The development of social media becomes more frequent in various parts of the wo rld.

It makes the field of public relations experience changes both in the field of theory and practice. The changes are not directly caused by the presence of social media, but social media offers many opportunities for public relations pr actitioners to interact with the public through the adaptation of technology and integrate it into their daily activities (Curtis, 2010) Social media is defined as the democratization of content and a shift in the rol e that made humans in the process of reading and disseminating information. Soci al media covers a variety of things that use internet to facilitate conversation (Solis, 2009). Social media is considered as the creation of the foundation tha t connects people, provide opportunities to produce and share content with other s, extract and process the knowledge to the society and share it again. Some pop ular social media are Faceboook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Foursqu are, YouTube and Others (Lewis, 2010). Social media has a significant difference compared to the traditional media such as television, radio, and newspapers. If the media rely on drama for the festiv e audience, organizations tend to adopt strategies to reduce potential public re lations became the focus of drama and more using persuasive communication as a w ay to better control the public debate on the issue of sustainability. Further, Allan (BBB)also stated that social media requires no issues to raise ratings, fo cus on the editor or media leaders who are able to embrace stakeholders, and gai n revenue from advertising (Allan, BBBB). This description illustrates that with their characteristics, which involve two-way communication between companies an d stakeholders, social media can provide an opportunity for public relations to interact with a wider public through a more personal approach. Research on the impact of new media on public relations has been conducted by va rious researchers abroad, such as study by Wright &ump; Hinson. Wright &ump; Hin son (2010) in their study found that new communication media have brought dramat ic changes in various aspects in this field. This fact gives a clear picture of how the field of public relations must have the readiness to be able to adapt to changes in the new media not to get stuck on the use of traditional media that had given a positive benefit. Further, Weber (Wright &ump; Hinson, 2010) suggest s that the world of communications is dramatically shifted towards the digital a nd anyone who understands this transformation will be communicating more effecti vely than those who do not understand. Various forms of social media like podcasts, blogging, and video iPod are consid ered effective for communicating with stakeholder organizations, both public and private. They are able to reach a broad audience in a personal and continuous w ay to make media has an important value (Wilcox, 2006). One of the significant changes in the field of public relations which is clearly visible is on the rules of old and new press releases. Scott (Wright &ump; Hins on, 2010) explains that in the old press release, no party who sees press releas es in addition to editors, reporters and there is only one way to make a lot of parties learn the contents of the press release, which is when the media publish the press release. However, the presence of social media make every stakeholder has the opportunity to produce news that in certain circumstances can affect th e image of the organization. The importance of public relations in adopting social media are also recognized by several researchers, one namely (PR Newswire, 2009), states that combining of cost-effective public relations with a knowledge of marketing strategy, and usi ng technology such as online video, social media and multimedia news release wil l maximize corporate communications efforts. Through the clear of corporate comm unication, communication barriers that often confront in the traditional media c an be reduced. Social media then has moved the wall between the company and the public. This makes each of the stakeholders, media, government, consumers, and o thers have the opportunity to make an opinion either positive or negative, which in certain conditions will affect the image of the company. This is also consistent with a growing topic in Frocomm 2009 (Frocomm Australia, 2009). In one discussion, it stated that social media will not only add functio nality when the public relations face a crisis management, but also create oppor

tunities for companies to be crushed by the crisis. One example of a company in Indonesia which negatively affected the social media and the Internet is the RS. Omni International Jakarta. The story began when a patient who was disappointed with the service of the hospital is pouring her feelings to her friends via ema il, which in turn that e-mail was leaked and widely spread in cyberspace. The se nse of solidarity made public moved to support the patient, which finally create d a mass movement which eventually makes Omni became the talk of the national sp here. In the end, the image of Omni International became negative after receivin g extensive criticism which affects the reputation of the hospital. NMMM IDC also notes that Internet usage in Indonesia increased by 22% (2009) to 48% (2010). This sharp increasing was getting a boost from various social media services that can be accessed through mobile media (vibizdaily, 2010). In connec tion to the penetration of the internet and social media, Indonesia turned out t o be one country that has a high level of Internet usage with a number of around 25.4 million. These figures are expected to continue to expand along with the e ver-expanding Internet access to various areas in Indonesia. The above findings are also consistent with the use of social media in Indonesia . Research conducted by Sysomos, a company engaged in the field of Internet rese arch and communication, shows an interesting fact. In 2009, Indonesia is ranked the 6th world (with 2:34% of Twitter users), and number one in Asia with the mos t users and sending tweets. Furthermore it was found that Jakarta is The Twitter City of Asia (Russell, 2009). The movement of the expanded social media has created public relations both glob al and regional scale to global thinking on their public relations practices. Th us, the public relations department must be prepared to change to adapt to new m edia development (Wilcox, 2006). In the end, both private and governmental organ izations that have a division of Public Relations in Indonesia, seems to be incr easingly aware the knowledge to adapt and learn that the social media is not neg otiable. The purpose of this study is to find out the attitude and perceptions of the use of social media by public relations practitioners. Research conducted by (Wright &ump; Hinson, 2009) shows many facts that are reco gnized by the Public Relations and educational practitioners which have many adv antages over traditional media, especially with the excess to create a dialogue with the public in this global era. However, research also shows that Public Rel ations have not been able to capture value from this opportunity (Wright &ump; H inson, 2009). This certainly makes the race for Public Relations in order to max imize the potential of social media to achieve the expected goals of the organiz ation.