The 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (The IFIP WG9.4 Conference 2011), Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011

1. Unlikely Actors: Religious
Organizations as Intermediaries in
Indonesia
Fathul Wahida, b, Maung K. Seina, Bjørn Furuholta
a
Department of Information Systems, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
b
Department of Informatics, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries,
Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011

2. Introduction
• For ICT4D initiatives to succeed actors/intermediaries play a
vital role
• Individuals
• Organizations
• Previous literature reported various actors (such as one-stop
shop, telecenters, or even friends and family members)
• Who are the possible actors/intermediaries in Indonesia?
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3. ICT4D in Indonesia
• The world's fourth most populous
country (population ≈ 238 million)
• The world's largest population of
Muslims INDONESIA
• Consists of 17,508 scattered
islands that demand for a good
transportation and communication
infrastructure, including ICT
• Low Internet penetration (12.1% of
the population)
• Digital divide within the country is
huge
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4. Data
• Informal discussion with ICT4D players
• Authors’ previous research in Indonesia on relevant
topics
• Secondary data
• The literature
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5. Possible intermediaries in Indonesia
• Internet cafes
• 40% of users access the Internet from 10,000 Internet cafes
• One-stop services
• E.g., to improve their public services and transparency
• Private sectors
• E.g., increasing Internet accessibility and developing e-Government
application
• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
• E.g., providing ICT training, taking part in emergency responses during
natural disasters
• Post offices
• Pos Indonesia runs ISP, operates Internet cafes, and manages 30,000
payment points for various services
• Religious organizations (ROs)
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6. The current picture of ROs in Indonesia
• ROs have embarked on using ICT to support their operations in
giving services to the society
• Some masjids (mosques) provide free Internet connection to their
jama'ah (constituents)
• Telecenters or Internet cafes in pesantren (Islamic boarding house)
• Madrasahs, schools, and universities are powerful channels to
disseminate ICT related awareness, knowledge, and skills
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7. Evaluating ROs: possible roles
Roles Example in the Indonesian context
Facilitating/providing Pesantrens run Internet cafes; masjids provide free
access Internet access to their jama'ah.
Transforming Schools/madrasahs and universities run by ROs
include ICT in their curricula. Masjids organize ICT
training to their jama'ah.
Information Pesantrens run their websites to provide aggregated
processing information and consultation. Internet in many cases is
also a source of information for face-to-face Islamic
teaching/preaching.
Provide help and Operators in Internet cafes and telecenters run by ROs
support usually are very keen to help the users to access the
services provided.
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8. Evaluating ROs: sustainability
• Majority of ROs have a steady flow of financing
• ROs providing services (including ICT related ones) that are
useful and fulfill the need of the society has attained the trust from
the society
• Most ROs are strongly attached to the local societies that make
the offered service are highly localized and contextual (e.g.,
telecenter, Internet training)
• ROs envelop any offering around socio-religious as well as
educational aspects where ICT is simply a means of achieving
their larger goal – propagating the faith
Based on the framework developed by Sein et al. (2008)
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9. Examining ROs as intermediaries (1)
• ROs as development and socio-political organizations
• The two largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, namely
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah are good
illustrations
• NU (established in 1926) has 35 million followers and manages
7,000 pesantrens and other schools/madrasahs or universities
• Muhammadiyah (established in 1912) manages 7,000
schools/madrasahs, 67 pesantrens, 150 universities, and 900
hospitals, orphanage houses, and elderly houses
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10. Examining ROs as intermediaries (2)
• Islamic values are used as an instrument of modernization
• The pesantrens have been serving both as places for religious
teaching and as community centres (Rao, 2004)
• Local ROs, i.e., masjids, have played significant role in culture and
community-driven development in Indonesia (Bebbington et al.,
2004)
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11. The “other side” of ROs as intermediaries
• Intermediaries do not operate in vacuum and are not value free
• An example: the recent Moluccan conflict between Muslim and
Christian communities provides evidence that ROs can use the
Internet to propagate hate, where both Muslim and Christian
ROs used the Internet to disseminate their one-sided opinions,
often by insulting each other
• ROs may also manifest as illegal or terrorist organizations 
ICTs become a powerful weapon in the hand of trained and
highly skilled terrorists
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12. Contribution
• Identifying the possible actors/intermediaries in Indonesia
• Internet cafes, one-stop services, private sectors, NGOs, post
offices, ROs
• Examining ROs as ICT4D intermediaries which has not received
much attention in the literature
• Identifying trust as an important character for ICT4D
intermediaries, and ROs seem to fulfill this role
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13. Future research directions
• Empirical verifying and validating of the concepts and postulations
made from our analysis
• Investigating the balance between the positive and negative
aspects of ROs as intermediaries
• Grounding the conceptualizations on theoretical premises
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14. Thank you for the attention!
Questions and [hopefully] answers
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