The Rise of Islamic Values in Media： A Three Dimensions Analysis of Film Industry in Indonesia

This article focuses on the rise of Islamic values in media with concern to the film industry in Indonesia. In this nation, 88.22% of 254 million of the population are Muslims. However, this substantial quantity is burden some if Muslims have a lack of appreciation to history and are intellectually weak. In addition, cultural degradation due to the rapid changes in information ＆ communication technology diminishes moral and ethics of society. The growth of film industry in the Soeharto era which curb freedom of expression and media resulted in films which were more oriented to comedy, horror, and vulgar. The aims of this study specifically are： （1） to identify the film industry （macro） in the context of challenge of Indonesian Muslim in social and culture; （2） to analyze the political interests of film production company owner （meso） in his films; （3） to conduct textual analysis （micro） of two films which include Islamic values in the dialogues. Two films, Nagabonar Jadi 2 （Nagabonar Become 2） and Alangkah Lucunya Negeri lni （How Funny This Country ls）, were selected as samples for their contents that fearlessly criticize corrupt governance and promote integrity and good deeds. The three dimensions of critical discourse which was proposed by Norman Fairlough （1992） was used to evaluate the local film industry from the perspective of macro, meso, and micro. The macro-analysis found that Indonesian films act should be modified to keep up with modernized and recent trends in media and film industry. The meso analysis showed that competition between film companies are very though, however, film quality determines the popularity of the company in public. According to the company owner＇s agenda, Deddy Mizwar determines the quality of films produced, instead of quantity, as apriority. Thus, in post-reform era, the freedom of expression which enforced by the Act No. 9 of 1998, the company start producing Islamic films. Deddy Mizwar concerns for society are not only through the media but also political. He recently elected as the deputy governor of West Java province with the full support of an Islamic Party （Partai Keadilan Sejahtera）. The textual studies have found similarities of the Islamic values in the content of the two films which are tawaqal （trust and reliance on God） and Taqwa, the pursuit of knowledge, respecting for the elderly, and belief in the Hereafter.

Measurement assessment of forest benefit in reducing flood disaster

Based on the analysis of forest inner mechanism, forest benefit in re ducing flood disaster is defined. Through the characteristic analysis of forest benefit in reducing flood disaster, it is suggested that it is impossible to ado pt the microanalysis method for studying the forest benefit in reducing flood, t he macro analysis is the only method to be adopted. With the special case of dis aster flooding of Changjiang River happened in 1998, the forest benefit in reduc ing flood disaster was scientifically assessed. The estimated results of forest benefit in reducing flood shows that forest vegetation establishment is the radi cal way to control flood, but it only equals to 5 percent of the total benefits of water conservancy facilities.

Bivariate macro-level safety analysis of non-motorized vehicle crashes and crash-involved road users

The high risk of injury resulting from non-motorized vehicle(NMV)crashes has created the goal of using the 3E strategy to comprehensively improve NMV safety.Traditional safety improvement methods identify hot zones generally by crash frequency or density,which is effective for roadway engineering improvements but neglects characteristics related to other improvements such as safety education.As safety education would be more effective if targeted at the residences of crash-involved road users,the traditional approach to hot zones may therefore provide biased results for such alternative countermeasures.After confirming that 77.17%of NMV crashes occurred outside the involved riders’areas of residence,this study compared the differences between the locations of crashes and the residences of NMV crash-involved riders in safety influencing factors and hot zone identification.A Poisson lognormal bivariate conditional autoregressive(PLN-BCAR)model was developed to account for potential correlations between crashes and involved riders.The model was compared with the univariate Poisson lognormal conditional autoregressive(UPLN-CAR)model and the bivariate Poisson lognormal conditional autoregressive(BPLNCAR)model;the PLN-BCAR model outperformed the other two models in its better interpretation of the influencing factors and its more efficient parameter estimation.Model results indicated that crashes were mainly associated with roadway and land use characteristics,while involved road users were mainly associated with socioeconomic and land use characteristics.The potential for safety improvement method was adopted to identify hot zones for countermeasure implementation.Results showed over 60%of the identified hot zones were inconsistent:they needed improvement in either engineering or education but not both.These findings can help target the type of improvement to better utilize resources for NMV safety.