Latifah Dinar
13 Jun 2023 at 20:16Bahasa Indonesia is a product of
pluralism. Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of Indonesia that was
established on October 28th, 1928, to unite all the youths from the different
parts of Indonesia back in 1928, due to the ethnic and geographical
differences. It means Bahasa aimed to accept the differences that Indonesia had
without forgetting the differences themselves. This noble reason has been
acknowledged by an Irish Political Scientist and Historian, Benedict Anderson,
in one of his books entitled Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures
in Indonesia which says "Indonesian's main public function lies in its role
as a unifier." Since its establishment, Bahasa Indonesia has shown the
social process, culture, and politics of Indonesia. Besides having its
character as an integrationist, Bahasa Indonesia is also known as the attitude
of Indonesia which means the society mirrors the language. It reasons the
differences of applying Bahasa Indonesia as the communication media due to the
background that society has. The application of Bahasa Indonesia has also
tremendously developed from time to time. This development has surprisingly
made Bahasa Indonesia more interesting with the appearance of slang,
absorption, and some words that are used only by the youngster.
Indonesia nowadays is surrounded
by technology due to the launching of "Making Indonesia 4.0". People
are massively looking for technology in order to help them to make their lives
more efficient. This advancement has made a tremendous impact on every aspect
of their lives that plays an important role in the function of society's life
which consequently has changed their cultural behavior and mindset. One of the
technologies that Indonesian is really fond of is the Smart Phone. According to Wikipedia, Smart Phone is a family of Mobile Phones that has hardware
capability and an extensive mobile operating system. It also provides
multimedia functionally, wider software and the internet. With 264 million
population, Indonesia is placed on the fourth largest Smart Phone user having over 100 million users with 145 million connected to the Internet
which eventually gives an advantage to the realization of Industrial Revolution
4.0. However, this fact has sadly lowered the stage of the application of
Bahasa Indonesia as communication media. It is because of the two combinations
of the internet and technology, called social media.
Social media is an internet
platform that facilitates the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career
interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.
Social media mostly could be accessed freely by any age, background, job, and
gender in order to help people to find or keep in touch with their family or
colleague that stay apart from them. With the ease that social media provides,
it makes people massively fond of it and might become crazed by it. Some of
them are 'possessed' by its facility which turns them into a Social Media
addict.
In the modern era, the application
of language becomes more complex compared to the past one. With a huge wave of
technology and science, it demands people to follow the trend of using language
that somehow, in this modern era, can become something that is supposedly not
to be used, especially in social media, a platform that can be accessed
globally. A lot of conflicts can happen in social media due to the misuse of
language and it is worrying. A lack of knowledge in using a language on social
media can be the reason behind conflicts. For Indonesian, a conflict between two
well-known Indonesian persons, celebrities, usually starts a fight in
cyberspace or social media where they write an individual opinion that will
possibly offend the other person and evolves the brawl into reality. This
thing usually happens and sadly has become a daily consumption for society.
To make peace, language is one of
the most important elements that its presence is fated to be a solution for
conflicts, especially for social media conflict. Language as a media of
communication works to mediate conflict that happens around society. By talking
and discussing the problem, addressing the source of discordance, and getting
rid of all the assumptions by explaining the truth by using language as the
mediator. Bahasa Indonesia was established from those worries of conflict
possibility due to the diversity that Indonesia has. By learning Bahasa Indonesia
and using it rightly, there will be a possibility to make Indonesia one of
the peaceful countries. (Latifah Dinar, Kalimantan Timur)
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