SOCIAL MEDIA LITERACY COUNSELING FOR PROSPECTIVE PROPAGATORS TO THWART HOAX INFORMATION

Abstract

As social media users, university students often receive hoax news from social media platforms, such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vlog and Whatsapp group. In this connection, they are expected not to forward hoax messages to fellow social media users so that the spread of hoax messages can be stopped at a university student level. To that end, this Dedication to the Public tries to provide counseling to students of the Faculty of Propagation and Communication at State Islamic University (UIN) Walisongo in Semarang. The method used to carry out the activity is counseling since the participants are students who are studying propagation and communication sciences. Therefore, many of them have a basic knowledge of propagation science which is necessary for them to become propagators in the future. More than 50 students, who are mostly students of the Faculty of Propagation and Communication and campus press activists of UIN Walisongo, participated in this counseling. This counseling ran dynamically through a discussion between the participants and source persons comprising a Central Java senior journalist, a commissioner of the Central Java Chapter of the Indonesia Broadcast Commission, and a lecturer of the Faculty of Propagation and Communication at UIN Walisongo. Among the result of the counseling is that the participants have understanding about the danger of spreading hoax news.  The awareness not to spread hoax news is very important since the participants of the counseling are prospective propagators who also study communication science and are groomed to have a skill in producing propagation messages to the public. The participants are grateful for the counseling since it has broadened their outlook to understand the danger of hoax information.