The Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Ministry has established a Cultural Media Center (BMK) as a technical implementation unit (UPT) to improve the management of the dissemination of cultural media, publications, and content.

The BMK will be responsible to the Directorate of Film, Music, and Media of the ministry.

“The establishment of the BMK is an implementation of (the mandate of) the Law (Number 5 of 2017) on the Advancement of Culture,” director general of culture at the ministry Hilmar Farid said in a statement received on Sunday.

The BMK can become a solution for current problems in the culture sector, namely the absence of content curation, unorganized material dissemination, slow response to false information, and lack of integrated management of intellectual property, he informed.

Farid said that cultural governance, which can improve community welfare, is urgently needed so that it can mitigate the impacts of an economic crisis, which is likely to occur in the future.

“Cultural advancement must provide big opportunities to the people. Hence, the government is obliged to facilitate the development of community-initiated culture through systematic management,” he added.

Meanwhile, director of film, music, and media at the ministry Ahmad Mahendra said that currently, there are many problems that are hindering the implementation of the mandate of the Law on the Advancement of Culture.

“If it (the problems) continues, it will hamper the establishment of (new) cultural works and expressions as well as their sustainability,” he remarked.

Meanwhile, head of the BMK Retno Raswaty said that she expected the formation of the UPT to help realize more integrated management of public information and increase the community’s cultural identity and people’s welfare resilience.

“That is why, in order to anticipate problems that could disrupt the future (development) of Indonesian culture, (the operationalization of) BMK is required. Hence, the management of publications and intellectual property of cultural works can be integrated through the UPT BMK,” she added.

Culture is one of the bargaining powers that provide Indonesia with a strong influence at the international level through cultural diplomacy, thus the management of cultural media needs to be carried out well to disseminate it to the global community, she said.

According to the Regulation of the Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Ministry Number 29 of 2022 concerning the organization and work procedure of the BMK, the UPT will produce, utilize, and hold partnership management, as well as promote and publish cultural content.

The BMK has three focuses, namely creating a society with good media literacy, making publication platforms a key cultural ecosystem, as well as developing cultural intellectual property as common property.

Source: Antara News