Amazing Opportunity as Committee in Asian Conference for Media and Communication (ACMC) 2016 at 27-29 October 2016 in Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

Well at first I would like to admit that this is my first time as committee and it was pretty amazing. Why? Because I never attended any event such as Asia region’s event. For me this kind of big deal to became part of this big event. ACMC theme for this year is The Changing Power Structure of Communication : Shifting Notion of Authority and Influence, pretty awesome right? But for that such heavy theme, we’re handling this event by enjoying each of every season in whole programs. And so all the participants in this event seems joyful and take it easy way to finishing this programs.

The opening of this conference was start at 6 pm at J.K. Government School, the building is right next to the Mosque inside our university well it’s quite far from the building of my campus that I usually goes. Me and my team as committee for this event started our job by hearing some briefing from Mrs. Sovia and Mrs. Firly about all the information we should tell the participants and how to lead the panel as technical operator or by helping the panel chair to set the presentations and such another small stuff.

After hearing all the briefing and stuff we straight go to each room to check all preparations tools such as TV, HDMI cable, Electrician roll, AC and to set all the chair for the participants and the panel chair. And then we set the signs in front of the door by sticking some paper on the door and the wall about list of the speaker and the panel chair inside the room. This kind of easy things to do but we have to make sure if we put the right number and the right list as well. There was a 6 (six) rooms we used as panel session, 4 (four) rooms in the 1^st floor, 1 (one) room in the 2^nd floor and another 1 (one) room in the 4^th floor. Each room has number from A1-A6 for first session, B1-B6 for second session and C1-C6 for third session. There’s only three session for small panel group of discussions. I’m operating in the first room (A1, B1 and C1).

We checked and all the rooms has set and then we get the information we have to go to upstairs in the big room A6 to hearing the opening of ACMC and then we moved to ground floor to get dinner with all the participants in this event. It was nice dinner with amazing Indonesian foods while we entertained by Tari Piring (Traditional dance from West Sumatra). After I finished the dinner I back to my place to get rest because tomorrow is the day that I started my job as operator in the rooms.

As a operator I should go earlier than another participant because we have to checked again the room before the panel started. I have to go at 8 am while the panel started in 9.30 am. I set my laptop to the TV and one by one speaker, panel chair and participant coming inside the room. And it’s my job to politely asking each of people are they the participant or speaker or panel chair. But first I introduce my name first such as “Hi, my name is Yusuf and I’m the committee in this room. May I ask you, are you the participant or speaker?” If they’re answering as participant I ask them to have seats, if their answering as speaker I ask for the file of the presentation and if their answering as panel chair I offer he/she the guidelines of the panel with some add “I gonna help you as time keeper in this room.” With the smile to my face lol.

So I’m in the A1 parallel session and it has theme “Social Media and Changing Paradigms” as I think it would be fun to be inside of this room because all the speaker gonna be presenting about social media and stuff and my guess was right. All the emotions in this room is so fun and yet interesting because one of the speaker paper title “Knowing thy selfie” it’s really interesting to hear some conclusions if Selfie is NOT entirely individualistic or personalistic as suggested by literature. Informants consider group pictures or groufies to be more appropriate, perhaps suggesting a fear of being tagged as narcissistic.  Selfies are still for documentation rather than self-expression as some of the informants captured those moments which they would like to keep for posterity. And Some find selfies as tools to boost one’s self-confidence, thus, suggesting that Filipino Millennials value other people’s validation through Facebook Likes or comments on their selfies. It’s interesting right? So thank you to the Mr. Boots Liquigan from Philippines for the selfie research so we know more our selfie.

We have coffee breaks from 3.15 – 3.45 pm before we start the second parallel session. And then I back to room B1 to get ready for another panel, this room has theme “Entertainment, Education and Commercial Challages” by 4 (four) speakers presented. And for me the most interesting one this panel and I can’t stop thinking about it was the “Tapping into the Lifeworld through Online Cinema and Photography : A Case Study of Joni Gutierrez’ Hong Kong Series” because the speaker Mr. Gutierrez from Hong Kong played a 8 minutes movie for me that has beautiful meaning of city life in Hong Kong and how he explain that the movie it has no ending because it endless it has to end because it stop. How’s pretty right?

The last day of the conference is the last day I’m operated in the C1, the panel start in 9 am in the morning, and lucky me again. I’m the one who have Bahasa Session not like another room still using English as main language for the discussions. The panel chair is my own lecture Mrs. Endah but unfortunately the speaker are only two that moment. I ask where all the rest of the speaker with this such great theme? And theme for this room is “Cultural Paradigms, Challenging Media”. Quite heavy right? What make me curious to this room is when I heard Mr. Agustinus presenting about “Etnografi Buruh Migran di Kabupaten Wonosobo” really opening my eyes about our country Indonesia. How unfortunate the people in Wonosobo when I hear a fact that migrant workers salaries are not paid, locked up in the house / apartment, harassed and treated roughly, forced to work overtime reasonable and there is no assistance for workers who have problems. It vey sad, isn’t it?

So after all I get new experience became the part of ACMC, and I would like to thank you to Mrs. Sovia and Mrs. Firly because give me opportunity to became part of their team and to all my friends in the same team, I believe we already did our best and I hope we gonna do better than this event. Sorry for my bad English my words might be misspelling or may unpronounced well so I’m sorry. Please comment if you need something to ask about this program and so on.