COMPLETION REPORT

Reaching the Young Citizens:
Contrasting Model of Japanese and Indonesian Civic Engagement in the Web Sphere
Ms. Desideria Cempaka Wijaya Murti
Lecturer
Faculty of Social and Political Science
University of Atma Jaya Yogyakarta
Campus organization, community, and extracurricular /club activity may be a way to start
the political conversation. This group of people may also interact in the online media, where thesocial capital is growing in the current fashion. Through online interaction, the response togovernment policy or political issue can be gained easily and citizen has access to connect with theircommunity.
(1) Participants from Japan and Indonesia are skeptical in similar issue, which is the idea ofpower. As the social capital grows, the question of whether individual has power to change any
regulation or policy is also growing. The notion of “Should we involve in politics? Do we really havepower to change anything in the government for the better life of our society?” Or “I don't think I
have an important position in politics. Because there are so many steps before citizen's request
comes true in politics” are examples of how the narrative of “change or power to change” isimportant for the participants. As an example, from 59 participants in FGD from Japan andIndonesia, there are 27 notions of skepticism caused by the participants’ perception on their inability
to change or believe to their incompetency to change system or regulation or condition. Therefore, it
is important for any political party or public figure in both countries to bring the narrative of “manpower” and “change” to convince the young people that their political participation can change
something and they have a great power in politics. The importance of strengthening the social capital
as a tangible power is needed to increase the optimism of the young people in Japan and Indonesia.
(2) The research also indicates that cultural differences may trigger the notion of how easy
politics become a part of daily conversation in each country. Participants from Indonesia can easily
posted political message on their Facebook page, or twitting about their condemnation of a badpolitical figure. Other than that, Indonesian young people are easy to search for information throughviral conversation rather than obtain the information in the official website of the political figure orparty or even the government. However, their counterpart in Japan simulates different culture.
Japanese is not used to daily conversation about politics online. This condition strengthen theprevious researcher discussion on the development of civic participation of "deru kugi wa utareru"(The nails that sticks out, gets hammered or those who fight against the authority will be in danger),or is still applicable in contemporary citizenship in the point of civic lifestyle is still not used to
publish their political opinion in the daily online discussion (Degucci, 1999 and Yoshida, 1996).
They also choose the formal and official media to search for information such as government website
and political party’s website. This finding shows different culture and communication style. In termof social capital both cultural and communication styles will result to different quality ofgovernment, responsive character of citizen and government, and the shape of mobility for social
community (Mouritsen, 2003). There will be a need for further quantitative research in bothcountries to determine the influence of degree of citizen participation to the quality of democracyand government.
(3) The similarity on the participants’ critique to their countries’ politics regarding online
political participation are the lack of information for politic, the low understanding of political logic
for citizen, communication style, and political image by political figure. It is very important forIndonesian and Japanese government, political party, or figure to consider the public information toincrease the well-informed citizen. Currently, both government in Japan and Indonesia are in theright direction in “softening” and “lightening” the message and channel of political issue throughYoutube channel, Social Media. On the other hand, the government in Japan and Indonesia need tomaintain the development of technology and the progress of social welfare as both of these factors
are part of the flourishing factor for youth online political participation.
Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
Murti, D. (November 27, 2015). The Power to Change: A Lesson Learned from Comparative
Research of Japan and Indonesian Youth Civic Participation in the Online Sphere. COMICOS(Conference on Media, Communication, and Sociology), Yogyakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya
Yogyakarta
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
Murti, D. (August 3, 2015). Am I Political Enough?: Praktek E-Citizenship oleh Pemuda yang Aktif dalam OKP
secara Offline, Jurnal Wacana XIV: 203 - 296, Jakarta: Universitas Prof. Moestopo (Beragama) ISSN: 14127873. Can be retrieved from: http://jurnalfikom.moestopo.ac.id/edisi-2015/juli-september-2015/
Murti, D. (July, 2016). Reaching Our Young Citizens: Comparing Model of Japanese and Indonesian CivicParticipation in the Online Sphere, Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, III, 6, ISSN:
1986-3497. (Not Published yet but Document of Acceptance is available)
Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)
Murti, D. (2014). Politik Asik. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Pintal.