• News Archive
  • Simaster
  • Webmail
  • Directory
  •  English
    • Indonesia
Universitas Gadjah Mada Universitas Gadjah Mada Universitas Gadjah Mada Universitas Gadjah Mada
  • Education
    • Doctoral dissertation
    • Inauguration of Professor
    • Graduation
  • Achievement
  • Research and Innovation
    • Research
    • Innovation
  • Campus Info
    • Cooperation
    • Seminar and Workshop
    • Student Community Service Program
    • Other
  • News Report
  • Home
  • News Report
  • UGM and WhatsApp Launch Digital Literacy Training for Women

UGM and WhatsApp Launch Digital Literacy Training for Women

  • 20 October 2020, 10:12 WIB
  • By: Natasa Adelayanti
  • 613
  • PDF Version
UGM - WhatsApp Gelar Pelatihan Literasi Digital Untuk Perempuan

Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and WhatsApp launched a training program. They raised a theme entitled "Women Against Political Hoaxes on WhatsApp Group in the 2020 Regional Election" to encourage female community leaders in four cities as the agents of change in fighting the spread of hoaxes during the 2020 Regional Election.

The training is a sequence of the research entitled "WhatsApp Group and Indonesian Women's Digital Literacy," published earlier this year by the UGM Department of Communication. WhatsApp is an extension of social life for most women, where more than half of their WhatsApp groups are family and friends.

Novi Kurnia, as the Head of the UGM Master of Communication Science Program, revealed that 70 percent of the 1,250 female respondents claimed to have up to 10 WhatsApp groups, which are often being sources where they got hoaxes and disinformation. Research conducted shows that 74 percent of women exposed to hoaxes choose not to respond to suspicious messages received to evade conflict.

"We discern that women have the opportunity to make a change in their communities as long as they are provided with the right digital literacy training. This condition is the reason why we are collaborating with WhatsApp to arrange this series of training programs," she said at the UGM Campus on Monday (19/10).

Concerning the Digital Training Series for Indonesian Women: Women Against Political Hoaxes on WhatsApp In the 2020 Regional Election, Novi highlighted that almost 86.6 percent of the most hoaxes found on WhatsApp were political hoaxes. Meanwhile, as many as 49 percent of the most hoax sources were from WhatsApp groups, friends/alumni.

"There was found that Indonesian women's average critical competency score was 2.2 in navigating misinformation on WhatsApp. This number is lower than the functional competency, which reached 2.38. Accordingly, it is so important this training is carried out," she explained.

Novi explained that the digital literacy training series for Indonesian women against political hoaxes on WhatsApp in the 2020 Regional Election is a continuous program of WhatsApp Group Research and Indonesian Women's Digital Literacy. The goal is to provide Indonesian women to perform an active role as digital literacy agents in fighting hoaxes and hate speech that emerged in the 2020 regional election during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"In this training, the organizers will give the participants material in the form of module books, assignment books, video modules, and assignment videos," she said.

Novi explained that by holding this training, there would be some competencies achieved. Women can use digital media, take advantage of digital media functions, assess information critically, and finally take action against hoaxes.

"96 women from four cities prone to hoaxes, prone to political pressure and prone to pandemics are those in Makassar (South Sulawesi), Mamuju (West Sulawesi), South Tangerang (Banten) and Tomohon (North Sulawesi). Thanks to the UGM Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Master's Study Program's collaboration with WhatsApp, CFDs, PR2Media, and Jogja MediaNet, because of them, we can launch this event," she explained.

Novi, as the training coordinator, added that 58 percent of women in Makassar receive one to three disinformation messages from their group every day. More than three-quarters of the contents of the messages are related to politics.

The training was conducted online through WhatsApp and Zoom Groups on 19-24 October 2020. This training program was also guided by mentoring through WhatsApp Groups for one month after training until after the election.

This training involved ten academics, researchers, and practitioners in literacy and information technology, a collaboration of the UGM Faculty of Social and Political Science Master's Degree Study Program, PR2Media, and Jogja MediaNet.

One of the training participants registered is Andi Sri Wulandani, a 38-year-old woman from Makassar. Andi has worked for the General Election Commission of Soppeng Regency and currently works as the head of a research institute in Makassar.

According to him, everyone, including himself, uses WhatsApp as the main means of communication to connect with friends, family, and co-workers.

"Without sufficient knowledge and awareness, it is easy for us to get trapped in the information that is not certain the truth. Therefore, I can't wait to participate in this training and hope that the knowledge I get can be shared with my community. I am sure we can fight hoax together with collaborative efforts," said Andi.

This training will be held in four selected cities/districts, namely South Tangerang, Mamuju, Tomohon, and Makassar. These four locations have been identified by the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the General Election Commission (KPU) as areas prone to conflict due to disinformation.

WhatsApp APAC's Public Policy Director, Clair Deevy, believes good technology and increasing digital literacy can solve this issue. According to him, WhatsApp has the best spam detection technology.

"With this technology, WhatsApp detects accounts that display suspicious behavior, such as newly registered accounts that suddenly send large amounts of messages at once. Accounts like this may be misused to spread spam and hoaxes," he said.

According to Deevy, WhatsApp still encourages its users to check the truth of messages received before sharing them. It is also recommended to always refer to important information to reliable and official sources.

"Hence, we are very excited about working with institutions like UGM to encourage further the involvement of Whatsapp users in fighting hoaxes and disinformation," she added.

Author: Agung Nugroho
Photo: WinNetNews

Related News

  • UGM - Sookmyung Women's University Collaborate in Women's Empowerment

    Wednesday,17 January 2018 - 9:23
  • Digital Literacy Competency of Indonesian Society's Begins to Develop

    Wednesday,09 September 2020 - 12:54
  • CfDS UGM Nominee for WSIS Prize 2019

    Thursday,24 January 2019 - 8:23
  • Digital Literacy Campaign

    Tuesday,17 October 2017 - 13:54
  • UGM - Asia Pacific Women’s Information Network Center of Sookmyung Women’s University Organise UNESCO-UNITWIN Training

    Tuesday,13 August 2019 - 13:07

News Releases

  • Agricultural Engineering Students Grab Medals at 2022 AE-ARC 20 May 2022
    UGM Agricultural Engineering students won four medals and
    Salma
  • UGM Students Win International Chess Tournament 19 May 2022
    UGM representatives have been named winners at the 25th GA
    Salma
  • UGM Researchers Breed New Black Soybean Cultivar 17 May 2022
    A team of researchers at the UGM Faculty of Agriculture is
    Salma
  • UGM Inaugurates New Professor of Chemical Engineering 13 May 2022
    Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) celebrated the promotion of
    Salma
  • UGM Among World’s 10 Best Universities to Deliver SDG 1 10 May 2022
    Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) was ranked in the top 10 glo
    Salma

Info

  • Install Fest Windows
    29 September 2017
  • Streaming Author Workshop Writing and Publishing
    14 July 2017
  • Hokkaido University Short Term Exchange Program HUSTEP
    08 January 2016
  • 2016 Amgen Scholars Program in Japan
    08 January 2016
  • Jardine Foundation Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies at University of Oxford and University of Cambridge
    01 July 2015

Event

  • 30May International Academic Conference on Tourism (INTACT) 2022 ...
  • 21Jul The International Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture, and Tourism (ICOSEAT)...
  • 07Sep The 8th International Conference on Science and Technology (ICST 2022)...
Universitas Gadjah Mada
UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA
Bulaksumur Yogyakarta 55281
   info@ugm.ac.id
   +62 (274) 588688
   +62 (274) 565223
   +62 811 2869 988

PARTNERSHIP

  • Alumni
  • International Affairs

ABOUT UGM

  • Rector's Welcome
  • History
  • Vission and Mission
  • The Board of Executive
  • Management

VISIT UGM

  • Campus Map
  • Event

REGISTRATION

  • Undergraduate
  • Graduate
  • Vocational School
  • Professional Program
  • International Program

© 2022 Universitas Gadjah Mada

PRIVACY POLICYCONTACT