Media Literacy and Youth Audience: A Study of The Effects of The Mystical-Themed Program on Television

Abstract

Belief in mystical or supernatural things can not be separated from human life. In Indonesia there are several groups of people who believe in these things and there are a lot of television programs and movie plots that based on mystical or supernatural activities. This paper will describe about mystical-themed programs on the television because the shows have recieved a lot of criticism, however until now is still running. One program which has been criticized has a high rating and share is “Masih Dunia Lain” at Trans7. This research is aiming at knowing how the youth audience response to the mystical-themed programs on television,  especially about the effects on their behavior, and also how the role of media literacy towards them. This research is using a descriptive qualitative approach, with in depth interview to collect the data. This research has concluded that most informants, thought that “Masih Dunia Lain” is a program which has a goal to entertain and provide information related to mystical world to the audiences. The program itself also has direct and indirect effects on the audience and the informants comments are related to their culture and customs. The program has also had another effects which is a sense of fear after the audiences watched the program. But they realized that such existing program is not a pure reflection of reality, instead it was being tempered with additional things such as an application of scenario and visual/audio effects to make the program even scarier. They also considered the importance of media know how or the media literacy for the audience especially for the youth audience, therefore it will not influenced by the bad things caused by the media.