Social Media and Our ASEAN Connectivity[1]
How do we define connectivity in an international region? A connected and free trade? A political bond connected by same acknowledgement of some sort of regional organization? Free movement of people beyond the country’s territory? Or, a bond of people in the vast realm of internet? Whatever your definition is, connectivity gives many impact in a region. Whether it’s good or bad, it depends on the people itself.
Are we, the people of ASEAN, connected?
“ASEAN is a community. And in a community, communication is an obligation. And communication is driven by connectivity” said Makarim Wibisono, Executive Director of ASEAN Foundation. He’s right. As we are now moving towards borderless territory and intensification of interaction between nations, the international realm has been becoming a big community, especially in regional context.
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Kampuchea. We are a big community shares the same history, region, and vision which connect and unite us for almost half century. Our historical leaders, they were people who shares the same vision of south east asia nation. They share the same vision of future and awareness of other’s presence and condition so they knew that unity is the best choice to move forward in the region.
ASEAN can only exist now because there were time in the past when the people of ASEAN think the others problem was a collective problem, and the others development was also a collective development. This sense of collectiveness of course driven by their close interaction, exhange of information, and sympathy. So the bond was created. A government to government (G-to-G) unity in the organization called ASEAN.
And now we go back to the present. The organization has developed into a big community because of the external factor and the power of globalization. But now, are we the people of ASEAN connected enough? As a community, we are not connected enough because the connectivity paradigm is limited in intergovernmental connection, not intersociety. The simple example is in 2010 only 34 million people did an intra-ASEAN travel, compared to the extra-ASEAN travel which reached the number 38 million[2] with the fact that total inhabitants of ASEAN is 601 million lives. The amount of people who traveled to their own community only reach approximately 5%.
Building Connectivity
So, we are not connected enough, our community only represented in G-to-G initiatives, and interaction between people through travel is small. Then, what should we do? The need to build ASEAN as a community is high. We, the youngsters of ASEAN, have to make some innovation.
For a start, ASONe is a big step. An alliance of student organization across ASEAN is a big move forward in shaping connectivity between people. ASONe is a nongovernmental social movement, a nongovernment organization in regional level which shows the good initiative of ASEAN students to interact and solidify themselves through organization.
And the next step is the use of social media. We can’t deny that we use social media from Facebook to Twitter so much and shown by the fact that blablabla million people in ASEAN use Facebook and some blabla use Twitter. But, an important question should be asked. How many ASEAN friends do you have in Facebook? How many ASEAN institution or social media do you follow in Twitter?
It’s the era of social media. We can easily understand the situation in Europe or America through social media. It’s as easy as following famous figure and prominent media from the west. Or just ‘like’ some Facebook pages of figure and media. From that, an abundant information of social-politic-economy-culture-travel will flow right to our account. Social media gets us connected with the world.
In this time of social media I hardly announced that we the civil society of ASEAN failed to keep up with the world challenge. Which media should we follow to understand ASEAN collective movement and complete news? Which public figure should we follow to discuss about how we the people of ASEAN should tackle the global challenge? It’s a big task for us to get our society connected in big community of ASEAN’s social media.
I believe from the connectivity we create through social media we can raise a big awareness and consciousness of each other. The problem, development, crisis, good news, bad news, and every information we need to make our bond and feeling each other stronger can be shared through social media. ASONe can initiate the movement. We have connection from almost every country in ASEAN which can perform citizen journalism to report any news from their respective country.
From our little step, we can make a huge leap for ASEAN.
[1] by Ivan Nashara, Head of Department of Network and Public Communication BEM KM UGM 2012
[2]Table 28: Tourist Arrival in ASEAN, 15 February 2012, <http://www.aseansec.org/stat/Table28.pdf>
ivnash 