56 school. They are 1 miss perception about arts that is art involves music and dancing
only; 2 the assumption that a language teacher is able to teach literature; 3 mostly the teachers teach the theory rather than the practice; 4 the assumption that western
arts are better than ethnic arts.
As long these misassumptions still available in our educational systems, it is hard for our community to meet a civil society. A civil society is a community that
respect to the values, norms and low, sustained by the quality of belief and the mastery of science and technology. We hope we can meet such a civil society in the
future by preserving our identity and culture and revitalizing our way of thinking.
E. Mass Media and Culture
Mass media and culture in a society have a strong relationship between one to another. Mass media can influent the changing of culture in a society, and the
culture can form the characteristic of a mass media. What is needed in communities which are the culture in it’s, can be the orientation of mass media in providing their
services. Through mass media individual or groups who have power are able to persuade or to provoke the readers society with certain goal and ambition. On the
other hand, the culture what are the trend in the society can be the consideration for mass media in producing the news or opinion. Rahbar 2006 states that
nowadays, mass media have a strong power in planting assumption, culture, behavior, which are the identities of human culture.
In this case, Alwasilah doesn’t deny the power of mass media in this globalization era. As a matter of fact, mass media play an important role in forming
the culture in a community. They may change the way of thinking mindset or push people critical thinking. Whatever written in mass media will become a public
discourse analysis. It is also supported by Sugono 2004:
Media massa memiliki peran yang strategis dalam pengungkapan berita hangat, opini masyarakat, informasi, dan artikel yang akan memperkaya wawasan peserta didik secara
tidak langsung memiliki wawasan bahasa media massa yang memiliki kekhasan tersendiri. Hal itu akan ikut membentuk kepribadian peserta didik dalam berpikir, berekspresi, dan
berkomunikasi.”
The problem, however, is that many mass media are not ideally commit with the goals. The main target of many mass media is business orientation. Mass media
have been “a reader-or-customer oriented” in which presenting news or variety of articles to invite as many as readers to read them.
Based on this orientation, many mass media printed or electronic have destroyed the structures in the society. One of the examples is what stated by J
Oetama 2005:
“Periklanan yang bersubstansi pengenalan barang dan promosi serta penawaran barang dan jasa, sejak semula merupakan bagian organik dan organis dari media. Media hidup
dari langganan dan periklanan. Dalam perkembangannya, dalam waktu-waktu mutakhir, peran periklanan kian besar dalam menghasilkan pendapatan.
This phenomenon proves that mass media have provided not only positive but also negative effect into the culture in societies. They are not only providing information
and education but also attracting and inviting people attention into business interaction. In this case, mass media lead the people into consumptive style.
Furthermore, mass media can also influent the changing of culture in a society. Let take an example in Indonesia, most of mass media electronic and
printed use Indonesian language. It makes the people familiar using Indonesian
57 language in discussing politic, economy, science and technology, social event and
so on. The style of language provided in mass media can become the standard of language used in society. On the other hand, the power of mass media can be used
in preserving certain ethnic languages. In some province in Indonesia like in West Java, many newspapers socialize Sundanese language into their community. So
again, the power of newspaper can both support and destroy the cultures which become the identity in a community.
F. Developing Reproductive Machine of National Knowledge
