Information & Communication Technology(ICT) and the Challenge of Multicultural Society: Some Cases of Internet‐facilitated Interaction in Indonesia

Multiculturalism is a new social order for a plural society like Indonesia. With different backgrounds of ethnicity, social class, and re-ligion, multiculturalism appears as a new social contract for the nation. What is really needed for a multicultural society is more than a stage of acceptance for the new comers or migrants to a nation (Kymlicka, 1995) but rather “…a tolerant society…for the construction of social har-mony ” (Prato, 2009). It is an appreciation for the diversity of social and political structures in the society. Some experts in Internet and communication studies argue that a positive interaction among the different groups in a plural society can be facilitated through ICT. The assumption is based on the ability of the Internet to eliminate ethnic stereotypes and other primordial senti-ments when the interaction first started. Internet‐facilitated interaction mostly begins with similar interests, and intimacy is developed by the imaginations of the actors involved. In some cases, they do not even meet before and the interaction continues based on the actors ’ con-structions of reality. Although internet‐facilitated interaction does enable various peo-ple with different backgrounds to communicate intensively in the soci-ety, I will bring some cases from Indonesia to show that it also chal-lenges the development of a multicultural society. By describing cases of conflict raised from Internet‐facilitated interaction in the fields of ethnicity, social, and religious life, I would like to discuss where and how ICT can play its positive roles and its limitations on the develop-ment of Indonesian multicultural society