Similarities between cultures and social lives of communities in southeast Asia have created similar problems in the region as well. The existing problems therefore can be comprehensively reviewed in studies on this region. The results of these were presented at the International Conference on South East Asia Studies (ICSEAS), organised by UGM publishing house (BPP UGM) on Wednesday (27/9) in East Parc Hotel, Yogyakarta.
“ICSEAS was organised to facilitate social and humanities researchers, and provide a forum for discussion of research studies, especially related to social studies in southeast Asia,” said Head of BPP UGM, Widodo, S.P., M.Sc., Ph.D.
Widodo said this conference was one of a series in an agenda that is carried out annually by UGM, namely the UGM Annual Scientific Conference (UASC) that covers various disciplines. ICSEAS is aimed to explore themes relevant with the social issues of today.
“The first ICSEAS was more on communication, language, and economy. This time we talked about topical issues, such as border issues and social media,” he added.
Social cultural issues in the digital era, according to Widodo, were one of the most important amidst the technology advancement that is unfortunately not accompanied by adequate media literacy understanding.
“Our literacy understanding is not ready yet for social media issues so hoaxes have been rampant and other things as well,” said Widodo.
“For UGM, we want to increase publication in order to encourage social science researchers to present their papers and submit them to journals,” Widodo added.
The conference was attended by 176 participants from various countries, such as China, India, and Poland. Speakers who attended included Krishna Sen from University of Western Australia, Jürgen Rüland from University of Freiburg, and Pujo Semedi and Sri Adiningsih from UGM.
Events at the conference included plenary meetings and presentations that were divided into three symposiums, Identity and Popular Culture, The Dynamics of Southeast Asian Studies, and Communication in Digital Society. Papers presented in this event will be selected for publication in journals that are indexed by Scopus or DOAJ/EBSCO, including Philippine Journal of Science, Knowledge E, Jurnal Kawistara, Indonesian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, and ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development.