Media and Communication

This study will explore about Intercultural Communication that occurs in Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) held by Kemenpora. Researcher wants to describe four things, first what uncertainty reduction strategies used by participants AIYEP to obtain information about their counterpart at the beginning of the relationship. Second, is there any difference between Indonesian participants strategy from Australian participant strategy. Third, whether the uncertainty reduction strategies chosen by the AIYEP participants can reduce the uncertainty they feel or not. Fourth, whether the uncertainty reduction strategies that selected by program participants can facilitate intercultural communication with their counterpart or not.

Each participant tends to feel the uncertainty in the beggining of their relation with their counterpart and their host family. However, the uncertainty can be reduced quickly through strategies conducted by informants (participants of the
program). The informants use different strategies to reduce the uncertainty they experienced. There are participants who only use one of the the strategies, and the others use a combination of exisiting strategies.

There are differences in the strategies used by the Australian informants and Indonesian informans. Australian informants use one strategy which is interactive strategy. On the other hand, not all of Indonesian participants use the direct
communication to search information.

Uncertainty reduction strategies used by all informants effectively reduce the uncertainty they experienced against their counterparts. But, it can not applies completely on the uncertainty experienced by the informants to their host family.

Besides it work to reduce the perceived uncertainty between participants of communication, the selection of appropriate uncertainty reduction strategies
can also help facilitate communication between participants PPIA with their
counterparts. However, not all respondents said they use of strategies are able to facilitate communication with their host family.

Keywords: Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Intercultural Communication