MASS MEDIA ROLE IN DEVELOPING CHARACTER EDUCATION: A DEBATE

Currently, the most influential thing in character education development is media. All the more various programs in television or radio show an effort of media industries to reach their market entirely. As the result, media often provides unqualified content of programs. Many electronic cinemas, reality show, even cartoon programs present sexuality, violence and harshness. Previous research has proved that television influences negative effect, such as some children committed suicide after watch a certain program. Moreover, the development of media is not merely about the content but also the improvement of media shape. New media or internet, for example, gives a significant impact on how students behave. They would rather send a ‘sms’ to communicate to their teacher than directly come. This facts remain us to the theory of ‘Hypodermic Needle’ or ‘Media Effect’ which convince that media has direct effect for its audience. Yet, ‘Uses and Gratification’ perspective explain that audience posses a control of using media. Either media effect or uses and gratification approaches drive us to an understanding that media plays a debatable role, particularly in character education. Observing some cases on children’s character problem, the focus of this paper is to describe the process of how mass media (media), with all of its potential negative impacts will still play positive role in character education. This paper tries to prove that the debatable role of media cannot be circumvented. Thus, this study provides a recommendation of how to take advantage of media to develop character education trough media literacy.

Keywords: media, debate, role, character education, media literacy