Writer’s Week 2022: Writing for a good cause

03 Dec 2022

The communications program of Binus University International successfully organized Writer’s Week 2022. Collaborating with Amnesty International Indonesia and the University of Canberra, this year’s event brought up the theme “Writing for a good cause”.

The event took place on 21 and 22 November 2022 with the following topics and speakers:

Date

Topics

Speakers

21 November 2022

Write for Rights with Amnesty International

1. Waskito Jati, Growth and Community Engagement Manager, Amnesty International, Indonesia

2. Bagus Sosroseno, Activist and Resources Coordinator, Amnesty International, Indonesia

22 November 2022

Digital Literacy in Society 5.0: Writing with Positive Impact

Dr. Mathieu O’Neil, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Canberra, Australia

The poster of the first day with the speakers from Amnesty International Indonesia

The poster of second day with Dr. Mathieu O’Neil as the speaker

On the first day, the two speakers from Amnesty International exposed students to humanity issues and invited them to write a letter directed to world leaders in order to push them to take action on the issues involving them.

Students were discussing and writing a letter for the world leaders

The letters that they write will be posted to the designated addresses

Students were enthusiastic to write a letter or two to several names who were provided by the speakers and passed the letters in hope that Amnesty International can collectively hand them to the right destination.

On the next day, Dr. O’Neil shared the current trends of misinformation and how literacy works in combating information crises.

Dr. O’Neil shared about 3 things that cause information stability which are:

the means of accessing digital information,
increasing distrust in instituions, and
hostile influence operations

Dr. O’Neil delivered his lecture via zoom

Ms. Andari Karina became the moderator of the session

Another interesting insight that Dr. O’Neil wanted us to learn was about information crisis.

He explained that

Information is increasingly volatile. It’s difficult to establish where it comes from. It’s changing all the time. Information is increasingly fragmented, constantly being arranged and rearranged. It’s increasingly personalized.

Then he added,

We have an algorithmic environment around us and the information that we get is curated by the algorithm. So, all of this very much driven by algorithm intervention. All of these are the elements of the crisis of information.

The event was delivered in a hybrid mode where around 40 students joined onsite and 40 others viewed via Zoom. They were interested in the topic that many of them ask questions to Dr. O’Neil.

Picture of students asking a question to Dr. O’Neil

The event ended with group pictures where the organizers, speakers, and participants smiled at the camera showing their happy faces.

Some pictures from the first day	Some pictures from the first day
Some pictures from the second day	Some pictures from the second day

The full coverage of the Writer’s Week 2022 is summarised in the video

Contributor: Lily El Ferawati

Editor: Lily El Ferawati