No More Hoax (Model of media literacy education for maintaining ‘unity in diversity’ in Indonesia) Titien Diah Soelistyarini, Retno Wulandari Setyaningsih, Nurul Fitri Hapsari English Department, Faculty of Humanities Universitas Airlangga Surabaya, Indonesia titien.soelistyarini@fib.unair.ac.id Abstract—This study was aimed at introducing a model of media literacy education to identify and respond to hoaxes to avoid potential conflicts threatening the unity in diversity in Indonesia. The data were derived from middle and high school teachers at eLKISI Islamic Boarding School who have access to digital media in their teaching-learning process. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and survey questionnaire were employed to find the patterns of media consumption among these teachers and their awareness of hoaxes. This preliminary study was expected to map the patterns of media consumption and build an awareness of hoaxes among teachers, which eventually increase their level of media literacy. The final result of this study is projected at introducing a media literacy education model that helps to maintain Indonesia’s unity in diversity as indicated by the teachers’ ability to identify and respond properly to hoaxes in order to avoid disintegration. Keywords—disintegration; hoax; media literacy education model; unity in diversity I. INTRODUCTION For the past three decades, media literacy has become a growing field that invited teachers, parents, policy makers, and researchers alike to dwell on the subject. Risen to its prominence in the 1990s, media literacy education was implemented through various school-based programs in the US to emphasize the skills of analyzing, evaluating and creating media and technology messages [1]. In the UK, policy on media literacy in the late 1990s was unburied with the enactment of the Communications Act 2003 requiring the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, to promote media literacy [2]. Meanwhile, recognizing the growing presence of media in modern societies as well as the need for school teachers and university educators to be media competent, a Russian researcher proposes media literacy education models to help teachers and educators train students to develop their critical thinking and abilities to analyze media texts and to experiment with the media [3]. The significance of media literacy education is irrefutable. In her study, Domine identifies media literacy education as a critical and creative framework for teacher preparation in the 21 st century [4]. Meanwhile, in their research designed to assess the impact of different types of instructional practices across the curriculum, Hobbs and Frost reveal that integrating media education activities across all subject areas has a tremendous effect on improving students’ literacy skills [1]. Redmond later confirms this finding as she highlights the benefits of an integrated model of literacy for developing students’ competence to assess information and examine bias and validity at the same time [5]. Most of these studies on media literacy education have been conducted in Western context. Fortunately, recent studies investigating media literacy education in Asian context have come to surface as it is becoming an emerging field in some Asian countries, such as China and Singapore. In Chinese context, Cheung and Xu explore the implementation of media literacy education Chinese primary education in attempt to shift media literacy education from an international context to a local setting, thereby offering a point of reference to enrich the process of localization [6]. In Singapore, the presence of media literacy has also been acknowledged in recent government policy and given emphasis in the 21 st century teacher education [7]. Still, compared to their western counterparts, it is apparent that most Asian countries are late to realize the need to teach their students and integrate media literacy in the curricula. Compared to these two countries, Indonesia is a few steps behind in dealing with the issue of media literacy. Literacy in itself has always been an issue that has not been properly addressed. Reading ability as the main component of literacy competence is still significantly low. In 2014, UNESCO recorded that on average an Indonesian child read 24 pages a year. In addition, Indonesian literacy level, according to Central Connecticut State University research in 2016, ranked second last out of 61 countries, only one level higher than Botswana [8]. In addition, PISA stated that over 50% of fifteen-year-old Indonesians do not master basic skills in reading and mathematics [9]. While literacy in a sense of turning of pages and comprehending texts still poses a challenge for most Indonesians, ironically, at the same time Indonesia is considered as one of the top internet and social media users. Statistics show that 132.7 million of Indonesians access internet. Further, it states that 50.7 percent access internet through smartphones and computers, 47.6 percent through smartphones and only 1.7 percent access from computer only [10]. With the low level of literacy among Indonesians, the exposure to media may lead to a potential threat to Indonesia’s unity in diversity as people have not been equipped with the ability to critically analyze any information obtained from the UPI 2nd International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture and Education (ICOLLITE 2018) Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 257 48