Indonesian Infotainment

1. The Origin of Infotainment.

Originally, Infotainment is a combo word; it is the combination between information and entertainment. It refers to the program of media which is served in enjoy situation. For example, comedy news which have “serious contents” such as politic, corruption and economy and fun science program in which both of them have “unserious” or even humorous style in delivering their material . Compare with the word “edutainment” as the combination between education and entertainment, education is the content of the program whether entertainment is the method to serve education as the substance of the program (Syahputra, 2006).

The concepts of infotainment firstly came from John Hopkins University (JHU), Baltimore, USA; A University which is famous with its researches about healthy and medicine to help human being development through their researches’ result, this university also has international network. JHU was supported by Center of Communication Program (CCP) which communicates the health messages. For this purpose, some experts of communication in CCP including Everet M. Rogers, an expert of development communication try to find certain ways in order to attract society in receiving the information about healthy, since it is considered as a serious topic.

The basic concept of infotainment is from assumption that the society will not receive certain information by the way it is deployed, although they need it. Hence it needs to insert certain ways to increase society’s interests to receive it. Until they choose entertainment inserted to the program as their effort. From this basic idea, they create the term infotainment as an informative program but showed by inserting entertainment. In practice, JHU then hold music concert in delivering their information about healthy for youth. Later, this concept is borrowed by mass media especially TV broadcasting in Indonesia though belongs to the other meaning (Syahputra, 2006).

2. The Development in Indonesia and Discussion

Standing from the historical background of infotainment with edutainment as its comparation, it should be an information program which uses entertainment as the method in serving it. However, this meaning has changed. Nowadays, Infotainment refers to the program on TV, Radio, or Rubric at newspaper that informs the life of entertainers or celebrities or public figures include their surroundings. Nugroho (2005) said that the meaning of infotainment is information about the world of entertainment specifically about exploration of public figures’ privacy. Infotainment talk about marriage, divorce, daily activities, and education of public figures’ children etc. everything is tried to be dig or we can say exploited. The high sum of sinetron, contests of talents (singing, dancing, modeling, music), and reality show makes infotainment needed by society as the gate for getting the information about their idols.

KPI (Komisi Penyiaran Indonesia/Broadcasting Commission of Indonesia) reported that in 2002 up to 2005, our TV stations broadcasted infotainment 13 hours in a day. In 2002 there are 24 episodes in a week broadcasted by 10 TV stations; in 2003 they had 101 episodes in a week; in 2004 were broadcasted 151 episodes, then in 2005 there were 180 episodes in a week. This facts shows that the interest of our society to the infotainment was so high (Nugroho, 2005), the recent condition shows that there are at least 26 kinds of infotainment broadcasted by six private TV stations, 15-23 times a day, such as insert pagi and insert sore investigasi by Trans TV, was-was, halo selebriti, hot shot by SCTV, silet, kabar-kabari, and cek & ricek by RCTI, and kiss by Indosiar. Carpini and William (2001) stated that there are some reasons why infotainment develops quickly such as economical pressure, the structural change of broadcasting and telecommunication industry, and way of view that journalism and entertainment is same.

By the data showed above we can conclude that infotainment become a good commodity for business. Where the mass is concentrate the logic of capitalism will operate (Kompas, May 20, 2010, p. C), the production of infotainment in line with the production of sinetron, contests of talents, and reality shows can be the fact of the logic accumulation or Dedy N. Hidayat (2003) said that it is as never-ending circuit of capital accumulation : M-C-M (Money-Commodities-More money). TV industry create the entire of the market and said “this is the entire of the market!” which force them to accumulate same program, sinetron and contests of talents need infotainment and vice versa. In another side, to fulfill this requirements the infotainment’s journalists often effort any ways to catch the news from their object, and they think that anything about public figures has news values.

Some people has assumption that infotainment break the board of privacy of the public figures, but infotainment workers argued that the society need to know everything about their public figures as the answer of their curiosity. Here the infotainment’s journalists have to obey the ethic code of journalistic.

However, infotainment often breaks this rule, since there are interests of economy and politics behind infotainment and generally TV stations. This make the quality of the infotainment is bad; we can see the information and the process in getting it. We often watch and hear words such as “supposed”, “suspected” and “seems”, these words indicate that there is no check and re-check in the process of news making or we recognize it as not “cover both side”. Another example is when Ariel peterpan destroy the camera of journalist of Trans TV, Dzikrullah, when he try to shoot the picture of Luna Maya after attending the police invitation related to the case of porn video stared by both Luna and Ariel. Ariel may feel discomfort at that time. He is tired and he cannot hold his emotion. In our view, it will not happen if Dzikrullah respect to Ariel by letting him to go inside his car. Related to this case, ethic code of TV journalism in Indonesia chapter II article 3 states that “TV journalism of Indonesia should give attention to the accuracy, honesty, and equality, which consider consciousness/the depth of the heart” and chapter IV article 11 stated that “journalist of Indonesian TV respect to the right of privacy of the object of the news”. Then, chapter I article 3 of ethic code of journalism stated, “Wartawan Indonesia pantang menyiarkan karya jurnallistik (tulisan, suara, serta suara dan gambar) yang menyesatkan memutar balikkan fakta, bersifat fitnah, cabul serta sensasional” and Chapter III article 9 said “Wartawan Indonesia menempuh cara yang sopan dan terhormat untuk memperoleh bahan karya jurnalistik (tulisan, suara, serta suara dan gambar) dan selalu menyatakan identitasnya kepada sumber berita”. .

This non-ideal condition is made worse by the presenters who usually use hyperbole diction to make it more interesting, the inserting of the music also take this role. More various diction and music used it will more “hide” the real fact delivered, it becomes blur.

TV is a media whish use audio-visual strength can express the fact fastly and the society or viewer can feel it more “real” than other mass media. So, it makes the society easy to imitate. Moreover, the contents of infotainment show the glamorous style of life which can attract society to the consumerism culture.

3. The Relation between The Holy Koran and The Infotainment

In the Holy Qur’an, Allah forbid of suspicion, spy and backbite one another. Allah said in the Al-Hujarat verse 12:

"O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion; indeed some suspicion is sin. And spy not, neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother you would hate it. And have Taqwa of Allah. Verily, Allah is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful."

In the verse above, the word “avoid” means forbid to do. Forbid to have much of suspicion, spy, and backbite one another. It seems like eating the flesh of the dead brother. Every human being hates to eat the flesh of his brother because it is unmoral. In addition, the wise person said “tongue is sharper then sword.” So, we should not follow the conjecture, because the conjecture is no substitute for the truth and they do nothing but lie. And we have to have taqwa to Allah.

Allah also said in the Al-Hujarat verse 6:

"O you who believe! If a Fasiq (liar - evil person) comes to you with any news, verify it, lest you should harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful for what you have done".

In this verse, Allah the Exalted ordered investigating the news that sinners and the wicked bring, to make sure of its authenticity. Otherwise, if the sinner's word is taken for granted and a decision is based on it, regardless of whether the information is true or not, the authorities will be taking the lead of the sinners. Allah the Exalted and Most Honored forbade taking the path of the corrupted and sinners.