with the
wider society, in a number of activities and achieve some certain outcomes (Gaventa and
Barrett, 2010) with the aim of facilitating bottom-up societal changes (Berkhout et al., 2011).
But what is the nature of the processes involved in this engagement? Borrowing Giddens’
notion of structuration (Giddens, 1984), the process might qualify to be labelled as
structuration of engagement i.e. that the societal influence of civil society groups in the wider
society is structured and has become routinised through recursive civic engagement
practices (like protests, rallies, discussions, and even public gatherings) across time and
space. A senior activist working with a blogger in Central Java asserts,

19

Since the establishment we have been organising meetings periodically, not only involving our
members but also other similar groups’ members. This contributes significantly to the cohesion of
our organisation. In addition to meeting other CSOs from other sectors, we also periodically
schedule meetings with the authorities [local governments] including the Mayor and local parliament
members. We, too, have good links with business communities. We now enjoy a multiplication of
benefit: not only have we now been recognised as one of the civil society clearing houses in our
region, we also provide consultancy for the local government. We now have office, thanks to our
partner organisation [YT] and we enjoy free high-speed point-to-point internet access [provided by
XLC]. Of course these all did not fall from the sky. We earned it through capacity building with other
organisations [like YT, ICTW], through non-stop dialogue with the government, and negotiation with
business [such as DDD, J, AX]. In return we provide free trainings and workshops for many groups
who need it: disabled groups, SMEs, etc. What we aim for is a more interdependent society. We
realise fully we are transforming our society now. (BP, Solo-based blogger group, interview,
25/8/10)

BP’s assertion underlines what constitutes the most important aspects of civil society
activism: continuation and network. While continuation guarantees a ‘routinisation’ of
involvement and hence ensures the transformation of the societal structure, network is
essential in that civil society groups or communities, inherently, never work in isolation.
We examine this issue in the next section.

2.3. Organisational network
Engaging in a network society, we can see similar dynamics apparent in the networking
between civil society groups and communities and their counterparts, both in Indonesia
and internationally.

Using simple network mapping (Batagelj and Mrvar, 2003), the data collected from the
fieldwork across five time periods (Pre-1995, 1996-1999, 2000-2003, 2004-2007, 20008-now) is
plotted. This periodisation reflects the political stages of the time. Here we continue and
expand on our previous research (Nugroho, 2011; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008).

Firstly, we have looked at the growth of the national network of our respondent groups.
From the survey data, we mined 936 civil society groups, organisations and communities
networking with each other across the periods of pre-1995 to 2010. See Figure 7.

Many socio-political developments from pre-1995 to the aftermath of 1998 reformasi, up to
and including the present day, have significantly affected civil society networks. What we
argue here is that those developments could only happen when civil society groups were
involved, as this is a two-way process. We borrow Giddens’s logic of structuration theory
(Giddens, 1984) and its application in diffusion research, i.e. adaptive structuration theory
or AST (DeSanctis and Poole, 1994; Orlikowski, 1992, 2000, 2002). Just as socio-political
changes in the country emerge as societal structure, they are both outcomes and fabrics of
Indonesian civil society’s socio-political engagement. As outcomes, these changes reflect
how Indonesian civil societies have advanced their movement and partaking in social
change. As fabrics of civic engagement, such socio-political changes provide a context and
opportunity for Indonesian civil societies to link to each other’s work. Here lies the central
explanation of how a national network grows. The network is not only instrumental to the
social change in the country: it is the arena for change in its own right (as we also argued in
Nugroho, 2007, 2011).

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Pajek
Pajek

Pre 1995: d=0.0001119; 2-core 1996-1999: d= 0.0002100; 2-core

Pajek Pajek

2000-2003: d= 0.0004771; 3-core 2004-2007: d= 0.0009873; 3-core

Pajek

2008-2010: d= 0.0017224; 3-core
Figure 7. The expansion of the national network
N=936; processed with Pajek®; plot based on Kamada-Kawaii algorithm with separate components; all nodes
depicted across period; links represent “join action”; data collected Sep-Nov 2010

Similarly, we have mapped the international network in which our respondent
organisations are involved. We identified 380 nodes involving the respondent groups and
their international partners (in the 2-mode network). When we remove the national
organisations, we find 263 organisations mapped as international partners of our
respondents (1-mode network).

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Pajek
Pajek

Pre 1995: d [2-Mode] = 0.0004550; 1-core 1996-1999: d [2-Mode] = 0.0008774; 1-core

Pajek
Pajek

2000-2003: d [2-Mode] = 0.0021774; 1-core 2004-2007: d [2-Mode] = 0.0052647; 2-core

Pajek

2008-2010: d [2-Mode] = 0.0079945; 2-core
Figure 8. The expansion of the international network
N=380 (2-mode); processed with Pajek®; plot based on Kamada-Kawaii algorithm with separate components; all
nodes depicted across period; links represent “join action”; data collected Sep-Nov 2010

What we can see here is the rapid growth of networks after the New Order regime fell and
political chaos ended (i.e. after 1999). Seemingly, the end of the authoritarian New Order
regime may have given new impetus for more involvement of civil society groups and
communities, and their networks, in national politics. This represents a significant
widening of the civic space in the country. Global civil societies paid close attention to the
Indonesian situation and were willing to establish networks with Indonesian civil society.
From 2003 up to the present time, the international networks appear to be more stable.

22

The depiction shows that both international and national networks of the respondent
groups have become more cohesive over time (indicated by the increasing k-core and
density). The link between nodes represents a unique notion, commonly understood as
direct engagement, rather than merely networking (which can be anything from just
knowing each other, being part of the same mailing list, to collaboration). Such engagement
includes all activities implying real action including campaigning, coordination,
collaboration, fund raising, other exchange activities and capacity building, etc. (we firstly
asserted this in our earlier work, see Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008).

Some scholars (Anheier et al., 2001; Bartelson, 2006; Kaldor, 2003) argue that such network
dynamics reflect an evolution of amalgam of communities, groups, organisations, and
movements within civil society. When aimed at achieving civic agendas like
democratisation and freedom of information (which is the case in Indonesia) this
coalescence is important because of two reasons. One, the civil society groups and
communities often operate beyond the traditional boundaries of societies, polities, and
economies (Kaldor et al., 2004; Keane, 1998). Our findings on the Indonesian case, as exposed
in this chapter, confirm this claim. Two, as such, civil society groups and communities can
influence the framework of governance, even at the global level (Anheier et al., 2001:11;
Kaldor et al., 2004:2) 6 .

Some commentators argue that this widening of the civic space should be attributed to the
use of the Internet in Indonesia (Hill, 2003; Hill and Sen, 2000, 2002; Lim, 2002, 2003a, b,
2004, 2006; Marcus, 1998; Tedjabayu, 1999), including in our own earlier works (Nugroho,
2008, 2010a, b, 2011). Indeed, the emergence of ICTs, particularly the Internet, has given
new impetus for the birth, or, more precisely, the reinvention, of civil society (Hajnal, 2002).
While these arguments are valid and in fact we extend them in our report here, we need to
firstly present a clear picture of the Internet in Indonesia. Only after that can we discuss
how civil society engages with the technology and uses it for social transformation.

2.4. In hindsight: Reflecting civic engagement and societal changes
Having presented the richness (or lack of it) of the Indonesian civil society sphere, we might
want to reflect on whether or not, and to what extent, civil society can play a role in the
betterment of society. This reflection is timely for we are witnessing how the nation is
being torn apart due to the unsustainable exploitation of the environment and natural
resources and the rising social tensions, caused not only by socioeconomic inequality but
also massive growing intolerance over religious diversity.

Through this fieldwork (and also using evidence from many previous studies), we are
convinced that the Indonesian civil society holds the key to preventing a national
breakdown, where states (and markets) are apparently failing. Civil society is indeed a key
agent of change, but in order for the change to take place, we need a more careful
examination of the links between those existing in the sphere of ‘civil society’, i.e. citizens,

6
Here we realise the need for future research to see how Indonesian civil society takes part, actively, in
the global civil society dynamics. At the moment, what is available for academic discourse is only some
accounts of our earlier research (Nugroho, 2007, 2008, 2010a, b, forthcoming; Nugroho and
Tampubolon, 2008)

23

grassroots groups and communities, NGOs, and others. Moreover, we also need to know
how the change takes place.

However, due to its limitation, this research is not designed to arrive at a solid theory of
change on civil society or citizen action. Instead, it endeavours to empirically map some
civic engagements of groups and communities within the Indonesian civil society that lead
to societal changes.

A recent collaborative work of HIVOS, Context, Institute of Social Studies and Broederlijk Delen
(Berkhout et al., 2011) reminds us that the success of societal changes driven by civic
activism (or as they call, “CDC, civic driven change”) depends much on whether or not the
knowledge gaps on how citizen action leads to social change, which are substantive, are
properly addressed. What we have here indicates that the Indonesian civil society has been
a vibrant sphere where, arguably, knowledge exchanges among groups and communities
within civil society take place and are facilitated. Civic engagement as such, borrowing from
Gaventa and Barrett (2010), is essential for “the construction of citizenship, the strengthening of
practices of participation, the strengthening of responsive and accountable states, and the
development of inclusive and cohesive societies”.

We do not deliberately endeavour to substantiate Gaventa and Barrett’s work (2010) using
the Indonesian context. Instead it helps us to become more sensitive in examining the
outcomes of civic engagement during our fieldwork, which has provided us with an
overview of the Indonesian civil society sphere. It focuses more on groups and communities
which are generic and almost spontaneously formed based on interest and concern, and not
always formal in nature. To some extent, this is an update of our previous study (Nugroho,
2007, 2008, 2010a, b, 2011; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008) which dealt more with civil
society organisations (CSOs) and non governmental organisations (NGOs). We have become
increasingly convinced that not only is the civil society sphere vivacious; the groups,
communities and organisations within it have indeed played a pivotal role in socioeconomic
and political development in the country.

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3.
Internet and social media in the contemporary Indonesia

I remember the first time we established our blogger group [AM]. It was very difficult. [In
Makassar] there was rarely telecentres and they were so expensive. Luckily we received
assistantship from the government through the Education Directorate who provided
Internet access in schools that we could also use. … The last two years witnessed the
advancement of wireless Internet. Now you can easily spot coffee shops offering free wi-fi
for their customers. Facebook has become a new phenomenon, affecting life of many people,
including those in the very remote areas.
(Intan Baidoeri, Blogger Anging Mamiri, interview, 24/8/2010)

In Aceh, Tangerang, Batam, and Indramayu kiosks/outlets selling mobile phone’s pay-as-
you-go credit now have a new business activity. Not only can anyone buy mobile credit, they
can also request a specific service for creating Facebook accounts, with a fee of IDR50k
(USD5) per account. And once they do it, they usually remain as loyal customers, returning
again and again when they forget their Facebook password. And that costs them IDR5k
(USD50cent) per recovery. Absurd? Perhaps. But this is today an online Indonesia.

What Intan says in the quote above, briefly summarises the development of the Internet in
Indonesia over the past fifteen years or so. From being a relative nobody in the Net-map,
Indonesia has now quickly become one of the much discussed nations online with regards
to the proliferation of Internet and social media use, from fun, to humanitarian causes (e.g.
Doherty, 2010; Reuters, 2010; The Economist, 2011). The so-called Web 2.0 and new social
media like Twitter and Facebook diffuse so rapidly in the country, affecting people’s lives, for
better and worse.

However, the extent to which the diffusion of the Internet and social media has impacted
upon Indonesian societies remains largely unknown. Understandably, this is due to the vast
geographical coverage and large spectrum of societal groups of the country and studying
the use and impacts of the technologies in such circumstance is certainly not easy. Luckily,
some historical notes of the development of the Internet in Indonesia since its early time
have been documented by Onno W. Purbo, often referred to as the ‘father of the Indonesian
Internet’ (see some important trajectories in Purbo, 1996, 2000a, b, 2002a, b). Other
commentators have also tried to picture the development of the Internet, along with other
information and communication technologies, in the country. Most of these records are in
the form of grey-literatures (e.g. Manggalanny, 2010; Pacific Rekanprima, 2002; Purbo,
2002b; SalingSilang, 2011; Telkom, 2002; Wahid, 2003; Widodo, 2002), as opposed to
academic accounts. We use both resources available at hand to help us understand the
complexity surrounding this issue and hopefully illuminate the findings of our empirical
study.

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3.1. At the backdrop …
In Indonesia the development of the Internet began in the early 1990s (Purbo, 2000a). In
terms of users and subscribers, Indonesia is lagging behind other countries with less than
20% of the population (240 million) connected to the Internet (The Economist, 2011). In
ASEAN, the highest penetration is in Singapore (29.9%), followed by Malaysia (25.15%). Over
the past few years, the number of Internet users in Indonesia increased significantly.
According to APJII (Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers), the number of
users leaped by 770% during 1998-2002, from half a million in 1998 to 4.5 million in 2002;
then nearly doubled from 16 million in 2005 to 31 million in 2010 (APJII, 2010).

However, the latest report of the Indonesian Ministry of Information and Communication
shows that, based on the National Census, 67% of the distribution of personal computer and
70.05% Internet access are concentrated in Java and Bali (in terms of ownership and access
per household respectively) while other regions are largely left behind (Kominfo, 2010:47).
Such disparities are also reflected in the spread of warnet –a most economical access point
for people—which is still concentrated in big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta,
Bandung and Semarang. This picture has not changed much since it was first mapped by
Wahid (2003).

Figure 9. The diffusion of warnet (Internet kiosks) in Indonesia
Source: Wahid (2003), http://www.natnit.net – this figure is also depicted in Nugroho (2007)

This can be explained, using the same source, as the provision of information and
communication infrastructure is also unevenly distributed. Both for cable and wireless
telephony connections Java and Sumatra and the western part of Indonesia enjoy better
infrastructure. In 2005, there were 24,257 villages (34.68% of total villages) in Indonesia with
a cable telephone connection. In 2008 this number increased to 24,701 villages, but in terms
of percentage it decreased to only 32.76% as the number of villages also increased. Most of
them are in Java-Bali and Sumatra. A similar picture emerges for cable connection. Villages
in Java have the most wireless connections (Kominfo, 2010:34). See Figure 10.

26

Figure 10. Villages with cable (left) and wireless (right) telephone connection
Bar legends indicate nominal in corresponding years; line legends indicate percentage.
Source: Kominfo (2010:34)

Unable to find recent, reliable data on the profile of Internet users in Indonesia, we turned
to some grey literature to provide rough, but hopefully interesting and insightful pictures.
For example, around two-third of users access the Internet from warnet (internet
kiosk/telecentres) (Purbo, 1996, 2002b); of 512,000 Internet users in 1998, 410,000 (80%)
were individual and the rest were corporate (Basuni, 2001). In 2002 there was a decrease in
the number of home-based subscribers, but this was compensated for by commercial users
(from 10, 539 in 2001 to 39,598 in 2002), which eventually helped Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) survive since most of ISP’s income (70%) came from them. As a result, only 20 ISPs
targeted home-based subscribers since the profit gained from the subscription was very low
(Widodo, 2002) 7 .

Then, a survey in the same year in 10 big cities in Indonesia, covering some 1,500
respondents, found that only 21% of them were home-based subscribers while the rest
connected to the Internet from either warnets or offices. The survey also found that only
23% of the non-home-subscribers said they would subscribe individually (Pacific
Rekanprima, 2002). This confirmed the statement of Indonesian Government that potential
Internet users in Indonesia could reach 61 million when they accessed the technology from
public clusters like universities, offices, schools and warnets, etc. (Telkom, 2002). But,
although APJII (2003) finds that most of the users are educated (in addition to that they are
predominantly young males(aged 23-35 years)) 8 , the number of Internet users from
education institutions in Indonesia is still very low. In 2002, of around 1,300 higher-
education institutions only 200 were connected; of 24,000 secondary schools (10,000 high
schools, 10,000 boarding schools and 4,000 vocational schools), only 1,200 were connected
(Purbo, 2002b) 9 .

7
   This statistics is also featured in our earlier work (Nugroho, 2007)
8
   To promote Internet use, APJII introduced a roadshow program called Sekolah2000 (literally
School2000) for students at the high‐school level. At the same time, the Government also launched a
similar program for vocational secondary education (SMK). In 2001, of 4,000 SMKs, 1000 were
connected to the Internet.
9
   This is the latest data available at the time of writing. It is believed that this number has significantly
increased, although it may not change the bigger picture.

27

The development of the Internet in Indonesia may have changed the way people
communicate, interact, and perhaps, live. But this is only true in areas where access is
available. As a matter of fact, Internet access is still highly unevenly distributed, as
discussed earlier, creating a so-called ‘technological apartheid’ (Castells, 1999). We briefly
address this issue in the next section.

3.2. ICT: Bridging or dividing?
It is outside the remit of this research to analyse ICT policy in Indonesia, but certainly
policy plays a vital role in the dynamics of Indonesian telecommunication. What the data
shows is one level of disparity: Java vs. outside Java. This disparity can also be found in the
urban vs. rural sphere. These disparities are created, or perhaps more precisely caused, by
the centralised development policy that has been in existence in Indonesia since the 1960s.
In the aftermath of the 1998 reform, there was much hope that democratisation would not
only be about political but also governmental systems, and that regional development
would be prioritised. However, at least in the telecommunication sector, what we learn here
shows that development is still very much unequal.

What makes this matter worse is another deeper level of disparity in ICT development, i.e.
cable vs. wireless. Cable infrastructure is much less developed than wireless. The official
government data confirms that during 2004-2009 there has been insignificant growth of
cable penetration (4%) whereas wireless networks have grown tenfold (41%). Cable
customers during 2005-2009 decreased at an average rate of 0.67% per year while wireless
customer expanded at a rapid rate of 34% per annum (Kominfo, 2010:33).

Figure 11. Growth of cable’s and wireless’ network (left) and customer (right)
Legends bar indicate cable (left/blue) and wireless (right/red).
Source: Kominfo (2010:33)

Such development has created an entirely new culture in Indonesia: mobile phone culture.
The mobile phone is no longer perceived as a luxury, rather as a necessity (although in
reality, putting it into the context of poverty in Indonesia, it still is something of a luxury to
some). Even more so than in developed economies such culture has penetrated deep into
society. However, what appears on the surface might be very different from what lies
28

beneath. We learn from our fieldwork that the implication of this mobile trend is much
deeper than anticipated. Recalling our field observation in the southern part of Yogyakarta
in Wonosari, a respected villager tells us:
Mobile phone has changed our lives so much. Over there [he pointed to a direction] there used to
be teakwood forest. But it is now gone. People cut the teak trees and sell it quickly in order to buy
mobile phones and motorcycles! Nobody can live without mobile now. But it is expensive if you
have to regularly top-up the [mobile] credit. So, we you have to find the job that lets you earn that
much. What is it? Tukang ojek [motorcycle-taxi driver]! Because you can earn relatively easily, and
THAT gives you money to top-up your mobile credit. See what I mean? (NN, Wonosari villager,
interview, 12/10/10)

The issue of deforestation, which might appear to be poles apart from this technology, now
seems inextricably linked.. The disappearance of hundreds of teakwood trees in an area
which used to be famous for its teakwood forest, actually has a lot to do with the new
mobile culture and life style that has penetrated the area. Is it only the teakwood forest that
has gone missing? Apparently not. Our informant continued:
Now we have no more becak (rickshaw) in this area. Becak drivers have to go somewhere else to
find customers or to find a new job. This is also because of the mobile phone. Before we had
mobiles we used to ride on becak when we got off from the bus. Now even before we arrived here,
whilst still on the bus, we could call home using our mobile and ask our family members or relatives
to pick us from the point we get off from the bus. Or, we can call tukang ojek who also has mobile
phones. (NN, Wonosari villager, interview, 12/10/10)

Extreme as this seems; more was to come. In an informal gathering at CRI’s (Combine
Resource Institution) office in Bantul, some participants told another poignant story about
the way in which mobile culture has jeopardised a supposedly (although some debate this)
useful government initiative. A scheme called BLT (Bantuan Langsung Tunai, or
Unconditional Cash Transfer) is a local/ regional initiative to provide monthly cash aids for
deprived families. The scheme is designed to help the poor family to survive as the cash aid
can cover the cost of sembako (basic needs). However, mobile culture has seriously damaged
this scheme – at least in this area. Even the poor want to have mobile phones and once they
have one, the costs do not stop there. Maintaining the use through topping-up the credit or
paying regular bill takes a large proportion of what they can earn. Instead of buying basic
needs, poor families are using up the BLT money to purchase top-up credit or pay phone
bills. Cynically, BLT now has a new label: Bantuan Langsung Telas, or ‘quickly used-up cash
transfer’ (Group discussion, CRI workshop, Bantul, 12/10/10).

All these accounts show that mobile technology –in fact, any technology—has two
conflicting sides. A praised and groundbreaking communication technology like the mobile
phone has a real capacity for destroying the fabric of societal life, as clearly exemplified in
this study. The dark sides of the technology (like deforestation, or loss of jobs) are surely
never intended, but it is precisely there that (technology) policy matters: it should make
sure that the unintended consequences of technological advancement are anticipated 10 .
Development policies - technology ones included- are meant to ensure that the socio-
economic divide can be bridged, not made wider.

With regards to broadband usage, cable broadband distribution at the moment covers less
than 9 million users and with zero growth after more than 20 years industry protection.
Cable broadband is only available in major cities like Java, Bali, Sumatera, Kalimantan, and
Sulawesi, and more than 50% of the capacity is installed only in Jakarta and its satellite

10
Here we find a strong rationale that a further research into policy might be needed.

29

cities (Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi). This situation forces people in the most rural
areas to use limited & high cost VSAT services (Manggalanny, 2010).

Figure 12. Existing fibre optic in Indonesia
Source: Manggalanny (2010)

Clearly, more cable is needed and the government is trying to realise this need through USO
(universal service obligation). In the near future, interactive multimedia applications (e.g.
triple play) will soon need bandwidth and this can only be handled by end-to-end reliable
cable networks. Wireless networks, on the other hand, only fit to mobile services. Wireless
networks are not intended to be used as carrier (inter-city) or distribution (inter-BTS) link.
Technically, for fixed data and internet services, wireless networks are just a temporary
solution to accelerate penetration and to boost growth. However for the longer term, it is
only the cable networks that could answer the needs of extending network handling
capacities and provide more reliable backhaul links.

Yet, without underestimating the problem of these multi-layered disparities, the adoption
and use of ICTs have put Indonesians on the global map saliently, as one of the most active
world Netters. We address this topic as part of our background context in this study

3.3. An ‘always online’ generation: Networking and social media
For some, Indonesia is communication heaven. Due to business competition and blatant
price wars, the telecommunication market has been an attractive one. It is so appealing that
“… mobile contracts in the country are dirt-cheap. For Indonesians living in North America, it is often
cheaper to buy an Indonesian SIM card and roam with it than it is to sign up for a local plan,” as
reported by The Economist (2011). From our brief fieldwork in Aceh, Jakarta, Bandung,
Yogyakarta, Solo, and Denpasar (October and December 2010) we note that a complete
desktop computer, ready to surf the Net costs less than IDR5million (USD500); a netbook
plus cellular data service modem can be purchased at IDR3million (USD300); internet-
enabled mobile phones are available at less than IDR1million (USD100) – and this price is

30

getting lower day by day. All of these, with the monthly cellular or non-FO cable broadband
subscription data at a flat rate of IDR200k (USD20), have probably changed the
communication culture, and even life-style, of Indonesians who can afford it and live in an
area where access is available.

These all have created what we call an ‘always online’ generation: those who are at all
times, 24/7, connected to the internet and online communication networks. By March 2010,
there were 3 million personal computers (including 2 million notebooks) sold in Indonesia.
During the day time, 40% of the internet access in Indonesia originates from offices and
schools/universities; and from cybercafés, hotspots and home at night. Sixty percent of the
total connection is from other gadgets, netbooks, laptops, and mobile phones. Blackberry
seems to be one of the most used devices, with around 1 million Indonesians using it – just
like in the US—and the flat dataplan price just dropped from IDR300k (USD30) to IDR90k
(USD9). ID-SIRTII estimate that there are approximately 135 mobile users, of which 85
million use GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) (although 175 GPRS numbers have been
sold in the country, and only 45 million active) and 12 million subscribe to 3G
(Manggalanny, 2010).

We can see here that the combination between the relatively low price of mobile gadgets
and the dataplan, and the telecommunication infrastructure which is wireless-biased, has
played a vital role in the emergence of this ‘always online’ generation. In both urban and
rural areas, especially in Java and Sumatra, it is easy to find streets full of mobile and data
plan outlets. What we saw in Yogyakarta for example, as depicted in Figure 12 below, can
also be easily seen in other cities, especially in Java-Bali and Sumatra.

Figure 13. Mobile vendors in a street in Yogyakarta
Source: Private collection. Used with permission from MS. Widyartini

What do Indonesians do online? The latest data from the government reports that social
networking is the most popular activity, even surpassing information searching (Kominfo,
2010). See Table 5.

31

Rank Site Rank Site
1 Facebook 2 Google.co.id
3 Google 4 Blogger.com
5 Yahoo! 6 Kaskus
7 Youtube 8 WordPress.com
9 Detik com 10 4-shared
11 Twitter 12 KOMPAS.com
13 Wikipedia 14 VIVAnews.com
15 Detiknews 16 Clicksor
17 Angege.com 18 KlikBCA
19 Zudu 20 Kapanlagi.com
Table 5. Top-20 most visited sites by Indonesians when online
Source: Kominfo (2010:47).

Indeed, Indonesia is now the world’s second-largest market for Facebook and the third-
largest for Twitter. Without even an office in Indonesia, Facebook users have reached more
than 35 million(Socialbakers, 2011), taking over the once-famous Friendster (this had been
forecast back in 2009) (see Figure 14). Some 20.8% of Indonesian internet users aged over 15
tweet, making them the most prolific users of Twitter on the planet (compared to Brazil with
20.5% and the US with 11.9%) (Doherty, 2010) which left Plurk.com behind very quickly. In
May 2010 Yahoo! ventured into the emerging social media market in Indonesia by buying
Koprol, a location-based social network (The Economist, 2011). Multiply plans to set up an
office in Jakarta to serve around 3 million loyal users who would like to sell goods and
services using the platform (Jakarta workshop, 21/10/10).

Figure 14. Facebook vs Friendster in Indonesia
Source: indonesiamatters.com (http://www.indonesiamatters.com/5072/time-wasters/)

This phenomenon may show that Indonesian culture seems to be highly receptive to online
socialising. People love publicity, do not care much about privacy and happily follow trends
– perhaps without knowing the exact consequences. A senior blogger from East Java asserts
strongly, “This is all about friends and attention. We love comments; we love to comment and, much
more than that, to be commented [on]” (SA, Malang-based blogger, Solo focus group, 11/10/10).
Online lifestyle in Indonesia currently revolves around news, social networking, blogging,
micro-blogging, chat, and online fun (e.g. games). Being online, for many Indonesians, also
means creating an imagined self through the creation of g virtual identities.

In online gaming, the phenomenon of dual identity is much more common; sometimes to
the extent of absurdity. In our fieldwork we met a group of die-hard gamers in Aceh who
play perfectworld (http://perfectworld.lytogame.com/), one of the most famous online
games in Indonesia, which has a number of local servers to handle huge data traffic. What
makes perfectworld popular, apart from its attractive storyline, is its ability to serve social

32

networking and to create alternative persona so that the gamers can have a completely, but
seemingly real, life. And they are willing to pay the price for that. A male player says,
I spent nearly 30 million rupiah [USD3k] to buy new armours for my avatar. I also spent around 15
million rupiah [USD1.5k] to buy accessories. Now I am highly respected in the perfectworld land.
People do not stand in my way. If they do I can easily kill [them]. … If I have to work, I pay my friend
or my relative to keep my avatar online. … Of course these all are expensive [to buy armours,
accessories, to pay people to play], but with all the respect I have now got in the gameland, that is
not really expensive, I think. … So, yes, I am willing to buy some more equipments and accessories
again, and to pay someone to keep my avatar online when I cannot. (NN, male perfectworld gamer,
Aceh, interview, 5/10/10)

For a society with more than 30% of the population living on or below the USD1 per-person-
per-day poverty line, what he does seems so difficult to understand. But things can be much
more extreme than that. When asked what the most fascinating thing about online gaming
is, one female player told us:
What I like [about perfectworld] is that I can be entirely a new individual. I have a [online] husband
there and I also have a [real] husband here. They know each other [in real life]. They even are
helpful to each other. When X [referring to her online husband] had problems, Y [referring to her
real husband] helped him to solve his problems. It was nice to see both engage very well. It is nice
to feel I have two husbands who are ready to help me online and offline (NN, female perfectworld
gamer, Aceh, interview, 5/10/10)

In Aceh, where these gamers live, and which is a strict Muslim community, her account
sounds to be quite bizarre. This can be interpreted as reflecting the sense of ‘internal
rebellion’ among female gamers against strict masculine Muslim culture, as much as the
pure enjoyment of having two completely different, and yet unified, self identities.
Whichever interpretation is true may matter less when it is put in a bigger picture, i.e. the
political economy of online interaction. Online gaming is indeed a new emerging market:
not only does this drive the development of online content, but it is done so that people can
really earn money from a virtual world. ‘Gold farmers’ are a new example of this (Heeks,
2010). So, although these phenomena may be common elsewhere, we perhaps need to be
cautious with the case of Indonesia, as it might be a special one, in that “… its social networks
freely integrate both real and imagined selves. The archipelago could prove a useful test market for
tech firms seeking to enter the wide-open and barely understood social-networking markets of the rest
of Asia” (The Economist, 2011). That is the picture of Indonesia before market capitalism.
Like it or not, it is the picture people are starting to make reference to.

The advancement of mobile phone technologies makes social networking easier. Recent
research conducted by Salingsilang.com confirms that most of the 22.7 million tweets
generated by 4.8 million people in January 2011 are mostly done from mobile gadgets
(SalingSilang, 2011). If Facebook is used more to share life and what people are doing, Twitter
has been a convenient means to exchange news and activities through micro-blogging.
Blogging itself remains popular in Indonesia. Up to January 2011, Salingsilang (2011)
tracked 4.1 million Indonesian blogs, mostly hosted in blogspot.com (81%), some in
wordpress.com (14.5%) and the rest in other blog service sites. However, of all blogs
tracked, only 32.67% were updated in the past three months. This suggests that despite
being online, the bloggers are mostly busy doing other things – or, something else takes
their blogging time.

In a focus group in Solo, during the discussion, a participant gave a hint:
I think Facebook is sometimes more [psychologically] rewarding than blogging. If I blog, I have to
think harder; I have to carefully compose the sentences and write the story of what I want to blog. I

33

may end up with a post of 20 or more sentences. But after two days, if lucky, I only have a couple of
comments. In Facebook, things are different. I can just post an eye-catching status, without having
too much thinking, such as “I let you go...” and within minutes I will receive tens of comments from
my friends and contacts. And so it is in Twitter. (Group discussion, Solo focus group, 11/10/10)

Apparently, what matters more and more to many people involved in social media or social
networking, is not just interactivity, but immediate interactivity. Time has become an
important dimension; swiftness determines not only what media is to be used, but also
influences what is to be said. Whether or not a ‘status update’ (be it on Facebook or Twitter)
reflects a thorough reflection or thought now matter less than it did before. Unfortunately,
we do not really understand what the full consequences of this will be.

Nurturing the sense of community is also part of online activism. Kaskus is the largest
Indonesian online community. It ranks as the 6th most popular website in Indonesia
(Kominfo, 2010) and is one of two local sites in the top 10 (detik.com at 9th), positioning at
351st worldwide. As of 22 April 2010, Kaskus has more than 1.6 million registered accounts.
As an online community Kaskus not only facilitates forum and discussion but also proves to
be a trusted market platform. Every month, approximately IDR2billion (USD200k) worth of
transactions take place in Kaskus. Yet Kaskus does not intend to impose transaction fees –
like in other social media sites (Andrew Darwis, founder of Kaskus, personal account,
9/12/10).

Until relatively recently, social media was seen by most of the people as a place for
socialising and befriending only. Yet several things happened and they have changed this
perception. First, the Prita Mulyasari case: Facebook was used to congeal the voice of those
disagreeing with the Omni International hospital and Attorney General’s Office’s reaction to
her complaint. Then, tweets showed their influence in the the Ritz Carlton-Marriot
bombings. Since Daniel Tumiwa first tweeted the news of the bombing followed by others
sending first photos, not only did Indonesian tweets dominate the conversation in Twitter
worldwide by pushing the hash-tag #indonesiaunite to the top trend topic, this movement
also influenced many people’s awareness of terrorism issues. Lastly, in the case of Bibit-
Chandra (also known as Cicak-Buaya depicting a fight against corruption): Facebook and
Twitter were used extensively by supporters and the dedicated Facebook page ‘Gerakan
1,000,000 Facebookers Dukung Chandra Hamzah & Bibit Riyanto’ succeeded to gather over 1.3
million followers.

Figure 15. The dedicated Facebook page to support for Bibit-Chandra
Source: Internet (http://www.Facebook.com/group.php?gid=169178211590)

34

We know that the story of the ‘other-side’ of social media in Indonesia does not stop there.
During the Mt. Merapi eruption in October-November 2010, for example, Twitter was heavily
used by Jalin Merapi and Combine Resource Institution to mobilise volunteers and distribute
aid to the victims. This was also the case (albeit to different extents) in other disasters like
the tsunami that hit the Mentawai islands and major flood in Wasior, Papua, all in the same
year. Twitter is also being used for socio-political movements. The ‘Save Jakarta’ movement,
born in twitland (or ‘twitpolis’ as termed by its activists) is aimed at letting common
citizens point out everyday problems that need to be fixed in the city by tweeting with the
hashtag #savejkt. But in addition, @savejkt also sets its sight on influencing future elections
in the city.

In sum, what we see here is that the Indonesian social media landscape is very dynamic.
Both as an online sphere and as a market, it is big, growing and really active. Not only has it
become a new media for information sharing, but it also has mediated more ‘conversations.’
With the imminent danger of information overload, what is needed is a credible party: news
organisation or ‘curator’. Conversations are manageable with the right tools. 11 Social
networking media such as Facebook and Twitter suit Indonesia for a number of reasons. First,
as argued here, mobile phones are very affordable. Second, there is already a strong sense
of community in the Indonesian culture. Finally, as social media is driven by celebrity and
something of an obsession with new technologies, trends spread quickly.

Although the Indonesian Internet and social media sphere may look like huge masses; these
masses are diverse and hugely varied. While people like InfoCom Minister Tiffatul
Sembiring may be a steady and prolific tweeter –despite that his tweets often ignite fury
among others— millions of people living on islands distant from Jakarta have never even
used a computer due to poverty and other social problems. This gap seems to be too wide to
bridge.

But there are groups of people, part of Indonesian civil society, who are actively working
with the common people, most of them poor and vulnerable. They, too, use Internet and
social media in somewhat different ways – or at least use them to serve different purposes.
We discuss this in the next chapter, and present our empirical findings.

11
There is a need for deeper research to understand the dynamics of social media exchange in Indonesia
and its impact.

35

4.
Indonesian civil society online: Profiles and patterns
We use Facebook and Twitter for socialising purpose, to attract audiences to visit our
website or blog. On the other hand, we maximise the use and functionality of our Wordpress
blogs and website. We have one website and four sub-blogs. They are essential because text
is our capital. People’s comments are currency. We want people to comment. We learn and
reflect from them, then we can write new posts … In turn, this also helps us update our
Twitter and Facebook. All new articles are promoted through them. In other words, we use
social media as promotion tools. We also maintain our mailing list as that keeps the option
open for those who prefer conventional exchange. And there are many of them.
(Ferdi Thajib, Senior Researcher, KUNCI-Yogyakarta, interview, 25/8/10)

Since the infamous NusaNet, a dial-up access at 9.6Kbps and an encrypted email system
established in the early 1990s by INFID, Indonesian civil society communities and
organisations have become active Netizens. Many groups and organisations within civil
society in Indonesia started using the Internet, reaping its benefit to exchange ideas and
develop networks with other organisations and activists. Until the late 1990s and the early
2000s, most of them were in the most active subset of CSOs (civil society organisations), i.e.
NGOs (non-governmental organisations) like WALHI and YLBHI. They played an important
role in providing Internet training to NGOs and democracy activists alike, all of which were
proven crucial when it came to coordinating campaigns and protests in cities throughout
Indonesia and consolidate the movement to challenge and eventually bring down Suharto’s
authoritarian regime (Nugroho, 2007, 2008, 2009).

After Soeharto’s era, the sphere of Indonesian civil society has become much more
dynamic. Over the past ten years or so, we have witnessed the blossoming of civil society
activism. Many groups have emerged, both formal (established and legalised by Notary act)
and informal (groups of users, communities, etc.), networking with both national and
international organisations alike, and they have both shaped and been shaped by the social,
economic and political development of the country. We argue, in our earlier works
(Nugroho, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010a, b, 2011; Nugroho and Tampubolon, 2008) that this
development has been very much characterised by their use of ICT, particularly the
Internet.

With regards to the use of the Internet by Indonesian civil society, despite being active
users, the ways in which civil society organisations use the technology is very much
characterised by their organisational profile (demographic features) and whether they are
an early or late adopter of the technology. Early adopters are likely to be established, large
and ‘rich’ organisations (Nugroho, 2007, 2010b). But another factor that also influences the
user profile is that of issues and concerns. The early and late majority adopters mostly work
on advocacy-type issues and concerns (like human rights, justice and peace, democratisation
and suchlike) whereas organisations who are leaders in adopting the Internet mostly work
on development-based issues and concerns (such as development, education and the like)
(Nugroho, 2010a, b). However, since the distinction between advocacy and development is
blurred, which in part is also affected by Internet use itself (Nugroho, 2008), it is
understandable that some organisations working in development-related issues and
concerns can also be found in the majority group, whereas most organisations working on

36

advocacy-type issues and concerns reside. Laggards, in addition, are more likely to be ‘non-
affirmative’ to issues and concerns which other CSOs are working on.

In terms of application, for civil society groups, it appears that email is the most used ,
followed by mailing lists, and web (Nugroho, 2007). This use has contributed much to the
dynamism of the civil society sphere. One of the most visible dynamics, perhaps, is the
widening network of Indonesian civil society, which not only link with national
organisations but also with global civil society groups, despite criticism (Nugroho and
Tampubolon, 2008). However, when we look at the organisational level, we find that the
technological adoption trajectory is quite different to firms or public sector institutions.
Civil society groups tend to configure technologies to meet their needs. They develop their
‘configurational capability’, and as such, they do not just adopt and use the technology –
they appropriate it (Nugroho, 2011).

Now, has the picture changed? In this study we revisit and update our previous works and,
through fieldwork data collection, we ask a further, deeper, question: What processes are
involved in the creation, and contribute to the organisation, expansion and sustainability of civil
society groups and organisations when they adopt and use new media and ICT?

4.1. Internet and social media: adoption, use, and appropriation
We find from our survey that some 78% of our respondents start using the Internet within
the first three years of becoming established (with 64% immediately upon establishment).
See Table 6. Taking into account that most of these organisations are set-up after the
reform era, and at the time when the Internet is relatively more available, these groups and
communities are early adopters of Internet technology 12 .

# Answer n %
1 Yes, immediately upon established 150 64%
2 Yes, within a year since established 8 3%
3 Yes, within 1-3 years since established 25 11%
4 Yes, after 3 or more years since established 48 21%
5 No. Why? 3 1%
Total 234 100%
Table 6. When did your organisation start using the Internet?
N=234

When we investigated those who do not use the Internet, we found that this was due to the
unavailability of an adequate internet access.

From those who use the Internet we further asked about some basic Internet applications
that they use/adopt. Mailing lists are used by 75% of the respondents who connect to the
Internet. Whilst 72% of the respondents have an organisation website, which is currently
seen as the must-have online presence, much less (39%) have blogs. See Table 7. We looked,
at a more detailed level, into the reasons that those organisations do not use website.

12
We refer to the classical adopter category as proposed in the diffusion of innovations research (Rogers,
1995)

37

Among the most common reasons are that they cannot afford a decent one; they do not
have the expertise needed to create and maintain the website; and that there is no one in
the organisation capable of managing it.

Does your organisation/community/group use …
mailing list? website? blog?
# Answer n % # Answer n % # Answer n %
1 Yes 174 75% 1 Yes 167 72% 1 Yes 90 39%
2 No. Why? 57 25% 2 No. Why? 64 28% 2 No. Why? 144 61%
Total 231 100% Total 231 100% Total 231 100%
Table 7. The use of Internet technologies
N=231

With regards to blogging, which seems to be unpopular at least among our respondents, we
investigated further to see what was causing this reticence. It appears, in most cases, that
the functionality of the blog as a tool for information updating has been covered in the
website. Other salient reasons include the lack of time for continuous updating and that
there are no staff who can take care of the blog. Can this fact indicate a low uptake of web
2.0 among Indonesian civil society? Quite possibly, especially if we take a macro
perspective. Among our respondents are blogger communities, a subset of civil society
groups, and through them we endeavour to understand blogging as civic activism.

Currently there are some 20 blogger communities across archipelago, mostly concentrated
in Java-Bali, then Sumatra, and some in Kalimantan and Sulawesi (SalingSilang, 2011). They
are connected with each other and often collaborate closely.

Figure 16. Map of blogger communities in Indonesia
Source: SalingSilang.com (2011)

Why do they blog and why can blogging be seen as constituting civic activism? Some
interview accounts below may provide us with some perspectives on their goals and
missions and concerns:
[We] blog with a mission: to promote cultural heritage in Ponorogo. We feel that in Ponorogo we
have a very special cultural heritage, i.e. reyog. But it is not well promoted to people outside this
region. So, that becomes one of our missions. We, bloggers in Ponorogo, gather and we feel united
in our willingness to make people out there know and get familiar with our culture. … I think, to

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some extent, we succeed. Even the local government, who actually did not do their job to promote
our local culture [like reyog] has now recognised what we are doing and is now supporting us
(KAM, Ponorogo-based blogger, interview, 7/9/10)

Many of us already blogged before we established [the community: Plat-M]. Our mission is to write,
to blog, everything about the potentials in Madura island. We want Madura to be exposed in the
virtual world. We want as many people to know about Madura as possible. So far, if you query
about Madura in search engines like Google, most likely only bad things, or negative content about
Madura that appear. So we want to counter this. We want to write as many positive contents about
Madura as possible. This includes people, customs, culture, etc. (NA, Madura-based blogger,
interview, 8/9.10)

[As] a community of bloggers, we want to educate our society – our local society. We want to
educate them how to write and how to blog properly. We want to build what we call citizen
journalism and we want to be the bridge between the people and the government. It is to realise
what we want that we have some programmatic agenda such as workshops, trainings, and
discussions on blogging. We have collaborated with the local government to organise a blog
competition [in Depok]. It was because of that event we could communicate our ideas with the
government, also business, and we managed to gather so many bloggers in Depok to share our
idea about educating the society. … Another event that we organise is ngabubur-IT [Sundanese
word ngabuburit means gathering]. We invited people from seven cities and now the event is very
well known. This gave birth to the internetsehat [healthy internet], which has a very strong visibility
and influence in Indonesian cyberspace – so strong that the Minister of Information and
Communication even uses the same label. Those events that we organise have had big impact and
influence and made us, Blogger Depok, well know. We want to be model for other communities and
for the society (DM, Depok-based blogger, interview, 27/8/10, original wordings in italics).

[Our] main goal is to make people in Surabaya know and get more familiar with blogging. Our main
activity is capacity building – we do trainings on blogging. We also organise dissemination
workshops and seminars and radio talk-shows to introduce blog and blogging. We also disseminate
the idea of internet sehat [healthy internet] and internet aman [safe internet] as wide as possible.
So, yes, the main element of our activity is indeed capacity building. (NR, Surabaya-based blogger,
interview, 22/8/10)

What we find, and as the quotes above assert, is that blogging has indeed changed, and at
the same time been changed by, the landscape of civic activism in Indonesia. Despite being
small in number, blogs can facilitate and animate movement. In our field observation we
heard a story from an Aceh Blogger Community who helped refugees from Rohingya,
Myanmar, sometime in 2009. Rohingya people are Muslims who were oppressed in their
home country and were told to leave it. Quite a large number of these people took Refugee
in Aceh. On 20 February 2009, the Aceh Blogger Community donated to the local
government of East Aceh some IDR5.1million (USD500) for some 200 Rohingya refugees
there. The Aceh Blogger Community, together with the Linux User Community in Aceh
spent more than two weeks doing two things: (1) campaigning for support for these
refugees through blogs and Facebook and (2) collecting money directly from the public. They
blogged at night and stood on street junctions in Banda Aceh during the day with donation
boxes, asking people to donate. Thanks to their postings in blogs and Facebook, and thanks
to the blooming internet café across Banda Aceh since the Tsunami, people were aware of
the situation. Not only did they give generously, they also become supporters of the cause,
forcing the government to take more careful and friendly steps in dealing with these
refugees. No matter how small the donation was, it “…meant so much for them [refugees] not
only that this is Muslim solidarity, but moreover because of the humanitarian solidarity. We do not
discriminate based on neither ethnicity, nor religions” (NN, Aceh Blogger Community, focus
group discussion, 5/10/20).

What about other Web 2.0 or social media applications? We asked this in the survey and it is
apparent that Indonesian civil society groups, as represented in our respondents, are active
users. Facebook is the most widely used social media, followed by Twitter and Youtube.

39

Figure 17. The use of new social media in Indonesian civil society communities and organisations
N=231; multiple responses allowed; 0=not at all, 6=very intensive

With this advent of social media in particular and the Internet in general, one might ask, at
this point, how the use of this technology can be managed in civil society? Indeed, using or
adopting technology is one thing; strategically managing it is a completely different matter.
Our fieldwork informs that, unfortunately, not many civil society groups properly devise
strategies to use the wide range of Internet technology today. Among the few that do, AIMI-
ASI (Asosiasi Ibu Menyusui Indonesia, or Indonesian Association of Breastfeeding Mothers)
share its experience,
[We] use all popular technologies [which are] available. We us mailing list, website, Facebook and
Twitter, of course in different proportions. This all depends on the purposes that we have. We find
different technology can serve different purpose. We use [mailing] list ASI for Baby as a media for
sharing and information exchanging for our members. [This is a] two-way interaction. For example a
new mom who has problems with breastfeeding will share her problem in the list, then other moms
will share their experience and try to help. … Website is designed as the information point. We post
all information, both educative material on breastfeeding and news about our activities, in the
website. The [educative] material we provide covers numerous topics on breastfeed, breastfeeding,
breast milk, including related regulations and laws. … We have our organisation Facebook page
that we use as a medium for consultancy for members. The moms seek advice through the
Facebook page and we give answer and advice through dedicated system and staff called on floor
lactation and lactation counsellors. We use Twitter to recruit new members. Not all of our followers
are our members. Not all of our followers know about us. Not all of our followers even know about
breastfeeding properly. So we use it to reach out. Not much can be said within the 140 characters,
though. So we just post brief information about breastfeeding, short consultancy, and links to
articles and information in our websites... so if you asked which one we used the most, I cannot
really answer because they all are used to serve different purposes (MS, Jakarta-based advisory
group, interview, 20/8/10).

What AIMI shows is an act of Internet and social media appropriation, i.e. a strategic use
where the user directs the technology for their own purposes, utilises it to achieve their
own objectives and makes it their own – rather than mere adoption or use. If Indonesian
civil society groups and communities are to make significant impacts, they have to
appropriate technologies which are available to them, and not just use or adopt it
uncritically. Of course this is not easy as they have to understand not only about what
different technologies can do, but more importantly about the different purposes the
organisation has that can be served by these different technologies. This, certainly, is the

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area where further works are needed – in order to strengthen the profile of the technology
use of civil society.

Using new media technology does not mean that conventional media is left unutilised. SMS
remains as the most used, followed by Blackberry messenger, perhaps as an impact of the
‘Blackberry-boom’ in Indonesia. In addition to this, media like radio and television are also
still alive at community level, in which the society, and the people themselves, define what
is to be broadcast. The survey shows that quite a number of civil society communities use
community radio, and relatively fewer, community television.

Figure 18. The use of conventional media in Indonesian civil society groups and organisations

It is not uncommon to see civil society groups use more than one media, combining both
new and conventional ones. However from our exploration, this sort of use is not widely
strategised – and instead is used more arbitrarily or reactively. For example, using SMS and
Blackberry messenger alongside email, website, Twitter, and Facebook is often done in an ad
hoc manner, rather than being carefully planned and designed. When used in convergence,
different technologies can make huge impact.

Here, the experience of Combine Resource Institution (combine.or.id) which helped Jalin Merapi
coordinate the mobilisation of humanitarian voluntary workers and aids during the havoc
caused by the eruption of Mt. Merapi in October 2010 may be a good example. The news and
update (be they about the refugees or about the volcanic activities of the mountain) were
sent by the volunteers via HT (handy transceiver), or SMS. This news and update were then
relayed to tens of thousands followers of Jalin Merapi (@JalinMerapi and @JalinMerapi_en),
which then automatically appeared on the dedicated page http://merapi.combine.or.id,
spread through the Facebook page (http://www.Facebook.com/pages/Jalin-
Merapi/115264988544379) and was broadcast over the community radio network. The
website itself then functioned as a landing page which integrated all information to and
from the public and converged all media involved in the creation of the content.

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Figure 19. Website Jalin Merapi
Source: http://merapi.combine.or.id – visited 13/2/11

The convergence between new social media (Facebook, Twitter, Blog) and the conventional
ones (community radio, HT, SMS) as shown by CRI and Jalin Merapi, or media strategy such
as demonstrated by AIMI-ASI earlier, certainly do not take place in a vacuum. Furthermore,
it is not only about technology use, but the real work, engagement, and involvement of the
volunteers in Jalin Merapi, and AIMI-ASI likewise. It is this kind of use –which is
appropriated, strategic and impacting—and it is grassroots involvement and work with
beneficiaries and people that should be the aim for civil society groups and organisations
when using and adopting technology.

Here we may recall the work of Callon and Law (1997) who underlined that the capacity for
strategy is ‘an effect of a more or less stable arrangement of materials’ (p.177). From this view,
strategic action is a collective property, rather than something carried out by individuals in
the collective. The example of Jalin Merapi and AIMI-ASI substantiate this paradigm.
However as use and adoption is also never a black-box-like process (Molina, 1997; Nugroho,
2011), we need to see what actually drives, as well as inhibits, civil society groups and
communities in using Internet and social media.

4.2. Drivers and barriers to Internet and social media adoption
An important point informed by diffusion theory is that it is the individual’s perception of
the attributes of an innovation that affects adoption, not those attributes defined by
experts. There are five perceived attributes that are believed to determine the rate of

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adoption, i.e. (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability and (5)
observability. These attributes have been most extensively investigated to explain variance
in the rates of adoption (Rogers, 1995). We use this insight in our attempt to explore and
explain why Indonesian civil society groups and communities adopt the Internet and social
media and what perceptions have characterised the reason for adoption, be it from internal
or external perspectives.

Drivers

When asked about the organisational internal reason for using the Internet and social
media, most of our respondents say that it is mainly because of (1) information-related
reasons (seeking alternative data source, etc.), (2) identity reasons (to increase public
visibility, etc.), (3) performance reasons (to achieve missions, targeted goals, etc.), (4)
technology-related reasons (catching up with technological advancement), and (5) financial
reasons (saving cost for communication, administration, back-office, etc.). Much less than a
quarter of the respondents feel that their organisation/group/community uses the Internet
because of a bottom-up initiative or conversely, top-down instruction.

Figure 20. Organisational internal reasons for using Internet and social media

This finding may suggest that while the need to be kept up to date with current information
is the strongest internal driver for Internet and social media adoption, reasons related to
increasing an organisation’s public visibility have internally driven the adoption more
strongly than the increasing effectiveness and efficiency of works and a ‘craving’ for new
technology.

Externally, some of the top reasons for adopting the Internet and social media in civil
society are networking, collaboration and extending knowledge and perspective. This also
shows that the issue of competition is not an important one for adopting the Internet and
social media in civil society. See Figure 21.

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Figure 21. Organisational external reasons for using Internet and social media

This result highlights some points of interest. One, the main reason for adoption seems to
have risen from the need for mutual relationships with other communities, including
networking, collaboration, widening perspectives and to seek knowledge. In contrast,
organisational egocentric motives like accumulating power, gaining influence or competing
against each other are significantly low drivers for the adoption. Two, social esteem (e.g.
adopting Internet and social media because it is popular and used by other organisations)
drives the adoption more than the need to facilitate changes does (e.g. empowerment,
intermediary, and influence reasons).

Barriers

Now, having mapped the drivers, we pose the question of what the barriers to Internet and
social media adoption are? However, it is not easy to address such a question
straightforwardly. To approach this inquiry the survey posed two questions. One question
addressed the ‘negative aspects’ caused by the use of the Internet and social media, and the
other one, the extent to which some factors hampered Internet and social media use.

Figure 22. Negative aspects caused by Internet and social media use

The most observable negative aspect of Internet and social media use in civil society seems
to be a technical one (computer virus). Yet, what is striking, although not surprising, is that
in a significant number of cases, the technology is distractive to the organisation staff.
Internet and social media use is not really seen to cause the organisation’s issues and
concerns to become biased.

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In terms of difficulties, the survey shows that lack of money, resource, infrastructure and
expertise seem to be high (moderate to very high) on the list. Perhaps due to the nature of
the organisation, problems like internal policies, external politics, conservative cultures,
and many others, do not contribute significantly (low and very low) to the difficulties in the
use of Internet and social media in the majority of Indonesian civil society groups and
communities. See Figure 23.

Figure 23. Difficulties in the use of Internet and social media

From these findings, it seems that the barriers to Internet and social media adoption are
more technical (in all respects) than substantial across our respondents. This reflects some
common problems experienced by late adopters, which perhaps strengthens the indication
that civil society is lagging behind (despite probably having ability to quickly catch up) in
the adoption of Internet and social media. This may also relate to the particular
circumstances in Indonesia where the availability of Internet access and the development of
telecommunication infrastructure is unequally distributed.

Perceived attributes

The data on the internal and external drivers of Internet and social media adoption in
Indonesian civil society can be used to assess perceived attributes that determine adoption
rate (Rogers, 1995). The first attribute is relative advantage, i.e. the degree to which an
innovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supersedes, which can be expressed
as economic profitability or as conveying social prestige. Internally, many groups within
Indonesian civil society perceive that the Internet and social media enable organisations to
be more knowledgeable and to be more visible publicly. Externally the technologies are
perceived to help the way that communities network and collaborate.

The second attribute is the compatibility of the technology with the organisation’s values,
aims and needs. It is evident that external reasons for the adoption of the Internet and
social media are heavily characterised by the notion of compatibility. They are perceived to
be compatible and can fulfil the needs for networking and better collaboration in civil
society. In addition, it is also perceived to be able to offer relevant knowledge and
information according to the issues and concerns of the organisations and is also seen as
effective means to disseminate information and thus to empower and to influence society.

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The third attribute is complexity. It has been commonly perceived that the Internet and
social media represent hi-tech products that can be quite complex to understand and use
and requires an element of ‘learning’ in the user. Despite the claim that advancement in
technological devices will make them easier to use, still, civil society needs to learn how to
use the technology. They need to invest more time and effort to effectively, strategically
(and politically) use the technology.

The fourth and the fifth attributes, trialability and observability, seem to go together in
characterising the Internet as an innovation when adopted in civil society. In many cases
civil society communities would need to observe the results of adopting the new
technology, which can only be achieved through experimenting with it on a limited basis.
Only after they have been convinced that the technology serves their purpose (and they are
able to afford it), would they fully adopt it.

In hindsight, from the points on the perceived attributes above, it seems that it is the
‘newness’ embedded in the Internet and social media that brings so many qualities and
drives civil society to adopt the technology. What can we expect to see when civil society
takes advantage of this ‘newness’ through appropriation?

4.3. Beyond communication tools?
We asked our respondents how they used, and later appropriated, Internet and social
media. Most of them access it through high-speed connection – taking advantages of being
located in Java and/or cities where broadband access is available.

# Answer n %
1 None. We do not provide internet access in the office 6 3%
2 Dial-up access 37 17%
3 Broadband (cable, ADSL, etc.) 124 56%
4 None. We use public internet kiosks/telecentres 19 9%
5 Access through other organisation's 9 4%
6 Other, please mention 27 12%
Total 222 100%
Table 8. The provision of Internet access in civil society groups and organisations
N=222

Our direct observations across four regions (from Aceh to Denpasar) during fieldwork in
October 2010 confirm that telecommunication infrastructure remains problematic. The
unavailability of, or unequal access to, infrastructure hampers many civic groups or
communities in carrying out activities on the Net. To name a few: narrow bandwidth
restricts video or media activisms in cities like Yogyakarta and Jakarta (HF, interview,
26/8/10); bloggers (and Netizens alike) in Ngawi can only rely on Warnet (internet kiosks)
due to unavailability of Internet access (SA, interview, 7/9/10).

As logical consequence of this, mobile-internet (over mobile phone platforms) has become a
widely spread mode of use. In turns, this shapes not only the activism of civil society on the
Net, but also the Internet use in civil society itself. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the
issue of social media application, mobile-friendly apps are popular. As also confirmed in
the survey and interviews, the observation corroborates that Facebook (and Twitter) are the

46

‘killer applications’ that dominates the internet-use landscape in civil society groups and
communities. Many civic groups are also found to be actively using the media as a channel
for campaign, advocacy, and recruitments. Yet, how do they shape the Net? How do they
contribute to the creation of the content?

It seems the engagement with new media has somewhat changed the way Indonesian civil
society accesses the Net. Today, not only do they access information available on the Net,
they also provide information that others can access.

# Answer n %
1 We provide much more information than what we access 46 21%
2 We provide more information than what we access 30 14%
3 Balance between providing and accessing information 108 49%
4 We access more information than what we provide 33 15%
5 We access much more information than what we provide 5 2%
Total 222 100%
Table 9. Provision and access of information on the Net
N=222

About half of our respondents provide at least as much information as they access. Some
35% even provide more information than they access. This means, arguably, that
Indonesian civil society has been actively contributing to the creation of the content of the
Net – not solely communicating and exchanging news.

We also investigated the extent to which civil society groups and communities use Internet
in their activities. Most of them (45%) use it in nearly all aspects and a significant
proportion (38%) use it in some important aspects in their activities.

# Answer Response %
1 We use it in nearly all aspects in our activities 98 45%
2 We use it only in some important aspects in our activities 82 38%
3 We use it only in some aspects in our activities 36 17%
4 No. We don't use it at this level 0 0%
Total 216 100%
Table 10. The use of Internet and social media in civil society groups and organisations.
N=216

Such patterns of use, as observed here, may have contributed to the creation of a more
active, technology-savvy, and creative civil society which has gone beyond using the
Internet and social media as tools for communication. In our observation we encountered a
number of groups of civil society which matched these characteristics across the region
that we visited. Among them is Jalin Merapi, a group of volunteer and humanitarian workers.
We recount a testimony of a volunteer below:
It was 5 November 2010, 19.30 [Indonesia time], when a call from a voluntary fieldworker alerted
us. We received an emergency request from our Post at Wedi, Klaten, who just received refugees
from Balerante and Sidorejo, and now needed 6,000 portion of nasi bungkus (rice meal). That
phone call was so desperate, asking us to tell the public about the need for nasi bungkus. We did
not dare to promise anything as it was already night time. Who could have provided that much rice
meal in such circumstance? However, we kept trying. Our admin team did everything they could.
Some called other Posts or refugee camps who might have some surplus of rice meal. But we did
not get what we needed. Not even close. At 19.55, Nasir tweeted: #DONASI nasbung utk 6000
pengungsi di Pusdiklatpor Depo Kompi C, Wedi, Klaten. MALAM INI | Candy 081XXXXXXXXX

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[literally: #DONATION ricemeal for 6000 refugees at Pusdiklatpor Depo Kompi C, Wedi, Klaten,
TONIGHT | Candy 081XXXXXXXX]. The time passed so slowly. We knew the tweet was re-
tweeted by the followers of @JalinMerapi. In half an hour, the phone rang again. The very volunteer
in Klaten told us, gladly, that they have received the rice meal for the 6000 refugees. He wanted us
to tell the public about the matter so that there would be no excess of rice meal. We were so glad
and felt relieved. One of us, unfortunately I forgot who, tweeted: #DONASI Puslatpur Depo Kompi
C, Wedi, Klaten sdh kelebihan stok nasbung. Air minum masih dibutuhkan [literally: #DONATION
Puslatpur Depo Kompi C, Wedi, Klaten has received more than enough rice meals. Fresh water is
still needed]. (ASD, Jalin Merapi volunteer, interview and written testimony, emailed 15/12/10)

As a civic community, Jalin Merapi realised the magnitude of the work it was doing. The use
of social media like Twitter has been proven useful not just to communicate news and
situation updates but more importantly to mobilise helps and aids. Of course, public
participation is vital – that civil society groups and organisations have to actively involve
the wider public. Our informant gives us further data on the dynamics of public
participation with Jalin Merapi,
Among other social media, we found Twitter is the quickest. At that time [when Mt. Merapi erupted
on 27/10/10] the followers of @JalinMerapi had already reached 800. By the end of that day the
number of Twitter followers of @JalinMerapi kept increasing to 7,000, while the members in our
Facebook page reached 200. The number of the Twitter follower continuously increased and by the
morning of 28/10/10 there were 10,000 followers. When the biggest eruption took place on the 5
November 2010 the Twitter follower reached 36,000. Until today, the number of our Twitter follower
is between 32,000 and 33,000. To me it is fantastic. Our followers, public, help us by providing
various information, from the info on volcanic activity of the mountain, to the condition of the
refugees who need logistic and helps. (ASD, Jalin Merapi volunteer, interview and written
testimony, emailed 15/12/10)

We are granted permission to use the geographical map of @JalinMerapi followers,
generated by Lim and Utami (forthcoming), to enrich this report.

Figure 24. Map of the followers of @JalinMerapi
Source: Lim and Utami (forthcoming), with permission.

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We can see that the followers of @JalinMerapi are well distributed globally. The data
further shows that about 55% of them identify their locations as Indonesia, mostly in
Yogyakarta (25%), followed by Jakarta (14%) (Lim and Utami, forthcoming).

What we can see from Jalin Merapi case, as well as in other cases featured here earlier, is an
endeavour of civil society community in using, adopting, and eventually appropriating
Internet and social media to support the achievement of their missions and goals. In doing
so, they gradually extend their understanding about the technology: from a mere tool to
communicate, socialise and network, into a tool for social change.

4.4. In hindsight and summary
We have seen, in this chapter, processes that are involved in the creation, and contribute to
the organisation, expansion and sustainability of civil society groups and organisations
when they adopt, use, and appropriate the Internet and new media. The characteristics of
new social media –openness, participation, conversation, community and connectedness (as
identified by Mayfield, 2008) –makes it convenient for civil society to use in order to assist
them in achieving their missions and goals. The aim should be, obviously, beyond
technological, but rather the widening of the interaction between civil society groups and
communities and the beneficiaries they work with and for. Only when civil society can
maintain a dynamic interaction with the public through their strategic use of the popular
new social media, can we expect that the impact of the civic activism will be much more
significant.

Social shaping and social construction of technology offer a useful perspective to reflect on
this chapter. On the one hand, it can be seen that technology plays a role in almost all
aspects of society; on the other it is known that social arrangements are embodied in the
development of the technology (Bijker et al., 1993; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985).
Therefore, it may be better to understand the role of technology by conceptualising it as a
process in which society is reorganising itself into ever new forms dialectically. This means that
while an arrangement of elements (be it institutional, technical and cultural) stabilises in
new technological devices, they provide new possibilities of doing things and in the process
of putting the devices to use, they are actuated. This is how we should put the adoption, use
and appropriation of Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society groups and
communities into perspective. As Callon and Law (1997) argue, strategic action is an
inherent part of collective property. The actions of individuals matters less if it is not
situated within the groups, communities, or organisations as collectives.

What we find seems to strengthen a current strand of sociotechnical studies. A similar
argument, albeit in a slightly different context, is argued by Callon and Rabeharisoa (2008)
who look at the emergence of concerned groups and explore how these groups contribute
to shaping the relations between technoscience, politics, and economic markets. To them,
under certain conditions, emergent concerned groups are able to impose a new form of
articulation between scientific research and political identities by directly linking the issues
of research content and results to that of their place in the collective. The cases with Jalin
Merapi, AIMI-ASI, support for Prita Mulyasari and Bibit-Chandra, are very much in the same
vein.

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The diffusion of the Internet and social media itself is not, and will never be, a black-box
process. Our previous research on the diffusion of the Internet in Indonesian CSO (Nugroho,
2007, 2011) confirms this. An earlier study in a different context by Molina (1997) also
emphasises the influence of social behavioural factors in the outcome of diffusion. Here, in
the core, is the process of sociotechnical alignment underpinning the diffusion of
technology (Molina, 1998).

Whether, and to what extent, the use of such social media impacts towards civic activism
and transforms the civic realms will be discussed in the next chapter.

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5.
Transformation of the civic realms:
Intended or unintended?
[Back] in 1996 we might have just used [Internet technology] without awareness. Now, it is
imperative for us to use [it] appropriately, with full awareness, which often is beyond or
outside the technology domain, like politics, environment. [We have to be] aware of the
extent to which technology use impacts or will impact our society, our own pattern of
energy consumption, and many others. [What we have to embrace are] awareness that are
even new for us, civil society. Can we be critical towards dominant de facto idea? Of course
that is risky, but [it is] our call. The challenges are there … So we have to use these new
digital and information technologies with a critical view, not only about the technology
itself, but about what it can be used for in order to transform our society.
(Gustaff H. Iskandar, Coordinator of CommonRoom, Bandung, focus group, 7/10/10)

The advancement of ICT, particularly Internet technology, has given new impetus for the
birth, or more precisely the reinvention, of civil society (Hajnal, 2002). The way civil society
work is now even defined or understood as a network –of concerned individuals, groups,
communities, organisations, or movements – that aims for a societal change or
transformation. In the context of an infant democracy like Indonesia, the ideal for such
change and transformation often revolves around the two fundamental agendas:
democratisation and freedom of information. What makes civil society movements special,
perhaps, is that not only do they operate beyond traditional boundaries of societies,
polities, and economies (Anheier et al., 2001), but also that they, as civic movement and
collective actions (Blumer, 1951; Crossley, 2002; Della-Porta and Diani, 2006), influence the
framework of governance. Internet adoption and use have made civil society more
prominent in this role.

This chapter aims to answer a key question in this study: To what extent and in what ways has
the use of new media and ICT characterised the ways in which civil society groups and organisations
perform and address their goals as well as engage in collaboration and networking? We attempt to
answer this question, and also examine the above arguments, by presenting some relevant
findings from our survey; from group discussions during our field observation (October
2010), and from the workshop held in Jakarta (21/10/10).

5.1. What transformation?
It is not easy to agree on the notion of social, or societal, transformation in Indonesia. Partly
because as a developing economy and infant democracy which has just been set free from
authoritarian regime, there are far too many societal conditions that need to be
transformed, for the sake of a better standard of living for society. Therefore
transformation itself has many dimensions.

It is impossible to portray the whole spectrum of transformation and in this study we do not
attempt to do so. Instead, we just present some anecdotal cases through which the complex
nature of societal transformation might be understood.

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The first story is about a children’s community. In a kampong in Subak Dalem, Denpasar,
Bali, a young couple –Anton Muhajir and Luh De Suriyani, both activists—work closely with
children (age 5-15years) in the area. Having a toddler themselves, they decided to convert
part of their house into a public space for the children, who come to learn, to play, and to
socialise there. These children set up a community, which they call NakNik (which means
small kid). This community becomes their second home. For a period of time, they even
blog and share their stories in the blog (naknik.wordpress.com). Through this community,
and the companionship of Anton and Luh De, these children learn the way they can live as
neighbours with respect, despite their differences. They wrote in their blog:
We live in a slum settlement. We all [in this kampong] are newcomers. Most of us are from
Karangasem. … Most of us are mixed origin; some of us Bali – Lamongan, Bali – Lumajang, East
Timor – Padang, Bali – Jember, etc. You can also see that in a house there can be many religions.
For example, Dodik is Muslim because of her mother, while his brother Satria is Hindu because of
his father. You can also meet Jenifer and William who are Christian, different from their younger
brother who are Muslim. Cool, isn’t it? (Naknik.wordpres.com visited 12/1/10)

What transformation do these children wish? In their own words:
If possible at all, we would like to expand our community, to reach our friends in Subak Dalem and
its surroundings. … Wish there were.. place for us … [that] can be a place for learning about
everything for everyone for free, including our pre-school friends, homschoolers, etc. Illiterate adults
are also welcome to learn here. There are still many people out there who cannot read. … What we
usually do is creative actions: we learn something different from what we do at school. We learn
about waste processing, creative writing, and public speaking. … That is why most of our activities
are to empower children, to empower ourselves. (Naknik.wordpres.com visited 12/1/10)

In a country where diversity is actually a fabric of societal life, what NakNik aims for, and
what Anton and Luh De do, is highly relevant. It is even more relevant taking into account
the recent incidents which have torn at the nation’s very belief in ‘unity in diversity’, such
as recent violence and killings in the name of religion. Even, whilst this report is being
drafted, some policy makers have started to consider discriminating against some minority
religious groups.

Another story paints an important picture: Gaining popularity as one of the most wanted
destinations for international tourists does not, in reality, make Bali wealthy – at least the
wealth is unfairly distributed. While the southern part of Bali enjoys the development and
the income from tourism, the northern part is deprived of even basic provisions. A
community called Komunitas Anak Alam (www.anakalam.org) works with the poor in
Karangasem, probably the most deprived area in Bali, to help them improve their
livelihood, especially the livelihood of the children. In a discussion, the community leader
openly says,
I witness with a deep sadness how dogs and pets are being taken care by international NGOs, [the
preservation of endangered] animals like green turtle is sponsored by many big companies, the
many international schools are established in cities, who care about the future of these deprived
children here in the middle of the Island of Gods [Bali]? Their voice is never heard. They live in a
remote poor village near Batur lake, Kintamani. While children of their age in cities go to good
schools, enjoy modern entertainments like playstation or going to malls, these children here have to
work very hard, helping their poor parents. Some of them have to walk a great distance just to get
fresh water, or to gather woods for fire. Just look at their pictures on our website
[http://www.anakalam.org/galeri_foto1.htm] and you’ll see for yourself (PPS, Komunitas Anak Alam,
Denpasar focus group, 16/10/10)

Indeed some ideas about transformation concern social-economic (in)justice. Again this
cannot be separated from the county’s very centralistic development policy that in the end
left many regions undeveloped. In our Focus Group Discussion in Denpasar hosted by the

52

Sloka Institute (16/10/10) we learned that in addition to the fulfilment of ecosoc (economic,
cultural and social) rights, another idea concerning social transformation is about the
freedom of information, which at the moment is one of the most discussed topics in
Indonesia. Since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (FoI) law on 3/4/08, the
government of Indonesia has to acknowledge that access to information is a fundamental
human right, and that the right to information for their citizens has to be protected.
However in order for the freedom of information to be beneficial for development (as it is
believed it can be) it implies an imperative to educate citizens so that they can be
knowledgeable in exercising their rights.

Across our field work, we also noticed another idea of social transformation that links both
to the knowledge-based civil society and democratic society. This is quite subtle for this
idea often challenges not only the transformation of outside realm, but also inside realm of
the civil society itself. An account in our Focus Group Discussion in Yogyakarta hosted by
the Combine Research Institution (12/10/10) by a group of young santri (Islamic religious
pupils) best represents this concern:
Nowadays, what we are working on is to encourage pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) to do
information exchange. We suspect that there has been some stagnations in pesantren, especially
those of the third generation. The third generation of pesantren leaders [i.e. the grandson of the
founder] usually have lost the very core spiritual idea of the founder. They just inherit the big name,
like Ali Makshum. If we do not take care of this stagnation, this will certainly affect the younger
Muslim generation here. … This is not just about pesantren belong to NU [Nahdlatul Ulamma] but
also in general. … At the moment we work with five pesantren in Yogyakarta: Pandanaran,
Lukmaniyah, Umbul Harjo, Krapyak, and in Imogiri. What we imagine about transformation is the
emergence of a young, well informed Muslim generation. We initiate a movement we call Gerakan
Islam Indonesia [Indonesian Islamic Movement]. Our challenge is one, but grand: now we notice
the emergence of new Islamic movements aiming at Islamising the country. They are actually small
groups, but very noisy and work very hard to influence and shape public opinion using new media
like Internet. So, whenever we seek for any information or discourse about Islam [on the Internet],
what we get is the knowledge produced by these groups. So, this is our challenge. Can we take
advantage of the Islamic movement that has long and historical roots, who actually played an
important role in establishing this Republic? Can the very idea of Indonesian Islam be spread and
disseminated more widely? This requires us, the true Indonesian muslim to be more open than
before, to let public know us, to let them access our khazanah [knowledge-base] – not like what it is
now: difficult and bureaucratic. Can we? (NN, Gerakan Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta focus group,
12/10/10)

Some commentators argue that at the moment Indonesia is being torn apart by two
fundamentalisms: religion and market. While religious fundamentalism is often associated
with the emergence of more radical Islamic groups imposing their idea to convert Indonesia
into an Islamic state and to impose Sharia Law at all expense, market fundamentalism is
often referred to as the way the neoliberal economic system works through policy and
practice, marginalising the poor and discarding alternative economies. A different aspect of
transformation, understandably, also concerns the latter, i.e. the alternative economy.

At grassroots level, many civil society groups and communities have been working to
promote an alternative economy. Across the country, development civil society
organisations have been working hard to promote micro-credit schemes to the
marginalised rural inhabitants, facilitate capacity building for home-based industries, and
conduct training for house-wives to improve their financial and production skills, among
many others. These beneficiaries –the rural people, micro businesses, the poor
housewives—are among those left behind by the centralistic, neo-liberal development
economy. It is no surprise, then, that aiming to transform such economic circumstance has
become one of the civil society ideals. For example, Tobucil & Klabs
(tobucilhandmade.blogspot.com), a Bandung-based community-run economy initiative,
53

regularly organises events to encourage public to make (Do-It-Yourself) and to use more
handmade products. Combine Resource Institution in Yogyakarta (combine.or.id) initiates
Pasar Komunitas (pasarkomunitas.com), an information network that aims to capitalise
economic potentials in the rural areas by means of marketing management and bringing
rural products and creative investments (such as gaduhan/rotating capital investment)
closer to the buyers and investors. In Solo, Central Java, Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
(www.bengawan.org) empowers local producers through capacity building trainings and
workshops and links them with the market through an initiative called Produk Solo
(www.produksolo.com), a result of collaboration between Bengawan and Juale.com
(fieldwork observation, October 2010) to promote local products to national –even
international- market.

In slightly different front, but still very much in the same vein of fighting against
neoliberal-driven consumerism, a couple of civil society groups working in cultural domain
also have their own visions about social transformation. Soundboutique
(twitter.com/soundboutiquex) in Yogyakarta is a forum for electronic musicians and music
lovers. Functioning as a platform for discussion, information and experience exchange, it
aims to bring music alive in the centre of society by means of live performances (they call it
“Performance Art”) where the performers interact with the audience, rather than just
replaying recorded music. In Ujung Berung, a remote corner of Bandung, Burgerkill, a metal
band music group chases its dream to set the trend of underground music for young people
in the area. It is through their music that they promote universal values such as diversity
and freedom of expression.

These are just few of the grassroots initiatives aiming at societal transformation. It is
impossible to map all aspects and ideals of societal transformation that are envisioned by
the highly diverse Indonesian civil society. After we presented the preliminary results of
our research in a workshop we organised in Jakarta (21/10/10), the participants (those who
took part in our study) reflected on the links between civil society and societal
transformation. We recall one particular account from a group reflection presented in the
plenary:
We think we all agree that what constitutes civil society organisations or communities are organised
individuals who have certain stance, reference, or perspective towards the societal issues. Usually
they are relatively important social groups [which are potentially able] to make social transformation
happen for they are more dynamic … have better access to information and knowledge …
compared to other social groups. … Like it or not we have to admit that the process of social
transformation is not straightforward, but rather it starts from a small, relatively marginal group. In
the current context of social movement, the existence of civil society communities or organisations
is actually significant and has become one of many important components that can foster social
movement or social change. So civil society communities cannot be seen as the only social
component that facilitates the process of social change, but just one of many others with whom they
have to work together (RN, plenary reflection, Jakarta workshop, 21/10/10).

This reflective account is encouraging, for it recognises the role of civil society groups and
communities as important agent of changes, and also at the same time admits that no
transformations are possible unless civil society works with other sectors in the society.
This underlines an imperative that in order for civil society to be a transformative agent in
the society it has to open up for collaboration and networking with other societal groups.

How, and to what extent, does the use of Internet and social media contribute to the work
of civil society groups and communities in order for them to advance the social
transformation that they idealise?

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5.2. Role of Internet and social media
There are different extents of Internet use in organisations, i.e. access, adoption and
appropriation. In order to maximise the benefit of using the Internet and social media, the
technology has to be appropriated – or strategically (and arguably politically) used and
adopted. What matters here is the impact of such adoption and use on the performance of
the organisation. Our fieldwork survey shows the overall effect of the Internet and social
media use in civil society groups and communities. See Table 11.

Some 95% of civil society groups who use the Internet and social media find that such use
positively or very positively affected the achievement of the organisations’ goals and
missions. Using the Internet has widened nearly all (99%) of the group’s perspective to
global level or at least beyond the regional, national or local boundary. As a consequence,
the use of the Internet has become the major support for their networks expansion and
significantly or very significantly increases the performance of the internal management as
it helps the organisation to become more focused in their aims and activities.

How significant has Internet and social media use How has Internet and social media use in your
in your organisation facilitated the internal organisation impacted your links/network with other
managerial performance? groups/organisations?
# Answer n % # Answer n %
1 Very significant 84 38% 1 It increases very rapidly 155 70%
2 Significant 104 47% 2 It somewhat increases 52 23%
3 Cannot decide 31 14% 3 It is neutral/no increase/decrease 15 7%
4 Insignificant 3 1% 4 It somewhat decreases 0 0%
5 Very insignificant 0 0% 5 It decreases very rapidly 0 0%
Total 222 100% Total 222 100%

How has Internet and social media use in your How has Internet and social media use in your
organisation impacted the goals/activities? organisation widened the organisation’s perspective?
# Answer n % # Answer n %
1 Become much more focussed 72 32% 1 To the global level 126 57%
2 Become more focussed 97 44% 2 To at least the regional level 24 11%
3 No changes/shifts/biases 49 22% 3 To at least the national level 59 27%
4 Become somewhat biased 4 2% 4 To at least beyond local level 10 5%
5 Become very much biased 0 0% 5 No widening perspectives 3 1%
Total 222 100% Total 222 100%
How has Internet and social media use in your organisation contributed to the achievement of the organisation’s
missions and goals?
# Answer n %
1 Very positive 103 46%
2 Positive 108 49%
3 Neutral. No positive/negative contribution. 7 3%
4 Somewhat contributing to the bias of it 3 1%
5 Highly contributing to the bias of it 1 0%
Total 222 100%
Table 11. Impact of Internet and social media use and adoption in civil society groups and organisations
N=222

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This discussion resonates with other finding concerning the benefit of Internet and social
media use in the organisations. Most of the groups find ‘cost saving in general’ as the main
benefit followed by ‘better communication/dissemination of ideas to public/other groups’,
‘more effective organisational management’ and ‘widen and expand network with other
groups’. This shows how Internet and social media have been inseparable parts of the
groups’ or organisations’ activities. See Figure 25.

Figure 25. Benefit of Internet and social media use in civil society groups and organisations
N=199; 1=highest, 8=lowest

Yet, given the abundant possibilities of such appropriation, the actual use of the Internet
and social media amongst Indonesian civil society seems to be still somewhat lagging
behind what they can actually benefit from. From our observation, in many cases, these
groups are simply using the technologies uncritically, i.e. they use them without any critical
thought about the area and the ways in which these technologies fit into their political
work strategically. It is not that these organisations are ignorant, but rather, that they do
not really consider different ways in which they can be using these technologies most
strategically.

Therefore it is important to explore empirically how civil society groups and communities
in different contexts and settings appropriate Internet strategically and politically so that it
matches their own missions and goals. In a focus group discussion in Yogyakarta
(13/10/10), Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA) shares its experience:
For us, the Internet is very useful and helps us realise many potentials. [Using the technology] we
can act as source of knowledge [in visual art]. One can just search in the Internet and we can
provide information on the Net. This is highly potential for we see more people use the Internet as a
source of knowledge. So that is our homework, [i.e.] to realise that potential. And we have done it,
to some extrent. The same goes with social media. Facebook, for example, is now used by
everyone literally. It is easy to upload and share information across social media platforms. … It
also helps collaboration and saves some work visits. We do not have to travel and waste time and
money because we can collaborate online. Even, in Jember and Banyuwangi there are art
communities whose Facebook pages are very active for public relations and information points. As
for us, although we have been using Internet and social media for some time, we are still
strategising the way we work and consume on the Internet. What is more important here is how we
can use the technology in a way that we can impose the idea that art production should not only be
driven by economic motive. What I mean here is that we are not only talking about exhibitions to
make some money, but also how we can have our own databank and argue that the production of
art or culture does not have to be done through it [exhibition]. Internet can make this possible and
this is what we are working on. If we have the databank of art activities, the art piece itself is not
what is traded; it will enter the arena as the point of reference. Internet certainly has huge potentials
to disseminate this sort of idea across the globe; to let us know what other people from other places

56

in the world are doing, and to make all of these ideas happen. (FW, IVAA, Yogyakarta focus group
discussion, 13/10/10).

IVAA’s experience shows that the role of the Internet and social media is much beyond that
of technicality, although, certainly this is the entry point. As much as the outreach is
concerned, strategic use of the Internet and social media can help civil society connect to a
widespread audience. If lucky, or more precisely if the strategy is right, the impact is
sometimes beyond what can be imagined. We conducted a Focus Group Discussion with a
few civil society groups and organisations which worked in the issue of human rights
(4/10/10). In the discussion a group noted:
So we know now that as the result [of the government] that our society is no longer aware of the
human rights issue. The challenge is how we can use the Internet to provide as much information
[on human rights issues] as possible to our friends and colleagues, student movements, and wider
public. … The problem [with the human rights issue] is that it is confronted head-to-head with the
Islamic Sharia. With the public perception that human rights is the western, instead of universal,
issue, it is difficult to socialise it in Aceh. … Internet, social media like Facebook, can play an
important role here. If we manage to educate the public, if we manage to transform the
understanding that human rights is my issue, my community’s issue, then that is success. … In my
reflection, in Aceh, our most serious problem is dealing with difference. If you are not a Muslim, that
is fine. You can wear anything you like; you can do anything you want. If you are Muslim, you have
to wear jilbab; you have to practice what the religion tells you; you have to think in the way the
religion dictates.. You see? This is all difficult for us to promote human rights as well as pluralism
value. … You know that Sharia Law is applied in Aceh. But things have gone far too extreme. Now
there is a public discourse whether rajam [stoning to death] and potong tangan [hand-cutting]
punishments should be legalised. And even when it is still as a discourse, we have noticed that in
some elementary schoolbooks there are chapters that detail how the punishment should be
conducted. … So now we have to change our strategy. Thanks to the boom of free hotspots across
Aceh, people are connected to the Internet. Most of them – no, all of them – are using Facebook.
Now we use Facebook to campaign human rights and pluralism. We cannot say we have been
totally successful, but we can see many young people now become aware of the issue; how the
issue is being openly discussed in schools, in mailing list; even how some high-level public officers
engage with this discourse. I believe, now, there will be some public discontent if the plan with the
punishments dues (NN, name and organisation disclosed, Aceh Focus Group, 4/10/10)

The above note seems to have supported what we found in the survey when we asked about
the benefit that the wider society enjoy from the use of the Internet and social media in
groups or communities.

In which aspects does the wider society benefit from the use of the Internet and social media in your
group/community/organiation?
# Answer n %
1 No benefit for them. 7 3%
2 Provision of hardware 11 5%
Knowledge and skill in using
3 92 43%
software/applications/Internet, etc.
4 Deeper understanding on certain issues 148 69%
5 Wider perspectives on certain issues 166 77%
6 Increase in capacity to organise themselves 53 25%
7 Other, please mention 7 3%
Table 12. Benefit of Internet and social media use to wider society
N=222; multiple responses allowed

What matters more is how the use of the Internet and social media helps civil society to
transform the wider society in which they exist. The note of our respondent in Aceh and
our survey result above show that the most important benefit, perhaps, is the way the
wider society widens their perspectives and deepens their understanding about certain

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issues at stake. Societal influence as such is pivotal; it transforms the society from within.
Yet, this has to be done by design, rather than by accident.

It becomes apparent, such as in the above account, that civil society needs a strategy when
using modern technology like the Internet and social media so that the result can be
transformative. Devising such strategy will help organisations use the technology by
focussing not only on the adoption of the technology as given devices and its influence on
use, but also on the organisation’s strategy in the recurrent use of technology so that it
becomes routinised, and embedded within the organisation.

Internet and social media use has certainly played an important role in civil society
activism. However, its effectiveness is determined by other factors than just ‘use’ and
adoption. We have revisited some examples from our fieldwork here to assert the
importance of strategy in addition to mapping areas in which Internet and social media can
be used strategically and politically for social transformation. To recap this subsection, we
recall a remark made during our reflective workshop in Jakarta (21/10/10):
If you ask us why we use the Internet, the answer is clear: it reaches globally and it is interactive.
These two features enable you to get feedback from wide ranging of audience when you
communicate an idea. It also functions as communication media, even when we are absent …
Because the Internet connects people, if we use it for education, it will become much more effective
as it can help share our limited knowledge resources to many more communities and network
providers. That way, we collaborate and network with others (FC, Jakarta focus group discussion,
21/10/10).

5.3. Collaboration and networking revisited
The very essence of the Internet and social media is its ability to network; to reach those
that are usually unreachable. The analogy of the Internet as ‘web’ strengthens this idea. Yet,
the potential of the Internet to network individuals or groups will not be harnessed, unless
the users themselves engage in networking activities. Networking should empower civil
society as it decentralises knowledge production and enables knowledge sharing. This idea
has been said by many (for instance, see Anheier and Katz, 2005; Castells, 1996; Diani and
McAdam, 2003).

To substantiate this point in our research we extract the national network of our civil
society group and community respondents as depicted in Figure 7 of this report, focusing
on the last three periods (2000-2003, 2004-2007, and 2008-2010). We keep the technical
details and measures to the minimum and just pay attention to how the network structure
has changed over time.

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Pajek Pajek

2000-2003 2004-2007
N=236, d=0.0184580, 2-core N=457, d=0.0110736, 3-core

Pajek

2008-2010
N=779, d=0.0072016, 3-core
Figure 26. Network map of national links of respondent groups
Processed with Pajek®; plot based on Kamada-Kawaii free algorithm; only linked nodes depicted across period;
links represent “join action”; data collected Sep-Nov 2010

The depiction above shows how the network structure has significantly evolved over the
past 10 years. From a relatively sparse network in 2000-2003, it grew and ‘coagulated’
during 2004-2007, and finally exploded and became decentralised in 2008-2010. Of course
this does not reflect the network dynamics of the whole civil society universe in Indonesia
but at least we can draw some lessons.

First, indeed there has been marked widening of civic space. The expansion of the network
shows how this space has widened distinctly. In real terms, more and more civil society
groups network with each other and work together. They start grouping themselves (k-core
indicates the growth of this grouping, from 2-core to 3-core). Secondly, however, despite
the growth of the network, the cohesiveness of the overall network is decreasing (indicated
by the decrease of density, from 0.018, to 0.011, to 0.007). One explanation is perhaps that
the external national politics are perceived to have become ‘less and less challenging’
(whether this perception is true or not, is irrelevant for the network analysis) so that civil
society groups and communities do not deem collaboration as important as before. As a
result, what we see here is the growing of many small groupings (or ‘cliques’) in the
Indonesian civil society universe, but decreasing cohesiveness overall. Third, as the future
is still yet to unfold, the fact that the cohesiveness of Indonesian civil society networks is

59

decreasing has to be taken into account seriously. If civil society is to become a powerful
and pivotal sector that aims to contribute to and shape socio-economic development policy
and practices, it has to strengthen itself internally; it has to become more cohesive as a
sector.

In our observation we noticed that groups which are prominent and become salient in their
movement and activism are good networkers. AIMI-ASI, for example, networks not only
with fellow civil society organisations, but also with governmental departments (Ministry
of Public Welfare, Ministry of Health, etc.), United Nations bodies (UNICEF, WHO, etc.), and
international NGOs (Helen Keller, CARE, Save the Children, etc.). Rumah Blogger Indonesia
Bengawan takes a step further: they also collaborate with the private sector (XL Axiata Tbk,
Juale.com) as well as with civil society groups (Yayasan Talenta, other blogger communities,
etc.) and government institutions (Major of Solo, Local Infocom office, etc.) and prove that
such collaboration is beneficial and has impact. For example, recently they organised ICT
training for some excluded communities such as disabled persons, commercial sex workers,
and also for women and SMEs. See illustration in Figure 27.

These are just anecdotal examples from our limited observation. Across our fieldwork, it is
heartening to see how various civil society groups and communities are active networkers.
In Aceh, while Aceh Nature, a photographer community, links with the local government
and wider public in order to promote the ‘beautiful face’ of Aceh to foster development
through tourism and investment alike, the Aceh Institute works hard through research and
disseminates the results through its network of academia, civil society and policy makers to
promote pluralism and the protection of human rights. In Bali, BaleBengong, a blogger
community, works with civil society networks and provides space for civic engagement to
discuss and work on numerous issues from the over-commercialisation of Bali to diversity
and environmental concerns. In East Java, bloggers in Surabaya, Ponorogo, Ngawi, Malang,
and Madura work hand-in-hand to educate the wider public not only on the technicality of
blogging and writing online, but also on a much more fundamental issue, i.e. freedom of
expression and freedom of information.

In Central Java and Yogyakarta, the civil society network has proven itself to be more
responsive and effective than the government when dealing with recent disasters. A large
number of grassroots groups, volunteers, Netters, and social activists joined forces to help
the victims of Mt. Merapi eruption. In Bandung, CommonRoom works hard to provide what
they call the ‘third sphere’, i.e. a semi regulated sphere where various civil society groups
and communities, particularly cultural workers, can come together, meet, discuss, and
explore, possibilities to collaborate. In Jakarta, which is perhaps the most vibrant area for
civil society activism, there are numerous groups emerging such as Bike2Work,
XLCommunity, KRLMania, Komunitas Sekolahrumah (homeschooling community), Change,
SaveJkt, among many others. While most of these groups are formed based on mutual
interests, some of them are formed to advocate civil rights that are perceived to be violated,
or at least neglected, by the government.

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Figure 27. Capacity building trainings organised by Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan, Solo
ICT trainings for women and SME (top), and disabled/blind youth (bottom)
Source: Pictures provided by Blontank Poer, archive of RBI, used with permission.

However, as also discussed previously, although the micro picture of this networking seems
to be uplifting, we have to keep reminded that the bigger picture tells a rather different
story. The increasing growth of closed- and small-groupings (‘cliques’) and at the same time
the decreasing cohesiveness of civil society should be considered as wake-up calls.
Networking cannot be assumed. Even if it is, networking should be about making civil
society more cohesive, , not just networking as an end in itself. It is of no surprise that
diversity in issues and concerns is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it enables civil
society as a sphere to be more knowledgeable and responsive to many different issues; on
the other, it increases difficulties for civil society organisations to coalesce. Worse, when it
comes to limited resources (like funding), groups working in similar issues start competing
with each other.

This is why the need for a ‘clearing-house’ –a sphere where groups, organisations, and
communities within civil society can engage—is imminent. Komunitas Langsat (Langsat
Community) and SalingSilang.com are among those who recognise this need. From
providing web services for communities (such as Politikana.com for civic journalism,
Cicak.org for news on corruption, BicaraFilm.com for film reviews, CuriPandang.com for
celebrity gossip, or Ngerumpi.com for women’s issues, among many others), they have
stepped a mile further by regularly hosting Obrolan Langsat (Langsat Conversation) or Obsat
(ObrolanLangsat.com). As remarked by one of the organisers of Obsat:
The idea is to let the public know what is going on, directly from the source. … for example, we
invited TVRI and RRI [National Television and Radio Broadcasting Company] to discuss about
public broadcasting bodies; we invited Ulil Abshar Abdalla to discuss about JIL [Jaringan Islam
Liberal/Liberal Islam Network], or, just like recently, we invited Aburizal Bakrie to discuss about
[Mudflow] Lapindo. So, as you see, the idea is to clarify things. If we feel something is problematic,
why not talk to concerned people directly? The concept [behind Obsat] is simple and clear: talk

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directly to the concerned. Of course there has to be a thorough thinking before we decide any topic,
but that’s the idea. … If I recall correctly, it was after the earthquake in Padang that we started to
take initiative to link with other [civil society] groups and organisations. We used Ngerumpi.com to
collect donations. Since then, we have been known as one of the centres for social initiative in
Jakarta. Then we also organised Koin Prita [Coins for Prita], then Tolak RPM Konten [Rejection to
the Proposed Ministerial Decree], and the most recent one, Petisi Rakyat. It is through these
initiatives many [civil society] groups and communities come together. Perhaps unintended, but
they get to know each other better, I think. Obsat itself is just a venue. Obrolanlangsat.com is just a
repository of discussion notes. It is the users itself that generates the content that matters. (NDR,
Jakarta-based Langsat community, interview, 23/8/10)

This remark shows not only the central role of the ‘clearing house’ –like Komunitas Langsat
in Jakarta, CommonRoom in Bandung, or Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan in Solo—in
facilitating networking among civil society elements, but more importantly, that
networking cannot just be taken for granted. The emergence of civil society networks is
both an intended and unintended consequence of their engagement. Therefore it is
imperative for civil society to strategise their networking endeavour, in order to extend
their network deliberately, rather than as an ad hoc activity.

5.4. In hindsight and summary
Two trends are noticeable here: the growth of civil society activisms and networks, and the
use of the Internet and social media. The difficulty lies not in the way that we understand
the growth of the two, but on the link between them. In such pursuit, any research should
be cautious about one of the basic dangers: mistaking correlation with causality, and vice
versa.

What we have exposed and presented here are the dynamics of civil society in Indonesia
and how the use of the Internet and social media may have impacted upon them. To some
extent, this is another update of our previous study on the use if the Internet in the
Indonesian civil society organisations (Nugroho, 2007, 2008, 2010a, b, 2011; Nugroho and
Tampubolon, 2008). Advancing what we have learned previously, our main discussion here
shows that civic activism in Indonesia is characterised not only by their use of the
technology (one-direction) but the co-evolution between technology use and the
development of civic activism itself. There is a two-way relationship between the ways in
which civic activism is shaped by Internet and social media use, and the ways in which
Internet and social media play their role as platforms for civic activism.

Our case seems to have strengthened the synthesis of Gaventa and Barrett (2010) on civic
activism. A strategic use of the Internet and social media can be devised for the
construction of citizenship where it assists the increase of civic and political knowledge as
well as to strengthen the sense of empowerment and agency. Another direction might be
for civic participation: the Internet and social media use can be appropriated in order to
build and increase civil society capacities for collective actions, to enhance its creativity
(e.g. in seeking new ways or forms of participation) and to extend networks. In terms of
changes that are led by civil society (Berkhout et al., 2011), Internet and social media use can
be politically oriented towards many advocacy works that aim for the realisation of civic
rights (civic-politics, or economic-social-cultural), enhancement responsive and publicly
accountable state bodies which eventually will lead to the greater access to services and
resources. Finally, internally the technology can be appropriated to assist groups and
communities in civil society to become more inclusive and cohesive across groups, by not

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only welcoming new ideas, issues and concerns, but also new actors and new groups.
Networking is therefore crucial.

Networks of civil society, as well as the civic realm itself, are an intended as much as an
unintended consequence of civic engagement. Networking should be strategised as
networks provide dynamic ways in which civic activisms can be mediated. The focus is to
what degree the strategy in using the Internet and social media to mediate networking of
civil society is reflected in their organisational strategy at large.

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6.
Towards the future of Indonesian civil society on the Net:
A Foresight exercise
In terms of network, I do not think we will change that much. But what we expect to see
over the next five to ten years from now on is more and more individuals blossoming from
communities … taking initiatives at various levels: at local levels, in their own societies. In
terms of the use of information technologies, I expect to see more innovations in using them
as learning tools … What we are using now –emails, blogs—will become traditional in the
very near future, but I see there will be plenty of resources available for all of us to learn,
and most of them are generated by us. … I hope the government will have visions to improve
the [telecommunication] infrastructure so that multimedia materials become more
accessible for more people in Indonesia. Learning should be for all, not just those in the
centre [of development]. The future of civil society is the future of learning.
(Sumardiono, Homeschooling community, interview, 31/8/10)

The penultimate question that we strive to answer in our research concerns the future.
Having mapped the use of the Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society groups
and communities, it is natural that we now need to understand what its implications are for
the current and future development and role of civil society in the country. We asked our
respondents in our survey about how sure they are, given the current use and development
of the Internet and social media, that it will affect their group, organisation, or community.
The answer is uplifting.

Figure 28. How confident are you about …?
N=214

Most of the respondents (between 85%-90%) believe and highly believe that in the future,
the use of Internet and social media in their organisations, groups or communities will have
positive impacts on their internal managerial performance, extension of network, better
and more efficient ways of working to achieve goals/missions and to transform society.
Reflecting on this confidence, we organised a Foresight exercise, in a modified version, not

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only to get deeper insights into the future as perceived by our respondents, but more
fundamentally, to involve them in an attempt to make their desired future into reality. Why
Foresight?

When it concerns the future, there are a number of methods available in futures studies to
understand how it may unfold. Here we use Foresight (Keenan and Miles, 2008; Miles, 2008;
Miles and Keenan, 2002), rather than forecasting or other prediction techniques, for at least
two reasons. One, unlike forecasting which tries to predict what the future might be by using
the past and current trends, Foresight is an attempt to shape the future by involving
concerned stakeholders (Miles, 2008). Two, as such, Foresight is more participatory and
bottom-up in nature, and this is deemed to be more suitable and closer to the nature of civil
society. Overall, Foresight can provide valuable inputs into future strategy and policy
planning, while also mobilising collective strategic actions.

Over the past few decades, Foresight has gained importance as an approach both to
envisage and to shape the future. The strength of Foresight lies in its systematic,
participatory, future-intelligence-gathering and medium-to-long-term vision-building
processes as well as informing present-day decisions and mobilising joint actions (Miles and
Keenan, 2002). By emphasising networking and stakeholder participation during the future
oriented vision development and policy making processes, Foresight can be effectively used
to inform policy making, build networks, and enhance capabilities for tackling long-term
issues (Nugroho and Saritas, 2009).

Typified by Miles (2002) a Foresight exercise covers five sequential steps, including ‘pre-
Foresight (or scoping)’, ‘recruitment’ (or participation), ‘generation’, ‘action’ and ‘renewal’
as illustrated below.

Figure 29. Five phases of Foresight and activities involved in each phase
Source: Miles (2002:8)

In this study, we modify the way these phases are implemented, mainly because the
research is not designed as to contain a full foresight exercise. Our modifications, or more
precisely modified implementations, cover the following:

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(a) The earlier phases of the research constitute the pre-Foresight and Recruitment phase. Pre-
Foresight (also known as ‘scoping’) covers the main decisions taken on the (i) shape
and size of the exercise, (ii) definition of rationales and objectives of the programme,
(iii) project team and (iii) methodology for the exercise. In our case, the foresight
exercise is positioned as the ‘action point’ of the research. This exercise is the first of
its kind in Indonesia (a much smaller exercise was conducted in 2007 for Nugroho
(2007)) and we hope to be able to roll it sometime in the future (should resources be
available). The rationales and objectives are derived from the research, i.e. to
understand the plausible future trajectory of the use of the Internet and social
media in Indonesian civil society. The exercise was led by the PI, co-facilitated by
Hivos and assisted by Research Assistants. The method was a participatory
workshop.

Recruitment activity focuses on identifying and enrolling participants of the
Foresight programme who involve the experts and stakeholders. Experts bring their
knowledge and experience, and discuss the issue from a particular perspective.
Stakeholders can affect or can be affected by the decision taken and policies made.
The participants of our exercise were leaders and coordinators of the respondent
civil society groups and communities, who have taken part in the study. They are
also experts in their area.

(b) The research results (survey, interview and observation) inform the Generation phase.
Generation phase is also often know as the actual Foresight phase, where existing
information and knowledge is obtained and synthesised, new knowledge is created,
future visions are set, and actions plans are made. In our case, the information and
knowledge were acquired through the preliminary result of our research and direct
experience of the participants. This chapter is largely about this phase.

(c) Action and Renewal phases are for the future agenda, as agreed by the participants. While
the purpose of the Action phase is to lead to immediate actions for the short term in
order to change the existing systems to desirable future systems, which were
defined and shaped throughout the Foresight process, the Evaluation phase helps
discover whether or how far the exercise has achieved its desired outcomes. In our
case, we limit the exercise into mapping the trajectory for a desirable future and we
will separately conduct a meeting with our participants, hopefully sooner rather
than later for discussing future actions and evaluation 13 .

In the sections that follow, we report on the modified Foresight exercise organised as a one
full day meeting in Jakarta (21/12/10). The exercise follows the well-established method (as
suggested by Miles, 2002; Miles and Keenan, 2002), on which we base our observations and
remarks.

6.1. Horizon Scanning: Events and trends
The first task of the participants in the Foresight exercise is –based on their experience,
involvement, and observation—to scan the horizon, i.e. to identify events and to find the
13
This is outside the scope of this research, but given the importance, it will be proposed to the
funder/sponsor of this research, i.e. HIVOS.

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trends related to the use of the Internet and social media in various civil society groups,
communities, and organisations. What was identified during this session is interesting
because not only did it confirm the preliminary findings of the study, it also considerably
enriched them. Some trends and events were captured by one group during the exercise:

1. Massive use of social media fuelled by the development of mobile technology. Social
media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, are booming. So many Indonesian people
use it not only because it is practical and instantaneous, but because it ‘matches’ the
culture which nurtures close conversation. Due to these reasons, even a
considerable number of ‘celebrity’ Facebookers (eminent persons) are moving to
Twitter, creating new iconoclasms. The participants see that this development has
become possible because of the advancement in mobile technology which makes
being online easier and relatively cheaper (despite bandwidth problems) and hence
creates an ‘always online’ mass.

2. Market-driven economy and inequality. However economic development, whilst
being massively liberalised, has remained unjust for Indonesian society. Economy is
driven by consumption rather than production; corporations get privileges and
grow stronger while the state and government looks to become weak, unable to
protect consumers’ and citizens’ rights. In the telecommunications sector, policies
have been liberalised leaving the sector captured by strong companies. People in the
remote, less developed areas remain in poverty but still obsessed by mobile culture.
Social media fuels the expansion of the market.

3. Emergence of new, dynamic communities. Communities of civil society have
blossomed over the past five years. Some of them are founded based on interests,
some of them based on concerns. Society starts to (re)organise itself. Knowledge
sharing becomes more intensive as individuals with similar passions get easier to
meet and network with, thanks to the Internet and social media. Communities
become a new trend in many societies. Many of them start from online forums or
social media. They empower themselves and in some cases have proven their power
when mobilising people in off-line meetings and rallies.

4. Increasing demand for open access to and freedom of information. When access to the
Internet and social media becomes more available, many communities and pressure
groups in Indonesia start to demand open access to information that matters to
wider society. In the other direction, social media makes it easier for groups and
communities in civil society to address such demand, not only because it assists the
groups in organising themselves but also because conventional media will quickly
pick up the issue and take it to public discourse level. However public authority is
not always receptive towards this sort of demand.

5. Awareness of identity and diversity. Engaging in online communication enables
different communities to encounter each other, to work with each other, to network
and to benefit from the engagement. Central to this interaction is the growing sense
of respect of diversity. At the same time, awareness of identity also matters, both at
the community and individual levels, as the basis of the collaboration of civil society
in Indonesia.

Another group identify slightly different trends and events:

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6. Shift towards social media. In Indonesia, applications such as Facebook and Twitter
have dominated the Net. Even instant messaging like Yahoo!Messenger is no longer
used by many, taken over by the popularity of the new media. Fan pages (in
Facebook, for example) have become online public spheres where people discuss
certain issues. The growth of online fora facilitated by social media as such, to some
extent, is deemed to impact upon the nature of civic engagement.

7. Cloud computing. As more people go online, online collaboration becomes more
natural. This all requires more power but at the same time awareness of
environmental problem gets stronger. Ethical computing starts to emerge, like
‘green computing’ – bringing the idea that collaborating online does not have to be
at the expense of the environment. Cloud computing is seen as one of the
alternatives to this challenge as the need for power is distributed over the Net,
reducing the overall computing load.

8. Development of micro- and small-scale economy. Social media and social networking
sites make people do business online much more easily (compared to having a full-
fledged online shop) in Indonesia. The good thing is that it keeps the economy local.
It even strengthens local products and opens up local markets.

9. Penetration of mobile telephone to remote areas. All of the above trends may be due
to the development and advancement of mobile technology and how it has
penetrated deeply even to the remote areas of Indonesia. ‘Mobile culture’ has
become an obsession for many people and this has started to create social-
environment-cultural implications in some areas.

10. Online anonymity. Being online enables anyone to create a different identity. One of
the most discussed topics while online is the socio-political circumstance in
Indonesia. Yet it is not without risk, particularly after the government legalised UU-
ITE (Internet and Electronic Transaction Law) which gives reasons for the state to
intervene in private or semi-private/public conversation domains (such as forums).
This has motivated some people to be anonymous when online, although certainly
there are other factors and motives influencing this action.

11. Increasing sense of community, also offline. Although more people are getting online,
the interest of organising offline engagement (‘kopdar’, offline meeting) among
Indonesian netters remains high. The sense of community, to some extent, seems to
be well maintained despite the perception that being online increases individuality.

These are the most salient trends and events that were identified by the participants in the
exercise. Their group work is captured in the Figure 30, as it was in the session. This
depiction, arguably, shows a much richer exposition compared to what is reported here. In
other words, this elaboration is not final – despite that it is extracted from the group and
plenary discussions’ transcripts. We can always revisit the depiction and enrich the
narrative presented here.

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Figure 30. Foresight exercise: Identification of events and trends
Source: Foresight exercise, 21/12/10, research documentation

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6.2. Drivers for change
The second task of the Foresight exercise was to identify the factors that drive the
development of the events and trends as mapped in the first task. These factors, known as
drivers for change, are categorised into a standardised STEEPV grouping (Miles, 2002; Miles
and Keenan, 2002). From the plenary and group discussions, the following drivers were
identified by both groups (combined):

Social drivers – The participants brainstormed and discussed some social drivers that were
deemed to have significantly influenced the recent development in both the Indonesian
civil society and the use of social media. They are:

- The disappearance of open public space
- Self-existence [that matters more than before]
- [The phenomenon of] Alienated society
- The shift in the shape of sphere for [self] actualisation
- The shift of priority in daily needs
- [The fulfilment of] Self actualisation
- [The phenomenon of] ‘eminent persons’ and iconoclasm
- Knowledge/interest sharing
- The expansion of exploratory sphere

Most of these social drivers seem to have pointed at the externalities, and at the same time,
the internalities of civil society. This shows how civil society is indeed inseparable from the
wider society in which it functions.

Technological drivers – The rapid growth of civil society activism, as well as the use of the
Internet and social media, may have been driven by the following:

- Technology as the main driver [for social interaction]
- [The advancement of technology that enables] quick processing and access
- [The advancement of] mobile technology that becomes much more practical
- Stagnancy [in the provision] of cable network access
- Mobile devices become more accessible
- [Significant increase of] the use of visual media technology

These technological drivers show the dilemma. On the one hand technology advances
extraordinarily. On the other, access to technology for the common people is always
problematic.

Economic drivers – Economics is about resource allocation. The participants identified the
following drivers:

- Affordable technology
- [The role of technology in] supporting local economy
- [Focus on] economic growth
- State income from bandwidth access
- The development towards a micro-scale economy
- Efficient, but ineffective, technology
- Consumption as an indicator of progress [economic growth]
- Corporate sector becoming more powerful and influential

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- Changing consumption patterns in society
- Changing market patterns in urban society
- The decreasing price of processors

These drivers confirm the classical view and battle between different schools of economics,
where scale (macro vs. micro) and mode of growth (production vs. consumption) matters
the most.

Environmental drivers – How does the environment drive the development of civil society
and its use of the Internet and social media? Some environmental drivers discussed in the
exercise are listed here.

- The depletion of oil [fossil fuel]
- Deforestation forcing a paperless culture
- Slight disadvantage from [the country’s] geographical position

It seems that the mainstream environmental problems are reflected and this indicates civil
society’s standing towards environmental issues.

Political drivers – Politics have tremendously affected the dynamics of civil society and
hence becomes important drivers, as listed below.

- [The lack of] documentation of local resources
- [Inconsistence] in the state governance (i.e. open vs. closed)
- [Civil society] Communities become channels to voice aspiration
- The extended understanding of politics
- The weakening of state capacity/[bargaining] position
- Government policy [lacking vision/clarity]

What we can see here is mostly classical perspectives of politics, i.e. to gain and increase
political power. Civil society, while perhaps apolitical, needs to understand the logic of
politics so that it can effectively contribute to the betterment of societal politics.

Value drivers – Through brainstorming and discussion, the participants tried to list the
values that drive the current development of Indonesian civil society using the Internet and
social media.

- Glocalisation, i.e. globalisation and localisation at the same time
- [Embracing] global value
- Fairness [becoming a societal norm]
- [Demand for] Transparency in government
- Global openness [as embraced value]
- [The value of] Community that increases capacity
- Facebook being illegitimated (di’haram’kan)
- Consumption becoming valuable to associate progress

These value drivers show that the classic norms like diversity and clarity, among others,
matters. This may come as no surprise, given that civil society has many inherently
embedded values.

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Figure 31. Foresight exercise: Identification of drivers for change

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From the list above we can immediately see some drivers of change which do not directly
drive the use of the Internet and social media (as explained in Section 4.2) but yet are very
important and shape the direction of other drivers. For example, the disappearance of
public space (social), consumption as an indicator of progress (economic), communities
becoming channels to voice aspiration (political) – are all indirect, yet pivotal, to the trend
of Internet and social media use today.

As most of the drivers identified in the earlier phase of the study (Section 4.2.) are more
(directly) technology-related, identifying and understanding a much larger number and
diversity of drivers helps us put our case into perspective. Clearly, what drives the
dynamics of Internet and social media use in civil society is by no means a singular and
monolithic driver. Rather, it is a combination of a number of factors, which affect such use
in different directions.

We depict the actual groups’ output on the discussion about drivers in Figure 31 above.

6.3. Plausible Scenarios
The third and, in our modified version, final part of the Foresight Exercise was to derive
plausible scenarios and analyse these. There are two main steps involved.

Firstly, in order to be able to work on the scenarios, the participants were asked to discuss
and agree on the most influential drivers. All participants unanimously agreed that
Technological and Economic drivers are the two most influential factors that characterise our
life today and will continue to do so in the future.

- In terms of technological drivers, there are two possible trajectories of the
development of technology: whether the technology will be ‘more accessible’, or
‘less accessible’. This will constitute the first axis with the two positions as opposing
points.

- In terms of economic drivers, similarly, there are two possible directions for the
development of the economy: whether it will become more ‘productive’ or
‘consumptive’. This will make up the second axis.

With this in mind we can draw the ‘arena’ in which the plausible scenarios of the future can
be situated.
Economy based on production Economy based on consumption
Technology which is more
Scenario I Scenario II
accessible
Technology which is less
Scenario IV Scenario III
accessible

Secondly, in order to be able to envisage the plausible future trajectories, we asked the
participants to develop each scenario. Due to the limited time available, a full-fledge
scenario development is impossible. Instead, the participants illustrated the characteristics
of each scenario. We tabulate the characteristics of the plausible scenarios below, and offer
a possibility of developing those scenarios, while the actual depiction from the workshop
can be seen in Figure 32.

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Economy based on production Economy based on consumption
Scenario I Scenario II
Technology which is
more accessible

Technology: more accessible Technology: more accessible
Economy: more productive Economy: more consumptive
Social: more participatory, knowledge-based Social: alienated
Environment: more sustainable Environment: less sustainable
Politics: more democratic Politics: pseudo- democratic
Value: more respect in pluralism Value: pseudo-plural

Scenario IV Scenario III
Technology which is
less accessible

Technology: less accessible Technology: less accessible
Economy: more productive Economy: more consumptive
Social: pseudo-solid Social: restless
Environment: degraded, deteriorated Environment: less sustainable, deteriorated
Politics: less democratic, tend to be authoritarian Politics: pseudo-democratic
Value: determined by those in power Value: pseudo-plural

Firstly, Scenario I is about a plausible future where the wider society is more cohesive,
participatory and at the same time interacts with knowledge-based engagement.
This is made possible by technology which is equally accessible for citizens. As
result, the economy is driven by production, yet the environment is treated
carefully so that it provides more sustainable resources for development. People
respect each other’s diversity and lives in a democratic society. The direction:
The Internet and social media, which are widely used by civil society, should be
utilised in order to strengthen social cohesiveness and widen their participation
in socio-political life, as well as to foster economic activities.

In the Scenario II the future is characterised by technology that disperses widely and can be
accessed by the wider public. Yet, because the politics do not give clear direction
on technology policy, despite the intensive use of technology, it makes the
society, at the wider level, alienated. The economy is driven by consumption and
as such the environment is not taken care of in a good manner. This society
seems to respect pluralistic views from the outside, but on the inside they do not
believe in the value of pluralism as they do not trust that the politics work for
their benefit. The direction: Civil society should use the Internet and social media to
empower the society in order to (i) exercise their own social capital to nurture trust and
respect for others, (ii) demand a more open, democratic government, and (iii) drive
towards a more productive and sustainable economy.

Scenario III tells a story about a possible future trajectory where technology is unequally
distributed and much less accessible to the citizens due to the absence of
visionary technology policy. Incompetent government and politicians, despite
being popular, create a pseudo-democratic and pseudo-pluralistic society, i.e. a
society which looks democratic and pluralistic from the outside, but finds it
difficult to accept differences from the inside. Economy is driven much by
consumption and it results in the deterioration of environment. In general, the
society is restless. The direction: The use of the Internet and social media should be
oriented towards (i) strengthening civil society through communities so that they are
empowered, (ii) demand fundamental changes in the government and policy, in order to
(iii) restore public trust in politics, rebuild the economy and preserve the environment.

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Figure 32. Foresight exercise: Creating plausible scenarios

Finally, Scenario IV is a future where technology is less accessible to the public. The
government is strong and gives clear direction of development policy and
practice. Yet, due to the degradation of environmental quality which
significantly reduces the capacity to provide resources for development, the
economy is forced to be productive, possibly by mobilising resources from
outside the country. The society looks solid from the outside as they are forced
to face challenge together, but this strength is ungrounded because they do not

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live the values they really believe in, but instead live the norms imposed by
those in power. The direction: Civil society has to organise themselves. Internet and
social media should be used to empower and solidify groups and communities to demand
for more democratic and sensible government that can take care of their people, economy,
and environment. The aim is reform.

The development of the scenarios above presents some possibilities. There are certainly
other ways in which the scenarios can be developed. What we have presented here,
however, is what was discussed in the exercise.

6.4. In hindsight and towards a roadmap
In the discussion during the Foresight exercise, the participants agreed that the desirable
scenario would be Scenario I. That is the scenario where all the participants felt content about
an imagined possibility of the future of Indonesia. In a consecutive collective reflection, the
participants also agreed that Scenario III is more-or-less where Indonesia is at the moment. We
also note that Indonesia once, when under Soeharto’s regime, resembled Scenario IV. This
gives a sense of direction, a sort of roadmap, as to where we should go and what steps
should be taken.

However we did not carry out a full road mapping. Instead, in the exercise we opened up
discussion about four possibilities on how the future might unfold.

- First, that the future will continue as it is now, i.e. remain in Scenario III.

- Second, that the future will evolve directly towards what is desired, i.e. from
Scenario III to Scenario I.

- Third, that the future will evolve indirectly, in the sense that it will transform
gradually, from Scenario III to Scenario II, to Scenario I.

- Fourth, that the future will evolve indirectly, in a different gradual trajectory, i.e.
from Scenario III to Scenario IV, to Scenario I.

For each possibility, in the corresponding scenario we attempted to provide a generic
direction with regard to the use of Internet and social media in civil society. We hope that
in the short – to mid term, the participants of this Foresight exercise can be gathered again
to reflect on the trajectory that will have passed.

***

This chapter has discussed the findings from the survey and Foresight exercise. We are
confident that this has helped the participants to see a potential prospect of Internet and
social media use in civic activism in the future. One thing is sure: the development of both
technology and civic activism has reached a point of ‘no return’. The challenge is for civil

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society to reap the benefit of the technology to help them position themselves in the socio-
political dynamics of Indonesia.

It is in this sense that we ‘forced’ our respondents to sit together and to reflect on the
possible future trajectories. Foresight exercises, as were been carried out, are relatively new
for Indonesian civil society. We believe the exercise has not only helped the participants
understand how the future might unfold, but also provided them with a new method to
learn. Indeed, the future of civil society in Indonesia, and elsewhere, will remain bright only
on the condition that people keep learning.

In hindsight, Sumardiono, as quoted in the opening of this chapter, is right, “… The future of
civil society is the future of learning.”

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7.
Citizens in @ction: Synthesis and reflection
[About the Internet and social media,] it helps us tremendously not to carry out the work
like campaigning, but to assist the coordination of our many activities and programmes.
Yes, our members are well connected, but not necessarily by Internet and social media. …
We are just a civil society community, we are not an NGO. We use [the technology] as much
as we need it. I remember in the beginning we used mailing list systems very intensively in
coordinating all activities. Now we have our website, mailist; we use Facebook, Twitter. We
can connect to everyone, from any social classes; we have so many fans and followers. … But
for us that is second. The main thing is for more people use the bikes to work, making
themselves healthy, saving the environment by reducing pollution, and contributing to the
betterment of livelihood. Things may have changed [with the technology], but I believe
what matters most is the people behind [it]
(Ozy Sjarinda, Bike2Work Community, interview, 11/10/10)

Ozy’s account above is important for the basis of our reflection here, after we have
presented the empirical findings of our study. After intensively reflecting back on the data
and materials of this study, we argue here that the Internet and social media is not the most
important source of advantage for civil society, although it often makes it more valuable.
When all civil society groups and communities use the Internet and social media, the
technology will be ‘neutralised’ as a source of advantage. The strategic and pivotal role born
by civil society today, despite their use of Internet technology, actually arises from their
‘inherent strengths’, i.e. relevant issues and concerns, social and political orientation, and
other distinctive activities. Internet use does enhance these strengths and potencies and
perhaps make them more realisable, but it does not, and will never, replace them.

Upon further reflection, there is an issue at stake here: the difficulty that civil society
groups and communities have encountered in the strategic use of the technology is often
rooted in the importance of non-technological aspects like trust and differences among civil
society components themselves, and at the external politics affecting the societal life. The
Government of Indonesia, particularly the Ministry of Information and Communication has
been notorious for its coercive approach to control the Internet through blockage. Using
the two omnipotent Laws on Pornography and Internet and Electronic Transaction,
blocking has been very much ‘on the air’ among Indonesian Netters, threatening the civil
rights to freedom of access to information and freedom of expressions. This has led to civil
society responses. Among many, ID-Blokir (Indonesia Blockage), one of the groups, is
persistent not only in opposing against the blockage idea, but also empowering the society
so that people know their rights.
[ID-blokir is] indeed a responsive movement. It is a movement reacting against a futile, dangerous
state policy … that is the blocking of the Internet, introduced and led by the Infocom Minister Tifatul
Sembiring. It is a spontaneous movement, just like any other movements in the Internet. … It was in
the beginning of Ramadhan [when the blockage started] many sites were blocked, often arbitrarily,
in a very ineffective way.. that was when we thought we had to react, we had to meet and talk with
others. We were sure, and it was proven shortly later, that many people became concerned. Why?
Because [this blockage] surely would have never been possible without great power behind it. We
thought that we needed to be powerful, too, to fight against it. One or two organisations, or a
number of activists, would never suffice. So we needed to consolidate, to coalesce; we needed to
exchange information; we had to share motivations, and also resources. This [policy] is taking our
civil rights away. That’s why we then decidedly created the mailing list, Yahoo groups, Facebook

78

page … to help us to coordinate the movement and to gather public support, to show the
Government we disagreed with a policy like that. … But again this is all about people. We know we
are fighting against a vague, evil policy – but we don’t want to be a new villain. We need to educate
the public. We need to collaborate. So then we extended our hands and collaborated with others:
APJII, press offices, blogger communities, among many others. We wanted to guard the Internet to
be a free public sphere. But, it is not easy [to work on collaboration]. It is really not easy. (EN, an
initiator of ID-blokir, interview, 7/9/10)

Learning from this, it is thus important to acknowledge that a strategic use of the Internet
and social media, like collaboration, is not an instant and natural output of using email,
Facebook, or Twitter. Instead, it is the result of civil society’s hard work in overcoming the
difficulties. With technology and its use continuously shifting and being shaped, the use of
the Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society is understandably more about
process than outcome.

We offer some reflections while trying to synthesise the main findings here. They might be
neither final nor theoretically (academically) thorough. But they aim to offer a sense of
direction towards which further research agenda might be devised, or a springboard on
which further academic works might be carried out.

7.1. Internet and social media: A sui generis?
The Internet has always been about networking. It is not just about networks of computers,
wires and hubs, but networks of people. Civil society, likewise, is about networks. It is a
network of civic groups and communities across regions and localities who have common
interests and concerns and are willing to come together, organised or unorganised. It is not
surprising therefore to see that there is a close link between the Internet and civil society:
the Internet has been a convivial tool for many civil society groups, organisations and
communities for social activism of many forms. This is evident in our research.

This probably raises a belief that the Internet, particularly social media, is so sui generis that
its unique features alone will ‘save’ those who use it from societal discontents. Perhaps so it
seems at the beginning, especially in the Indonesian context. But the very same technology
can also potentially be used as much a tool of control (or worse, coercion) as they are of
‘liberation’ –as Morozov, in his book “Net Delusion: How not to liberate the world” (2011)
has warned.

In the Indonesian context, we may need to be acutely aware of how vulnerable social media,
or more generally Internet, users are. Most of the people are careless when going online
and take no effort to protect their identity. Here is the relevance of the movements like
#internetsehat (healthy internet): they have been actively promoting safe ways when
people use the Internet. But there is also another front: a possibility of civil society activists
(including trade unionists, rights activists, political demonstrants, etc.) becoming targets of
the military or government (if eventually they turn repressive). Perhaps not yet manifested,
but the Law on Internet and Electronic Transaction, in addition to Pornography Law, has
given the authority a blank cheque to intercept Internet user’s privacy. For example, the
recent case of the Indonesian Infocom Ministry forcing RIM (Research in Motion, Ltd) to
install web filters and to build a local server network of aggregrators in the Indonesian
Blackberry market has been interpreted by many as an exercise of state power aimed at

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public surveillance. It is no exaggeration to imply that as much as privacy is held as a value
when being online, there is a great danger that it may just be an illusion.

So how should we understand the role of the Internet and social media? Across this study
we have gathered evidence about how tools like Facebook and Twitter have been
instrumental in effecting the changes. But we also take a critical stance here. These changes
happen primarily not because of the tools, but because of the people who are the agents of
change. Social media is not a ‘magic wand’ that magically changes people, but a
communication means that amplifies and extends what they have already been doing.
Social media is therefore important to change. But it is so because it is chosen carefully,
adopted properly, used well, and appropriated strategically as an effective tool, not by word
of faith.

If civil society fails to understand this distinction, it would prove fatal because they will
place the Internet above the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts necessary for
real change.

7.2. Does agency matter? Real engagement v. ‘click activism’
This research is carried out at a macro, or at least meso, level – but certainly not at a micro
level. We have captured what civil society groups and communities are doing when online,
but we did not really investigate what the individuals (civil society activists) do in front of
the monitor or mobile screen. This is important because there is a wide gap between
clicking the button ‘Like’ or ‘Attending’ in a Facebook page or invitation for a rally or public
meeting, and spending time and effort to really join the rally or the meeting – be it on a hot
sunny day, or a wet rainy one. Similarly, by clicking ‘Forward’ after reading a moving or
touching email pledging for participation or donation, people can feel they have done
something. Indeed, they have – forwarding the email. But there is a huge difference
between forwarding an email and directly participating in an event, or donating goods or
money. In other words, we have to be aware of the distinction between real engagement
and what we term here ‘click activism’.

What matters here is not the Internet or social media an sich, but how civil society groups
and communities strategically and politically use the media to multiply. This multiplication
works in two ways: between groups/organisations through collaboration, and between the
group/organisation and their beneficiaries through direct engagement. This is the direction
for a strategic use of the Internet and social media: that it should minimise ‘click activism’
as much as possible. An example is how bloggers in Aceh mobilised support for Rohingya
refugees, by not just inviting comments on blogs or promoting the ‘Like’ button on the
Facebook page, but they went to the streets and persuaded people to really donate their
money and get involved in the movement. Another example might be PasarKomunitas:
inviting on-liners to get directly involved in rural development through financing
programmes.

In addition, a space where online engagements ‘meet’ offline ones might be more effective
when involving the wider public. The idea of creating a ‘semi regulated, third sphere’ (as
termed by CommonRoom Bandung for their activity inviting local communities in off-line
discussions or fora) or ‘clearing house’ (as practically done by Langsat Community through
Obrolan Langsat) can provide opportunities to ‘prepare’ the public for a full-blown

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engagement. Though it is perhaps still too premature to evaluate, the #savejkt initiative
seems to use this strategy rather nicely: campaigning through social media and organising
public meetings to prepare the wider public for larger scale engagement in the future.

On reflection, it is naïve to focus our analysis only on the technical aspect of the Internet
and social media as a success factor in civil society movements (or social transformations)
and put aside the human –or agency— factor. In all instances that we have presented in this
report, agency matters. It is only through such critical lenses that we may be able to explain
sufficiently the success or failure of the use of social media in civil society activism. For
example, without any intentions to provide a moral judgement, we can explain why the
initiative of Solidarity for Lapindo Mudflow Victims, organised through Facebook, has different
outcomes compared to a very similar one for Prita Mulyasari or Bibit-Chandra. The Solidarity
for Lapindo Mudflow Victims has not been able to significantly mobilise support and
advocacy outside the online realm to enable it to facilitate a prolonged massive public
protest or force the authority to take the case seriously in favour of the victims. Some
commentators argue that external politics are much stronger (i.e. between the company’s
owner and the powerful political parties) than the civil society initiative. Other analysts
pinpoint the absence of a media convergence strategy, i.e. that the use of social media
should be strengthened by conventional media. While these points may have some validity,
the factor of agency barely exists in the body of analyses. The effort to support the victims
of the Lapindo mudflow is not only about external politics or technicality of media
convergence, but more importantly, it is about an active involvement of agency. For
instance, at the community level, involving local dwellers and refugees can be the backbone
of a media convergence strategy, i.e. to feed the movement with field data, such as in Jalin
Merapi case; while at the same time at the organisational level, social media strategy can be
devised. This could then be converged with conventional media. Of course, all of this is still
speculation, but one thing is for sure: the agency factor cannot be omitted in both the
strategy and analysis of technology use.

7.3. Beyond individual, collective, and network: The role of technology
In a socio-technical system, we have to be aware of the construction of the collective, but
also of mechanisms of exclusion, which can reverse the constitution of a collective identity
(Callon and Rabeharisoa, 2003). Inappropriate (or carelessly planned) social media use can
exclude people from participating in an engagement. The Internet and social media has to
be appropriated so that it helps create the interrelations between the construction of
individual identities and the collective form of civil society movements in which they
participate. In other words, the emergence of concerned groups should be deliberately –and
strategically—facilitated through their interaction with the technological system (such as
the Internet and social media) and exposure to the actual societal dynamics (Callon and
Rabeharisoa, 2008).

If we are successful in strategically using the technology, there is a good possibility for
concerned civil society groups not only to emerge but to contribute to the shaping of
relations between technology (in this case: the Internet and social media), politics, and civic
engagements. Under these conditions, emergent concerned civil society groups are able to
articulate their political identities through direct actions as a collective. The cases of Prita
Mulyasari, Bibit-Chandra, Rohingya refugees, Jalin Merapi, amongst many others, show this

81

clearly. Of course there is a continuous change of the social, economic, and political
circumstances, combined with the advancement of technology. If civil society groups and
communities can strategise how they use technology, this could potentially lead to a
multiplication of the emergent concerned groups in the wider public 14 .

This research has taken a critical position on the belief that technology is, or can be,
neutral. This is because certain technologies are more likely to produce certain social and
political outcomes than other ones (Bijker et al., 1993; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985).
Innovation research posits the point that the adoption of any (technological) innovation is
influenced by its perceived attributes (Rogers, 1995). It is through a thorough examination
of all advantages and disadvantages that we can get an idea of its overall usage or the risks
it poses.. Our examination on the provision, and availability of access to infrastructure of
the communication technology (in Indonesia, at least) should make us –and all civil society
groups and communities – more critical and careful towards today’s cyber-utopianism or
‘Internet centricity’ – which perhaps unknowingly has already crept into our minds.
Instead, civil society needs to continuously encourage thoughtful consideration on how a
given technology might effect them.

The last point concerns networks. Networking is about widening direct involvement of
organisations, their counterparts, and the members or beneficiaries. We have shown here
that networks of Indonesian civil society groups and communities have expanded
significantly, particularly after the regime change. What is important is to see whether, and
to what extent, the networks impact upon the dynamics of civil society – both at the
individual and collective levels. The distinction between individual and collective action
and how actions are distributed through networks has been a subject of science, technology
and society (STS) studies. A network is a configuration of individuals within a collective and
to be able to understand other possible configurations we may borrow what Callon and Law
suggest that (i) the social is heterogeneous in character; (ii) that all entities are networks of
heterogeneous elements; (iii) that networks are unpredictable; and (iv) that every stable
social arrangement is simultaneously a point (an individual) and a network (a collective)
(Callon and Law, 1997). The fabric of network is exchange (of data, information, experience,
etc.), and crucial to the exchange process is communication, which in this case is facilitated
by the Internet and social media, which in turn, eventually, affect the dynamics of civil
society networks.

7.4. In hindsight
We have argued here that explaining the impact of the Internet and social media use in civil
society cannot be done by focusing only on the obscure realm of cyberspace and thus
secluding the Internet as an isolated on-line space separated from real, off-line, world
activities. The examples throughout this study show that in facilitating socio-political
activism, including networking, the Internet and social media are not detached from the
non-cyberspace realm, rather, it corresponds with it. In the civil society sphere, the
Internet affects the dynamics of social, economic and political activism. It has the potential

14
However, conditions under which these emergent groups can influence social, political, or economic
dynamics need a further research.

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to globalise local socio-political dynamics and at the same time to localise global issues
(Nugroho, 2010a).

A strategic use of the Internet, like networking, therefore cannot be seen as just a direct
output of using the technology. With technology and its use continuously shifting and being
shaped, the appropriation of the Internet and social media in Indonesian civil society is
more about process than outcome. The technologies are continuously modified and adapted
to bring them into alignment with the organisations’ routines (Nugroho, 2011; Orlikowski,
2000). Civic engagement (Gaventa and Barrett, 2010) needs to be (re)oriented towards real
societal changes in which the groups meet, discuss, network, and collaborate regularly in
order to influence state decision making and business practice.

‘Citizens in action’ is therefore never fixed in format, but rather ‘constituted and
reconstituted’ through the everyday practices of the civil society groups and communities
involving citizens and activists alike in ongoing actions.

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8.
Conclusions and implications
Over the past year we have been thinking that it might have been simply too far to discuss
about an outcome that aims for a change at a massive scale. We hope that Suara
Komunitas [the Voice of the Community, a radio community] is not only seen as a tool for
content exchange among various community medias, but as a common channel, a common
platform to foster changes at the local level, no matter however small it is. … The problem,
for me is the information discrimination. We should relinquish our position as information
owner. We have to involve actors at the local level, NGOs at the local level, mass
organisations at the local level. Only then, changes will happen
(Budhi Hermanto, Radio Suara Komunitas, interview, 20/8/10)

The above quote, from a prominent figure in Suara Komunitas, more or less captures the
essence of these concluding comments. This is study shows that Internet and social media
use in groups and communities within civil society is not only about the technology, but
more importantly about the involvement of agency. It brings enormous opportunity for
civil society once the technology is appropriated in strategic and political ways. This study
has demonstrated that, despite problems and difficulties, the use of the Internet and social
media in Indonesian civil society has brought significant implications not only to the
organisation’s internal managerial performance but more importantly to the external
aspects of their work, particularly the dynamics of civic activism and socio-political
engagement in the country.

Since the prophetic writing of Benjamin Barber in his Strong Democracy in which he
projected the possibility of using new ICT like the Internet to energise citizen information
and political participation (Barber, 1984), a large amount of literature has discussed the
topics of ‘online democracy’, ‘cyber-politics’, and ‘cyber-activism’. At the same time, with
the discourse on civil society, the ‘marriage’ between Internet research and civil society
studies has become an emerging field of study. These developments have shed light on the
role of the Internet in the dynamics of civil society. This study aspires to further this course
of reflection by presenting the case of the Internet and social media use in Indonesian civil
society groups and communities. It focuses on how civil society adopts and uses, as well as
anticipates, the impact of the Internet in groups, organisations and communities.

8.1. Conclusions
Civil society has been playing a pivotal role in Indonesian development. The new political
climate has allowed many bottom-up initiatives to grow and blossom. Numerous groups
have been established, working on many issues and concerns, and carrying out various
activities. However, given the current political struggles and debates, it is very likely that
civil society still requires more intensive involvement. As a social movement, it is
imperative for civil society groups and communities to strengthen their networking. These
organisations are not to compete for formal political power; it is the networking that can be
an effective strategy to influence formal political decisions. Bottom-up democracy
necessitates a healthy civil society, where manifolds of social movements and civic
engagements can express their interests. This is crucial in an infant democracy like

84

Indonesia, for active civil society is substantial to animate society, i.e. to exercise
democratic political activities like articulating interest, conducting representation,
engaging in negotiation, and so forth.

The diffusion of the Internet and social media in civil society groups and communities is
characterised by a number of factors, mainly the issues and concerns they are engaged
with. However, structural problems like access and availability of infrastructure can
significantly hamper these processes. Internally, the main driver for using the Internet and
social media is the need to obtain information and to increase public visibility; externally,
in addition to the need to expand networks, it is the need to collaborate with other groups
and to extend perspectives. The process in which these organisations use the Internet and
social media affects, and is affected by, their strategic and political needs. Likewise, in the
end, eventually, the use of the Internet and social media also affects and is affected by the
roles played by civil society groups and communities in reshaping the socio-political life of
the country. The most visible outcome, in the Indonesian context, is the widening of the
civic space.

In this research we identified some impacts of Internet and social media use in civil society
groups and communities. The use of the technology has affected not only the way the
public perceives these organisations’ identity but also the way they see themselves. The
implications of this on the roles of civil society are twofold: they are both reinforced and
transformed. Furthermore, as a social movement, the use of the Internet and social media
may potentially help civil society groups and communities elevate issues in order to gain
public attention or/and to prepare the conditions for further actions aimed at wider
societal changes.

8.2. Implications
We draw a few, but perhaps fundamental, implications here.

1. As the aim of Internet and social media use should be the widening of the
interaction between civil society groups and communities and the beneficiaries they
work with and for, they have to be empowered, encouraged and supported to be able
to maintain a dynamic interaction with the public through their strategic use of the
technology. This is a requirement if we are to expect for a more significant impact of
civic activism.

2. With the significant growth of civil society activisms and networks fuelled by the
use of the Internet and social media, one can mistakenly favour technicality over the
involvement of human agency. Therefore in policy orientation, the focus of civil
society should be the development of the agency’s capabilities, not only in using and
appropriating technology but in building comprehension of the dynamics of civil
society and a wider societal realm.

3. As a network becomes both a locus and instrument of changes for civil society,
networking should be strategised. The Internet and social media should be used
strategically to mediate and facilitate networking, not only between groups within
the civil society sector, but also with organisations from other sectors: public and

85

private. This will pose new challenges for civil society, but it will also present
unprecedented opportunities.

4. As far as the future is concerned, our Foresight exercise, despite being simplified,
has stimulated civil society to start thinking about where they are now and the
future trajectory that they desire. Essentially, the roadmap to the desired future
implies that the use of the Internet and social media in civil society should aim at
strengthening communities, empowering them to demand fundamental societal
changes. From the methodology perspective, this means that the exercise has to be
repeated in the future in order to continuously evaluate how civil society as a
stakeholder has actively shaped the future as it unfolds.

8.3. Limitations
There are at least two basic limitations of this research.

‐ Firstly, the analysis offers a grounded, but not necessarily generalised, explanation
about the nature of the adoption of the Internet and social media in civil society
groups and organisations. Having provided the rich details, readers, especially in
relevant fields, are expected to be able to judge the reasonability of conclusions and
transferability of findings into settings with which they are familiar.

‐ Secondly, the whole discussion about civil society groups and communities is based
on the assumption that they are ‘good’ or ‘civilised’. This is done deliberately
because we need a solid ground on which to build our argument. Of course, in
reality, ‘bad’ and ‘uncivil’ society groups do exist, but they are not taken into
account here. Likewise, with the use of the Internet and social media, we do not
regard the ‘bad and uncivil ways’ of using the technology.

This study has mobilised some perspectives to provide necessary depth and, hopefully,
valuable insights. The developments in the field of Internet (particularly social media)
studies and civil society research are however relatively very recent. Despite its richness
and a long attempt at conceptualisation, as an academic field, civil society is still ‘young’
and ‘immature’ (Anheier et al., 2001; Deakin, 2001; Kaldor et al., 2004; Keane, 1998), compared
to, for example, the body of academic studies on the government or private sector. We
believe, therefore that there are novelties here, however imperfect and limited they are.

8.4. Closing remark
We have confirmed that the use of the Internet and social media in civil society groups and
communities have some enormous implications both to the civil society itself and to
societal dynamics in Indonesia. We now call upon future initiatives to empower civil society
groups and communities, particularly in Indonesia and hopefully beyond, so that they are
capacitated to adopt and use the Internet and social media strategically to facilitate their
work which eventually will lead to societal changes. Such adoption and use will help
achieve the ultimate mission and goal of civil society: that of being a civic guardian.

86

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91

Appendix 1.
Notes on impacts

We envisaged some outputs and potential impacts of this research.

Academic papers: We expect to produce at least 2 (two) academic papers (or equivalent,
such book chapter if there are invitations). The first will set up a discussion for this research
and sets the context. This will lead to subsequent publications, which will examine the
hypothesis and detail the result of this study. It is very likely that the submission and the
publication of these papers are done after the project ends due to the very tight timeline.

Conference papers and presentations: We will seek opportunities to present the paper in
major international conferences such as EUROSEAS (European Association for South East Asian
Studies) or ICAS (International Convention of Asian Scholars, the coming conference will be in
March 2011 in Hawaii). However, this will only be done if there is extra funding made
available by HIVOS for such participation.

Practitioner output: Some of the results are likely to be of interest to civil society activists
and organisations, media, governments and possibly business. We therefore anticipate
writing summary articles for practitioner publications in popular media such as national
newsletters or magazines after the research concludes shall the resource permits.

Other output: We also plan to anonymise the dataset created from the survey and make it
publicly available (in the UK, we may store it in the UK Data Archive; in Indonesia we may
host the data in HIVOS server). We will endeavour to do this after the research concludes.

92

Appendix 2.
Respondents, interviewees, and participants of
workshops and focus group discussions

A.2.1 Survey Respondents

No. Organisation/Community/Group City/Municipal
1 AATI [left empty]
2 Forum Belajar Kreatif [left empty]
3 FOWAB [left empty]
4 Indonesia UNGASS-AIDS Forum [left empty]
5 Kelompok Studi Barokatul Ummah [left empty]
6 Kosayu Linux User Group [left empty]
7 LDK Al-Hikmah [left empty]
8 LSM ISET SELAYAR [left empty]
9 ShARE Tim Universitas Indonesia [left empty]
10 Xzone [left empty]
11 Komunitas Aceh Blogger Aceh
12 PELITA Aceh Tengah
13 YAKKUM Bali Badung
14 Yayasan Export Pengembangan Bali Badung
15 Aceh Information Technology Development Banda Aceh
16 Atjeh International Development Banda Aceh
17 Katahati Institute Banda Aceh
18 Koalisi NGO HAM Aceh Banda Aceh
19 Koalisi untuk Advokasi Laut Aceh (Jaringan KuALA) Banda Aceh
20 Komunitas Pengguna Linux Indonesia Aceh (KPLI Aceh) Banda Aceh
21 Roda Tiga Koetaradja Banda Aceh
22 The Aceh Institute Banda Aceh
23 Jaringan Radio Komunitas Lampung (JRKL) Bandar Lampung
24 Perkumpulan Watala Bandar Lampung
25 ACALAPATI Bandung
26 Common Room Networks Foundation Bandung
27 Deathrockstar.info Bandung
28 Formahesaplb2009 Bandung
29 Forum Hijau Bandung Bandung
30 IMPACT Bandung Bandung
31 Komunitas Waria Bandung
32 Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Bandung Bandung
33 MAGICuhibiniu Bandung

93

34 Mahasiswa S2 IKM UNPAD 2010 Bandung
35 Openlabs Bandung
36 Puzzle Club Bandung
37 Rockgod Foundation Bandung
38 Sekolah Hijau Bandung
39 Studio Driya Media Bandung Bandung
40 Tobucil & Klabs Bandung
41 Yayasan BPK GKP Bandung
42 yayasan pengembangan biosains dan bioteknologi Bandung
43 Yayasan Pengembangan Swadaya Masyarakat Bandung
44 Saudara Sejiwa Foundation Bandung
45 Yayasan Ashoka Indonesia Bandung
46 COBS Bangkalan
47 Komunitas Linux Trunojoyo Bangkalan
48 Plat-M (Nak-Kanak Blogger Bangkalan - Madura) Bangkalan
49 Lembaga Kajian Keislaman & Kemasyarakatan Banjarmasin
50 COMmunity Based Information NEtwork Resource Institution Bantul
51 LEMBAGA PENYIARAN KOMUNITAS SWADESI Bantul
52 Ma'arif Imogiri Bantul
53 Media Komunitas Angkringan Bantul
54 Perkumpulan Pegiat Radio Komunitas Suara Desa Wonolelo FM Bantul
55 Portal Online Suara Komunitas Bantul
56 Radio Komunitas Angkringan Bantul
57 Radio Komunitas Sadewo Bantul
58 Teater Garasi Bantul
59 ASSOSIASI PENDAMPING PEREMPUAN USAHA KECIL Bantul
60 Positive Rainbow Bekasi
61 Stasi Stanislaus Kostka Kranggan Bekasi
62 Cahaya Perempuan Women's Crisis Center Bengkulu Bengkulu
63 Perkumpulan Kantor Bantuan Hukum Bengkulu Bengkulu
64 KAMPUNG MEDIA "JOMPA MBOJO" KABUPATEN BIMA Bima
65 Gabungan Solidaritas Anti Korupsi Bireuen
66 ASTEKI ( ASOSIASI TELEVISI KERAKYATAN INDONESIA ) Bogor
67 DeTara Foundation Bogor
68 ELSPPAT Institue for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihood Bogor
69 koalisi rakyat untuk kedaulatan pangan bogor
70 Komplotan Penulis Imajinasi Sastra (Kopi Sastra) Bogor
71 Pusat Informasi Lingkungan Indonesia Bogor
72 Yayasan Penyelamatan Orangutan Borneo Bogor
73 RMI the Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment Bogor
74 Lembaga Bhakti Kemanusiaan Umat Beragama Boyolali
75 Lestari Mandiri Boyolali
76 Malhikdua Brebes
77 Yayasan Al-Qurni Cirebon

94

78 BESTARI Indonesia Deli Serdang
79 Perkumpulan Penyiaran Komunitas Media Transformasi Rakyat Deli Serdang
80 Social Justice Initiative Deli Serdang
81 Aliansi Jurnalis Independen Denpasar Denpasar
82 Bale Bengong Denpasar
83 Denpasar Photographers Community Denpasar
84 Ikatan Korban Napza (IKON) Bali Denpasar
85 indieGO! magazine Denpasar
86 Naknik Community Denpasar
87 Sloka Institute Denpasar
88 Wijayana_Computech Denpasar
89 YOUTH CORNER - Bali Denpasar
90 deBlogger Depok
91 IGOS Center Depok Depok
92 PIRAC ( public interest researc and advocacy center ) Depok
93 Society of Indonesian Environment Journalist DKI Jakarta
94 STRATEGIC BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DKI Jakarta
95 Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan DKI Jakarta
96 YAYASAN TANANUA FLORES Ende
97 Yayasan Karuna Bali Gianyar
98 The Gorontalo Instiute Gorontalo
99 Yayasan Baruga Cipta Gowa
100 Mantasa Gresik
101 Blankon Linux Jakarta
102 IT Center Jakarta
103 Jaringan Perpustakaan APTIK Jakarta
104 Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan (KontraS) Jakarta
105 Komite independen pemantau pemilu Indonesia Jakarta
106 Masyarakat ekonomi syariah (MES) Jakarta
107 PUSAT PEMBERDAYAAN PEREMPUAN DALAM POLITIK Jakarta
108 The Habibie Center Jakarta
109 Yayasan TERANGI Jakarta
209 Change Magazine Jakarta
110 Forum Indonesia Membaca Jakarta Barat
111 ID-Networkers Jakarta Barat
112 Uni Sosial Demokrat Jakarta Barat
113 Yayasan Agenkultur Jakarta Barat
114 Yayasan AIDS Indonesia Jakarta Barat
115 Rachel House Indonesia Jakarta Barat
116 BADAN NASIONAL PENANGGULANGAN BENCANA/BNPB Jakarta Pusat
117 Freedom Institute Jakarta Pusat
118 Government Watch Jakarta Pusat
119 Komisi Nasional Anti Kekerasan terhadap Perempuan Jakarta Pusat
120 Musholla Al Hikmah Jakarta Pusat

95

121 Orangutan Conservation Services Program Jakarta Pusat
122 Pelayanan Advokasi untuk Keadilan dan Perdamaian Indonesia Jakarta Pusat
123 Perkumpulan DEMOS Jakarta PUsat
124 PWYP-Indonesia (Publish What You Pay - Indonesia, koalisi LSM) Jakarta Pusat
125 Rujak Center for Urban Studies Jakarta Pusat
126 AirPutih Jakarta Selatan
127 ALIANSI MASYARAKAT ADAT NUSANTARA Jakarta Selatan
128 Asosiasi Ibu Menyusui Indonesia Jakarta Selatan
129 Church World Service Indonesia Jakarta Selatan
130 CKNet-INA untuk Indonesia dan Aguajaringuntuk Asia Tenggara Jakarta Selatan
131 Claser Community Jakarta Selatan
132 Forum Lenteng Jakarta Selatan
133 INDONESIA CORRUPTION WATCH Jakarta Selatan
134 Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice Jakarta Selatan
135 Institute for Global Justice Jakarta Selatan
136 Institute for Policy and Community Development Studies (IPCOS) Jakarta Selatan
137 International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) Jakarta Selatan
138 Jaringan Advokasi Tambang (JATAM) Jakarta Selatan
139 Komunitas Indonesia untuk Demokrasi (KID) Jakarta Selatan
140 Lembaga Ourvoice Jakarta Selatan
141 Madrasah Aliyah Citra Cendekia Jakarta Selatan
142 ngerumpi.com Jakarta Selatan
143 PALANG MERAH INDONESIA Jakarta Selatan
144 Perkumpulan Indonesia Berseru Jakarta Selatan
145 Serikat Petani Indonesia Jakarta Selatan
146 The Asian Muslim Action Netwok (AMAN ) Indonesia Jakarta Selatan
147 WWF Indonesia Jakarta Selatan
148 Asosiasi Pendamping Perempuan Usaha Kecil Jakarta Timur
149 Ikatan Serikat Buruh Indonesia Jakarta Timur
150 Jaringan Pendidikan Berbasis Keluarga Jakarta Timur
151 Just Associates Southeast Asia Jakarta TImur
152 Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga Jakarta Timur
153 Perhimpunan Bantuan Hukum dan HAM Indonesia Jakarta Timur
World Community for Christian Meditation/ Komunitas Mondial Meditasi Kristiani
154 Jakarta Utara
Indonesia
155 Pinang Sebatang Jambi
156 KOMUNITAS FILM INDEPENDEN JEMBER (KOIN) Jember
157 Perkumpulan Suara Warga Jombang
158 Radio Komunitas Taratak 107.7 fm Kabupaten 50 Kota
159 Anak Alam Karangasem
160 Lembaga Kediri Bersama Rakyat Kediri
161 Lembaga Netra Testimoni Rakyat kendal
162 Yayasan pengembangan, studi hukum dan kebijakan Kendari
163 Jatayoe Kudus

96

164 Media Opsi - KPK Biro Kudus Kudus
165 Yamsik Pecinta Alam Kuningan
166 Yayasan Kanopi Kuningan Kuningan
167 Penguatan Institusi dan Kapasitas Lokal Kupang
168 Conservation Digital Opportunity Centre - Orangutan Information Centre Langkat
169 Pos Bantuan Hukum dan Pengaduan Pelanggaran HAM Aceh Utara Lhokseumawe
170 Perkumpulan Jari Manis Magelang
171 Pusat Telaah dan Informasi Regional Magelang Magelang
172 Bursa Pengetahuan Kawasan Timur Indonesia Makassar
173 Forum Informasi dan Komunikasi OrNop Sulawesi Selatan Makassar
174 Jirak Celebes Makassar
175 Komunitas Blogger Makassar AngingMammiri Makassar
176 KOMUNITAS SEHATI MAKASSAR Makassar
177 Lembaga Mitra lingkungan Makassar
178 Perkumpulan Jurnalis Advokasi Lingkungan Makassar
179 Poros 3 Institute Makassar
180 Rumah Kaum Muda Makassar
181 Yayasan Bursa Pengetahuan Kawasan Timur Indonesia (BaKTI) Makassar
182 Organisasi Benih Matahari Malang
183 IGAMA Malang
184 Klub Buku Malang Malang
185 Komunitas Blogger Malang Malang
186 Pusat Inkubator Bisnis dan Layanan Masyarakat Malang
187 Bragi FM Radio Komunitas mataram
188 KPLI-NTB Mataram
189 Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Nusa Tenggara Barat Mataram
190 Lembaga Studi Kemanusiaan Mataram
191 Caritas Keuskupan Maumere Maumere / Sikka
192 Gerakan Sehat Masyarakat (GSM) Medan
193 KOOS (Komunitas Orang Orang Sehati) Medan
194 LEMBAGA KASIH RAKYAT Medan
195 Pusat Pengkajian & Pengembangan Masyarakat Nelayan (P3MN) Medan
196 Sources of Indonesia Medan
197 Yayasan BITRA Indonesia Medan
198 APTISI Sumatera Utara Medan
199 Yayasan Papan MBO Meulaboh
200 BRENJONK Mojokerto
201 Komunitas Tahan Bencana Nabire-Papua
202 Perkumpulan Desa Mandiri Nganjuk
203 Forum Academia NTT Online networked
204 Konsorsium Pengembangan Masyarakat Madani (KPMM) Padang
205 Pusat Pengkajian dan Pengembangan Sumber Daya Padang
206 Komunitas Sarueh Padang Panjang
207 Kelompok Tani Ternak SAIRIANG SAIYO SAKATO Padang Pariaman

97

208 Dolphin Indonesia Palu
210 Yayasan Merah Putih Sulawesi Tengah Palu
211 Kelompok Studi dan Pengembangan Prakarsa Masyarakat Parapat/Simalungun
212 Limbubu Pariaman
213 Komunitas Blogger Bertuah Pekanbaru Pekanbaru
214 Komunitas Blogger Warok Ponorogo Ponorogo
215 Institut Dayakologi Pontianak
216 Peternak Muda Kambing Etawa *Gunungkelir* Purworejo
217 Green.Pieces Moslem Students Gathering Salatiga
218 Yayasan Lumbung Cinta Masyarakat Indonesia Salatiga
219 MDMC (Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center) Jawa Tengah Semarang
220 EFFORT to struggle human right Semarang
221 Komunitas Blogger Loenpia.Net Semarang
222 Perkumpulan SOHIBB Serdang Bedagai
223 gloBAL communiTY nusantaRA (BALTYRA.com) Serpong
Serui-Kepulauan
224 Lembaga Studi Masyarakat Manna Papua
Yapen
225 Radio Komunitas Langgiung Simalungun
226 Bancakan 2.0 Sleman
227 JaRI RaBerdasi (Jaringan Rakyat Indonesia Berdaya dan Siaga Sleman
228 Jogloabang Sleman
229 PODJOK Sleman
230 dCARE Surabaya
231 Injecting Drug Users/Yayasan Bina Hati Surabaya
232 Komunitas Blogger Surabaya (Tugupahlawan.com) Surabaya
233 Pusat Studi Hak Asasi Manusia - Pusham Ubaya Surabaya
234 Sampoerna Rescue Surabaya
235 Takmir Mushola At Takwa Surabaya
236 Wangta Agung Surabaya
237 FMKI Surakarta Surakarta
238 Yayasan GESSANG Surakarta
239 Yayasan Insan Sembada (formerly Yayasan Indonesia Sejahtera) Surakarta
240 Komunitas Blogger Bengawan Surakarta
241 Solidaritas Kaum Termarginalkan Surakarta
242 KPLI Solo (Kelompok Pengguna Linux Solo) Surakarta
243 Yayasan Krida Paramita Surakarta Surakarta
244 Ubuntu Metro Tanggerang selatan
245 Paguyuban Kampung Sablon Wedi Klaten
246 Pusat Sumber Daya Buruh Migran Yogyakarta
247 mac.web.id Yogyakarta
248 Hijau - Gerakan Peduli Lingkungan Yogyakarta
249 Indonesian Visual Art Archive Yogyakarta
250 Institute for Community Behavioral Change (ICBC) Yogyakarta
251 Institute for Research and Empowerment Yogyakarta

98

Majelis Pendidikan Tinggi Penelitian dan Pengembangan Pimpinan Pusat
252 Yogyakarta
Muhammadiyah
253 People Like Us (PLU) Satu Hati Yogyakarta
254 Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia (PKBI) DIY Yogyakarta
255 Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta Yogyakarta
256 Suara Malioboro Yogyakarta
257 Unit Fotografi Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta
258 Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia - Yogyakarta Yogyakarta

99

A.2.2. Interviewees

No Name of Respondent Organisation / Community Date of Interview
Voice and Direct Interview
1 Jonathan Lassa NTT Academia 19-08-2010
2 Mia Sutanto AIMI 20-08-2010
3 Budhi Hermanto Suara Komunitas 20-08-2010
4 Novianto Raharjo Tugupahlawan.com 22-08-2010
5 Victorius Elfino Komunitas Langsat 23-08-2010
6 Intan Baidoeri Anging Mammiri Blogger Makasar 24-08-2010
7 Antok Suryaden Joglo Abang 24-08-2010
8 Firdaus Cahyadi KRL Mania 25-08-2010
9 Ferdi Thajib Kunci Cultural Studies Center 25-08-2010
10 Hafiz Forum Lenteng 26-08-2010
11 Ishari Sahida Sound Boutique 27-08-2010
12 Firdaus Cahyadi Korban Lapindo 27-08-2010
13 Dodi Mulyana The Blogger 27-08-2010
14 Akhmad Nasir Combine Research Institution 31-08-2010
15 Sumardiono Sekolah Rumah 31-08-2010
16 Farah Wardani IVAA 31-08-2010
17 Aquino Wredya Hayunta Change Magazine 06-09-2010
18 Haris Azhar Kontras 06-09-2010
19 Sam Ardianto Blogger Ngalam 07-09-2010
20 Khamdani Ali Mashud Blogger Ponorogo 07-09-2010
21 Enda Nasution ID Blokir 07-09-2010
22 Nurwahyu Alamsyah Plat-M 08-09-2010
23 Aloysius Purwa Rotary Club 13-09-2010
24 Maria Mumpuni Benih Matahari 13-09-2010
25 Wayan Rustiasa Karuna Bali 16-09-2010
26 Lukman Age The Aceh Institute 17-09-2010
27 Teuku Farhan KPLI Aceh 17-09-2010
28 Fadli Idris Komunitas Blogger Aceh 21-09-2010
29 Rebecca Sweetman Paradigm Shift 28-09-2010
30 Ozy Sjarinda Bike to Work 11-10-2010
31 Yakob Aceh Green 05-10-2010
32 Syaefuddin Rincong 06-10-2010
Email/written interview
33 Blontank Poer Rumah Blogger Indonesia 25-08-2010
Bengawan
34 Rini Nasution Satudunia 07-09-2010
35 Tarlen Handayani Tobucil 29-09-2010

100

A.2.3. Participants of workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs)

FGD: Research and Environmental Groups (Aceh),
4 October 2010 09.00-12.00 WIB

No. Name Organisation
1 Muhammad Air Putih
2 Adi Saputra Wijaya Air Putih
3 Elita Roni Lubis Air Putih
4 Satriyo Hadi Air Putih
5 Teuku Ardiansyah Katahati Institute
6 Nurul Kamal The Aceh Institute
7 Shita Laksmi Hivos
8 Eka Rahmadi Pengguna Linux Takengon (Pelita)
9 Zulfikar Ahmad Dishub Kominfo Aceh Tengah
10 Adi Usman Musa Institute Green Aceh
11 Yanuar Nugroho MIoIR, University of Manchester

FGD: Human Rights and Politic Groups (Aceh),
4 October 2010 14.00-16.00 WIB

1 Yanuar Nugroho MIoIR, University of Manchester
2 Tery Ardiansyah Kontras Aceh
3 Khairil Kontras Aceh
4 M. Agam K. Kontras Aceh
5 Ade Firmansyah Aceh Dev
6 Bahrizal LEUHAM Aceh

FGD: Linux User Group in Aceh (Aceh),
4 October 2010 17.00-19.00 WIB

1 Ismail Ibtami KPLI
2 Eddie Iskandar KPLI
3 Afzaloer Riza KPLI
4 Khairil Badri KPLI
5 Razinal Rahmat KPLI
6 Surya Bunayya KPLI
7 Zahrul Marzi KPLI
8 I. Wibisono Air Putih

101

9 M. Fadhil KPLI – Aceh
10 M. Ali Murtaza KPLI – Aceh
11 M. Iqbal El-Adani KPLI – Aceh
12 Cheek Yuke GK – Gayohkopi
13 Yanuar Nugroho MIoIR – University of Manchester
16 Satriyo Hadi freelancer

FGD: Blogger Aceh (Aceh),
5 October 2010 17.00-19.00 WIB

2 Fadli Idris Blogger Aceh
3 Pozan Blogger Aceh
7 Tasha Setiawan Air Putih
8 Maimun doank Aceh Blogger
9 T.R. Muda Bentara Aceh Blogger
10 Husni Aceh Blogger

FGD: Air Putih (Aceh),
5 October 2010 20.00-22.00 WIB

1 Yuhendra Air Putih
2 Safrizal Air Putih
4 Rudi S. Y. Air Putih
5 Tasha Setiawan Air Putih
9 Fachrul Idris Air Putih
10 Muh. Rizal Air Putih
11 Andi Setiawan, ST Air Putih
12 Afrizal M. Air Putih

102

Meeting: Tobucil (Bandung),
7 October 2010 09.00-13.00 WIB

1 Tarlen Handayani Tobucil & Klabs
2 Arie Wibowo freelancer

FGD: Common Room (Bandung),
7 October 2010 15.00-18.00 WIB

1 Okid BDM (Bandung Death Metal)
2 Ranti Common Room, Open Labs, YPBB
3 Idhar Rosmadi Common Room
4 Gustaff H. Iskandar Common Room
5 Reina Wulansari Common Room
6 Tian Forum Hijau Bandung
7 Dolly Isnawan YPBB
8 Arie Wibowo freelancer
9 Sandy Adriadi (Ate) YPBB
11 Tony Maryana Compusician
12 Ipank Compusician
13 Indro Trah
14 Rahadian SDM
15 Eddie B. Handono SDM
16 Donna Common Room
17 M. Akbar Open Labs
18 Kimung Ujung Berung Rebbels

FGD: Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan (Solo),
11 October 2010 09.00-15.00 WIB

1 Blontank Poer Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
2 Andrean Saputro Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
3 Ody Dasa F. Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
4 Dony Alfan Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
5 Sam Ardi Bloggerngalam
6 Hassan Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
7 Nenden Sekar Arum Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
Nurannisaa
8 “Iyem” Siti Fatmawati Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
9 Indra Wardana Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan

103

10 Imron Rosyid Freeland Jurnalis
11 Akhmad Nasir Combine
12 M. Darul Mukhlasin PLAT-M
13 Sapto Nugroho Yay-taleanta-Solo
14 Daniel S.P. XL Center Solo
15 Anisa Febrina Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
16 Ageng Komunika XL
17 Pipit Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
18 Ebik Dei Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
19 Andy MSE Sekolah Rakyat IFK

FGD: Blogger Jatim-Jateng (Solo),
11 October 2010 17.00-21.00 WIB

1 Nurwahyu Alamsyah Plat-M
2 Denden Sofiudin Pendekar Tidar (Magelang)
3 Moch. Sebbhie T. Benteng Pendhem Club (Ngawi)
4 Sang Bayang Benteng Pendhem Club (Ngawi)
5 Moh. Arifudin Kotareyog.com (Ponorogo)
6 Fajar Rahman Bloggerngalam (Malang)
7 Hendri Destiwanto Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
8 Hamdani Ali M. Kotareyog.com (Ponorogo)
9 Endah Murwani K. Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
10 Riwis Sadati Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan

FGD: Suara Komunitas (Yogyakarta),
12 October 2010 19.00-22.00

1 Ketut Sutawijaya Combine
2 Anggoro IHAP
3 Merry Combine
4 Anton Birowo Atmajaya YK
5 Gopek Radio Angkringan
6 Ari Senayan Library Management System
7 Farid B.S. LOS DIY
8 Amryn Radio Angkringan
9 Khoirul M. Combine
10 Isnu Suntoro Combine
11 Sarni ASPPUK
12 Didi ASPPUK
13 Yusuf H. Combine

104

14 Tugiman Ngijo Sitimulyo
15 Ambar Sari Dewi Radio Angkringan Timbulharjo
16 Choirun Nangim UMY
17 Muh. Arif Ma’ruf UMY
18 Yurdan Biyantoro UMY
19 Farhan Luthfi UMY
20 Tabah S.P. UMY
21 Ibnu Saptatriansyah UMY
22 Joko W. Rakodal Sriharjo
23 M. Ibnu Sumarno Suara Malioboro
24 Kamal Hayat UMY
25 Fachriy N Akas UMY
26 Valeytina Sri Wijiyati IDEA YK
27 Bambang IDEA YK
28 M. Imran K. MPM
29 Budhi Herwanto Combine
30 Sulchan R. STIE
31 Maria Santi Local Research Assistant
32 Indra Soeharto freelancer

FGD: IVAA (Yogyakarta),
13 October 2010 09.00-12.30 WIB

1 Elanto Wijoyono Green Map Indonesia
2 Cicilia Maharani Yayasan Kampung Halaman
3 Nuraini Juliastuti Kunci Cultural Studies Center
4 Ferdi Kunci Cultural Studies Center
5 Anang Saptoto MES 56
6 Pitra IVAA
7 Ferial IVAA
8 Melisa IVAA
9 Edy IVAA
10 Yosi IVAA
11 Wimo Bayang MES 56
12 M. Dzulfahmi Yahya IVAA
13 Agung K.
14 Elly Kent Asialink
15 Anissa A.K. IVAA
16 M. Zamzam F. Yayasan Kampung Halaman

105

FGD: Kunci (Yogyakarta),
13 October 2010 13.30-17.00 WIB

1 Gunawan Julianto Rumah Pelangi
2 Iwan Effendi Papermoon Puppet Theatre
3 Wok The Rock Yes No Wave Music
4 Ria Papermoon Puppet Theatre
5 Melle Jaarsma Cemeti Art House
6 Adriani Combine
7 Yoshi IVAA
8 Imof HONF
9 Ira HONF
10 Iteq ICAN (Indonesian Contemporary Art
Network)

FGD: Joglo Abang (Yogyakarta),
13 October 2010 20.00-21.00 WIB

1 Aranto Sulistyo Joglo Abang
2 Akhmad Nasir Combine
3 Purnomo Gunung Kelir
4 Sugiharto Gunung Kelir
5 Elanto Wijoyono Combine

FGD: Focus Group Discussion Evaluation (Yogyakarta),
14 October 2010 13.30-16.00 WIB

1 Farah Wardani IVAA
2 Nuraini Juliastuti Kunci
3 Pitra Hutomo IVAA
4 Syafiatudina Kunci
5 Ferdiansyah Thajib Kunci

106

FGD: Karuna (Bali),
15 October 2010 15.00-17.00 WITA

1 Philip Yusenda Karuna / LEEI
2 Triarani Utami Karuna / LEEI
3 Ni Luh Warsini Karuna / LEEI
4 Equatori Karuna / LEEI

FGD: Sloka Institute (Bali),
16 October 2010 10.00 WITA

1 Novian Yakeba
2 Trisna Pramana Igk PPLH
3 Sang Ayu Yakkum Bali
4 Fransiska Bali Collaboration on Climate Change
5 Riana Dyah S. PPLH
6 Suarsana Akademika
7 Happy Ary S. Akademika
8 Rahaji FFTI
9 Pande Putu Setiawan Komunitas Anak Alam
10 Intan Paramitha Apsari Sloka Institute
11 Agus Sumberdana Sloka Institute
12 Adi Mantara Yakeba
13 Maryo Walhi Bali
14 Mang Arix’s ICX Klungkung
15 Hira J. Bebew
16 Luh De Suriyani Sloka Institute
17 Gung WS Sloka Institute
18 Anton Muhajir Sloka Institute
19 Rofiqi Hasan Aji Denpasar
20 Triarani LVE

FGD: Naknik Community (Bali),
16 October 2010 16.00-17.30 WITA

1 Mei Rismawati Naknik Community
2 I Gede Santika Naknik Community
3 Ayu Sugiantari Naknik Community
4 Jenifer Esperanca Naknik Community
5 Shanny Samantha Naknik Community
107

6 Dwija Putra Naknik Community
7 Murdiana Saputra Naknik Community
10 Triarani LVE

FGD: Change (Jakarta),
18 October 2010 14.00 WIB

1 Aquino YJP
2 Oswald Change
3 Syahdi YJP
4 Astrid Change
5 Afra Change (YJP)
6 Eddy Change (YJP)
7 Indah Change
8 Arip P. IKJ Change
9 Budi Rachman IKJ
10 Amalia Sekarjati Change
11 Dini Suara Pemuda Anti Korupsi

Reflective Workshop (Jakarta),
19 October 2010

1 Rini Nasution Satu Dunia
2 Afra Suci Ramadhan Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan (YJP)
3 Suwarno INFID
4 Darmanto ASPPUK
5 Nurlina N. Purbo Air Putih
6 Victorius Elvino (Ndaru) Politikana / Langsat
7 Firdaus Cahyadi Satu Dunia
8 Adrian B Sentosa Kontras
9 Hafiz Forum Lenteng
10 Donny BU ICT Watch
11 Sumardiono Jaringan Homeschooling
12 Gustaff H. Iskandar Common Room
13 Idhar Rosmadi Common Room
14 Tarlem Tobucil & Klabs

108

FGD: Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan (Solo),
12 December 2010 19.00-22.30 WIB

No Name Organisation
1 Hasan Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
2 Donni Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
4 Mursid Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
5 Happy Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
6 Andre Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
7 Riyusa Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
8 Iyem Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
9 Ciwir Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
10 Henny Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
11 Indra Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan
12 Sapto Rumah Blogger Indonesia Bengawan

Workshop: FORESIGHT,
Jakarta, 21 December 2010

No Name Organisation
1 Yanuar Nugroho University of Manchester
4 Mirta Amalia University of Manchester
6 Gustaff Harriman Iskandar Common Room
7 Tarlem Tobucil
8 Rini Nasution Satu Dunia
9 Ndaru Langsat
10 Darmanto Seknas ASPPVK
11 Sumardiono Jaringan Homeschooling
12 Agus Triwanto Air Putih
13 Aquino Hayunta Jurnal Perempuan
14 Wahyu Susilo INFID
15 Suwarno INFID
16 Donny BU ICT Watch

109

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