Participatory Culture Communication in the Preservation of Sundanese Manuscripts

As relics of the past, ancient manuscripts are able to provide information on various aspects of the lives of past communities such as politics, economics, socio-culture, traditional medicine, the veil of earthquakes or natural phenomena, human physiology, and so on. The values of this information are needed to relate the good values of the past to be applied today. Media offerings related to Sundanese manuscripts are limited. Among of limited information from the website, www.kiraga.com emerged as one of the public parties that participated to preservation of this cultural heritage, especially in the scope of Sundanese manuscripts. Participation culture is defined as a new form of culture that develops due to the support of information technology, where individuals or members of a community can participate in the creation and distribution of content. This research is qualitative research with case study method, researchers try to analyze the participatory culture of kairaga.com website in preserving Sundanese manuscripts. The data collection techniques used are interviews, observation, and documentation. From the results of the research, the website manager collaborated with Pustaka Sunda, Sakola Aksara Sunda Cianjur, Masyarakat Pernaskahan Nusantara (Manassa), Jagongan Naskah (Jangkah) with various circles of Sundanese manuscript lovers both from within and outside country to become an integral part of cultural expansion because it increases the community's ability to collaborate, namely developing and disseminating news, ideas, and creative works and connecting with people who have the same goals and interests in this case content development.


INTRODUCTION
As relics of the past, ancient manuscripts are able to provide information on various aspects of the lives of past communities such as politics, economics, socio-culture, traditional medicine, the veil of earthquakes or natural phenomena, human physiology, and so on.Early information related to this can be found in the content of manuscripts for everyone to study.Manuscripts are important, both academically and socio-culturally.They represent identity, pride and a valuable cultural heritage.Socio-culturally, manuscripts contain values that are still relevant to life today, so it is a responsibility that falls on our shoulders to uncover the 'pearls' contained therein.Ancient manuscripts, in addition to being cultural documentation, can also be used as teaching objects to take the values and content in them.These values are very much needed in releasing the good values that existed in the past to be applied today.
In today's digital era, some information is found through the use of search engines on internet pages, including those related to Sundanese manuscripts.Media presentations that raise Sundanese manuscripts are quite limited, for example in several online media platforms presented as hard news or in certain columns such as on detik.com,Pikiran Rakyat.com,Republika.co.id.Indeed, there are not many media portals that raise the issue of Sundanese manuscripts, as for manuscript collections owned or managed specifically by the government for the benefit of regional culture or literature but are difficult to access online by the public, according to Ekadjati's book notes (1998) there are 1920 Sundanese manuscripts.They can be found in collections both in Indonesia (Perpusnas in Jakarta, Sri Baduga Museum dan Pemeliharaan Naskah Foundation in Bandung, Purbakala Museum Banten Lama in Serang, Pangeran Geusan Ulun Museum di Sumedang, Istana Kasepuhan, Kaprabonan, Kacrebonan in Cirebon, and Museum Cigugur in Kuningan) totaling 577 manuscripts; and abroad (Leiden University Library and KITLV Library in Netherlands and UK Libraries and Bodleian Library in UK) totaling 789 manuscripts and in Sundanese communities, such as in former district capitals, old pesantren complexes, traditional leaders.
In the midst of the continuing decline of Sundanese language, there are websites managed by government agencies such as the National Library (khastara.perpusnas.go.id) or the Ministry of Religious Affairs (http://lektur.kemenag.go.id/manuskrip/).Amid the limited information from these websites, www.kiraga.comemerged as one of the public parties participating and contributing to the preservation of this cultural heritage, especially in the scope of Sundanese manuscripts, which in the term (Jenkins, 2006) is known as participatory culture.Participatory culture is understood as a new form of culture that develops due to the support of information technology, where individuals or members of a community can participate in the creation and distribution of content.Through a site that contains content about manuscripts (ancient manuscripts), script fonts, and information about other archipelago manuscripts.This site aims to provide information about manuscript topics, especially those related to the use of Sundanese script.Along with the increasing need for information about ancient manuscripts, this site also displays various information about ancient manuscripts and Nusantara Philology so that it can be a means for preservation and socialization for Sundanese language enthusiasts and the content of ancient Sundanese manuscripts.
Communication technology and media are inseparable because they complement each other.The development of this media is getting faster and more sophisticated along with the development of communication technology today.This exposure to technology and media affects the art and culture and behavior of society.The use of new media in its contribution and participation to the preservation of Sundanese manuscripts as an alternative is of interest to researchers, so the title of the research proposed by the researcher "Participatory Culture Communication in the Preservation of Sundanese Manuscripts ".

METHOD
By using qualitative methods which are research methods to explore and understand the meaning in which a number of individuals or groups of people ascribe to social or humanitarian problems.The process in qualitative research involves various important efforts, such as asking questions, collecting specific data from research participants, analyzing data inductively from specific themes to general themes, and interpreting the meaning of research data (Creswell, 2017).Through the case study approach develops an in-depth analysis of a case, often a program, event, activity, process, or on one or more individuals (Creswell, 2017).Researcher seeks to analyze the participation of the kairaga.comwebsite in preserving Sundanese manuscripts by involving subjects in this study who are people who contribute to the management of the website, namely Ilham and various existing documents such as interviews, observations and document utilization.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
With what the manager (consumer) of www.kairaga.comdid, who initially as a script observer or philologist around 2009, it was very difficult to find access to information on the internet regarding topics related to Sundanese manuscripts to support his studies.Starting from this anxiety, the manager began to document or write down the results of findings in the field into a medium in the form of a blog so that it was easy to search and had little risk of being lost, as Ilham said: "www.kairaga.comwas originally a blog with the addresses hulukumbang.blogspot.comand naskah-sunda.blogspot.comcreated by Aditia Gunawan (Sundanese philologist) in 2009 as a personal record of discoveries or experiences with aspects related to Sundanese manuscripts.This blog was created due to the unrest of a philologist in the difficulty of finding information about Sundanese manuscripts on the internet or through search engines, so that with the existence of this platform the results of the discovery or information are documented on the blog without fear of risk of loss because the internet is long life "and packaged in the present."Picture 1.
Display of naskahsunda.blogspot.com in the blogspot medium as the forerunner of www.kairaga.comWith the presence of internet that allows people personally to create and publish media through the internet.This new internet-connected culture is described as web 2.0.In participatory culture 'young people creatively respond to electronic signals and cultural commodities'.The presence of new technologies becomes a tool in a 'multimedia sandbox' that empowers consumers to become creators, artists and visionaries.
The roles performed in the management of www.kairaga.cominclude all those mentioned by Jenkins in terms of cultural production, dissemination, and interpretation.The following aspects are displayed in www.kairaga.com:"To upload content about Sundanese manuscripts, the schedule is uncertain, because the source of content is in private parties who still consider these items sacred because they are inherited or in institutions that are complicated by bureaucratic flow.So we are just waiting for information from correspondents or community friends." Because of the conditions that make it difficult to find information about Sundanese manuscripts in the digital world, it allows these activists through the www.kairaga.complatform to create content about Sundanese manuscripts with the nature and culture of participation, in line with what is said in Jenkins (2006) participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of informal guidance where what is known by the most experienced is passed on to beginners.A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some level of social connection with one another (at least they care what others think of what they have created).
The presence of www.kairaga.comas a form of participatory culture in the preservation of Sundanese manuscripts confirms the presence of the role of the media as expressed by McQuail (2011) that the media as a guide, compass, or translator shows direction and gives meaning to what is confusing or incomplete.As a forum or platform for the presentation of information and ideas to audiences, often with the possibility of response and feedback.As contributors who pass on and make information unavailable to everyone.So that in the middle of limited information about Sundanese manuscripts with the participatory culture in wwww.kairaga.comhas a media effect related to space and time, namely the media acts as a memory collector.
To fulfill the need for information on common interests and in terms of exchanging information, ideas, and experiences, it is necessary to form a social network which, according to Jenkins (2009), is called a form of affiliation, which is a form of participation culture in the form of formal or informal self-association in an online or offline community such as Facebook, Kaskus, Twitter, and another forum.Forms of affiliation activities are a form so that the development of information is always distributed with current issues so that it raises a variety of perspectives from various individuals who network via the internet.
Website manager wwww.kairaga.comaffiliates with various circles of Sundanese manuscript lovers both domestically and abroad to be an integral part of cultural expansion because it increases the ability of people to work collaboratively, namely developing and disseminating news, ideas and creative works and connecting with people who have the same goals and interests in this case the development of Sundanese manuscript content which is ancient or "ancient" to be "contemporary".Moreover, it can make it possible to share pieces of information about Sundanese manuscripts whose information circulation is not much."At the beginning of the management of Sundanese font content was posted on sabilulungan.orgpage (now inactive), where the page was created by the Indonesian diaspora in Germany, Dian Tresna Nugraha as an information portal for Sundanese activities abroad or other diasporas.He is also one of the pioneers of Sundanese fonts for UNICODE, whose font development content is presented on the KUSnét forum (Komunitas Orang Sunda di Internet) in the mailing list platform.As other platforms developed and emerged, the mailing list began to be abandoned and then switched to forums on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram such as Pustaka Sunda, Sakola Aksara Sunda Cianjur, Masyarakat Pernaskahan Nusantara (Manassa), Jagongan Naskah (Jangkah) and other regional script activist groups, from there sometimes finding and appearing people who have archives or documentation such as photos of Sundanese manuscripts and asking for my help to transliterate them.Even because I often interact with regional script activists or other fields of science such as information technology, graphic design, archeology, anthropology, history, and so on that still intersect with Sundanese manuscripts.I'm even working on a new project with the Indonesian Internet Domain Name Manager (PANDI)."Picture 2.
Forms of expression in the form of keyboard software products in Playstore and Sundanese script game cards (source:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ce.keyboardaksarasunda)Various types of creation products resulting from participatory culture, all forms of products produced aim to the existence of Sundanese manuscripts in the aspect of script so that they can be utilized both in terms of technology in the form of software so that they can type on various gadgets and the form of Sundanese script game cards to become a playing tool as well as learning to the general public so that they are easily accepted and relevant.Participatory power does not come from destroying commercial culture, but from writing it down, modifying it, changing it, expanding it, adding a greater diversity of perspectives, and then circulating it again.The forms of expression of participatory culture partake of the values of diversity and democracy through every aspect of their interactions with each other -which assumes that they are capable of making decisions, collectively and individually, and that the need to have the capacity to express themselves through different forms and practices.The emphasis is on respecting individuals and their right to expression, regardless of how that action affects others or the cost to the public.The focus is on the participatory nature of the individuals and what they show (Jenkins).

Picture 3. Publications of collaboration activities with PANDI (Ilham Nurwansah Documentation)
One of the issues is the continued decline in interest in the use of Sundanese both orally and in writing, which if left unchecked, Sundanese will be increasingly marginalized and abandoned by its speakers.This problem also turns out to be the same anxiety for other language activists such as Javanese, Balinese, Batak, Bugis, Makassar, and Rejang who are worried about extinction (lost in collective memory).In total, out of 719 local languages in Indonesia, 707 still exist, while 266 are threatened, 76 are near extinction and 12 are already extinct (ICON LATERALS, 2016)."We regional script activists together with the Indonesian Internet Domain Name Manager (PANDI) created a program " Knitting Indonesia Through Digitalization of the Archipelago Script" to collaborate with local governments to socialize their regional scripts in this program and hopefully be able to activate these regional script activists, it also encourages universal access and digital services, and facilitates the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity into long-term "works" not just monumental".This form of collaborative problem solving is expected to help other regional script digitization programs and be registered with Unicode, an international non-profit institution in building technical standards designed to allow text and symbols from all writing systems in the world to be displayed and manipulated consistently by computers.The collectivity of the collaboration is getting bigger with a national scale outreach incorporating other script activist nodes.These activities are in line with what Jenkins (2016) revealed that participation is about being part of a shared social practice, not just engaging with online platforms or content.Seen this way, participation does not only mean being active, it is also about being part of shared practices and culture.
Another form of participatory culture is circulation or distribution information in new media.The dissemination of information about Sundanese manuscripts can be done through various digital communication channels.Mainly in this dissemination through the website, but along with the development of other platforms trying to be used such as social media Facebook, Twitter, Youtube.But sometimes in its management other platforms are not always opened simultaneously because sometimes it only moves the content on the website to social media."Because the initial trial through the website, the content was limited due to server storage capacity, so for the time being the website is focused on textual content in form of narratives and images from my documentation.Audiovisual content is stored on Kairaga Manuscript Youtube channel, then on Twitter @kairaga_mss and Facebook Kairaga Project while repeating content material that already exists on the website while utilizing the diversity of information distribution channels and increasing the level of discovery index in the Google search engine.Indeed, this organic management does not follow the trend of digital marketing SEO management".Ilham said.
The dissemination of information due to this engaged audience is more likely to lead to discussion, researching, conveying, and even generating new material in response.This condition is in line with Holmes (2012) statement that new media technology creates not just a linear "channel", but rather an "environment" where information agents who are also audiences interact and communicate with each other.The utilization of circulation carried out by the manager of www.kairaga.com is carried out through various types of media, in addition to the diversity of distribution channels in the digital realm to facilitate searches because they are recorded by search engines (Google) used by many internet users, so that the discourse on this Sundanese manuscript continues to be communicated, disseminated, socialized to the public.

CONCLUSION
This website is a form of participatory culture in the preservation of Sundanese manuscripts because previously it was difficult to find information about Sundanese manuscripts on the internet, also emphasizing the presence of www.kairaga.com'srole as a guide, pointer, or translator who shows directions and gives meaning to things that are confusing or incomplete about Sundanese manuscripts.Management of the site together with other communities of Sundanese manuscript lovers both domestically and abroad is an integral part of cultural expansion because it increases community's ability to work collaboratively, namely developing and disseminating news, ideas and creative works as well as connecting with people who have the same goals and interests in this case the development of Sundanese manuscript content.