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Library can enhance literacy for political information
Enhancing literacy is urgent in the era of democracy where the voice of every single person counts toward defining the future of our society.
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Information hungry: Local residents read books and browse the internet at a mobile library parked at alun-alun selatan (south town square) in Yogyakarta on July 14, 2023. The facility is provided by the city administration.
(Antara/Andreas Fitri Atmoko)
Indonesia is now in a political year, with the legislative and presidential elections scheduled for Feb. 14, 2024. But we first started to feel the warmth of the political atmosphere last year.
People from all walks of life are talking about potential candidates for the president and political parties contesting the election. Formal and informal conversations are heavily marked with political content. In short, political issues have become people’s daily consumption.
On the one hand, the availability of information on political issues seems sufficient. With different information sources and diverse media, information regarding politics can reach society significantly faster than, let’s say, 10-15 years ago.
This certainly is good news since information is essential for society to make informed decisions. We all understand that in a functioning democracy, the ability of society to make an evidence-based choice is paramount. This requires an adequate level of literacy and access to information is essential.
On the other hand, a tsunami of information has also put our society in a difficult situation. The problem, nowadays, is no longer how to find information but how to select relevant information. Too much information is produced every second and we are bombarded by a lot of information that we cannot easily comprehend.
In a political year ahead of elections, the tsunami of information gets even bigger and wilder. There is a complicated mix of good/reliable information and bad/inaccurate types. Hoaxes spread fast and fabricated information penetrates quickly.
From a positive point of view, the availability of a lot of information enables society to carefully research suitable candidates for political representation. This will lead to a choice that is based on objective information. Meanwhile, from a not-so-positive perspective, too much information can also confuse people about what and whom to vote for. This can easily happen when society is inadequately literate.
