From mid-2018 to 2020, Populi Center conducted several surveys and asked several sets of questions about media use from the people we interviewed in our National survey. Broadly speaking, questions about media use or media habits were constructed into two large sets of questions, namely questions related to conventional media such as newspapers and television, and questions related to digital media such as the use of social media to accessing online media news. The survey results over a period of 2 years (2018 - 2020) showed several interesting findings.
In the question “Which television station did you watch most often in the past week?”, the results show that in the past two years, TV One has been the most watched television station with 29.5 percent, followed by Indosiar in second place with 16.4 percent, Metro TV (9.1 percent) in third place, and RCTI (8.7 percent) in fourth place, and SCTV (7.1 percent) in fifth place. The data shows that the percentage of Metro TV viewers has decreased quite significantly, in contrast to Indosiar which has increased quite significantly. Another note that needs to be considered is the percentage of TV One viewers which has also experienced a sharp decline of up to 10 percent (Chart 1. Television Stations).
Chart 1. Most watched television stations
In the question "In the past month, which newspaper have you read most often?", the results show that the public reads the Kompas newspaper the most (4.0 percent), followed by Jawa Pos (1.0 percent), Koran Tempo (0.8 percent), Pikiran Rakyat (0.6 percent), Media Indonesia (0.6 percent), and Republika (0.6 percent). Although the most respondents read the Kompas newspaper, the majority of people answered that they did not read newspapers at 85.5 percent (Chart 2. Newspapers). These results show that over time, people are increasingly turning to online media to access news or other information. Access to news is increasingly facilitated by the large number of people who admit to accessing the internet using mobile phones (57.5 percent), although the percentage of people who do not have internet access is also quite high at 41.1 percent (Chart 3. Internet Access). We asked the public both of these questions (television stations and newspapers) until the February 2021 survey.
Chart 2. Most frequently read newspapers
The large number of people accessing the internet via mobile phones is also followed by the high intensity of social media access. When people were asked "How often do you access social media every day?", the majority of people answered every hour with 24.7 percent, followed by 3 times a day or more with 20.1 percent, 1-3 times a day with 8.8 percent, and once in 2 days or more with 5.2 percent. These results show that the intensity of people accessing the internet is quite high, although the number of people who did not answer this question is also quite high with 41.2 percent. There is something interesting from the internet access intensity data (Chart 4. Internet Access Intensity), the data shows a tendency for people to start answering the intensity of using social media along with the decreasing percentage of people who did not answer the question. This is understandable considering that from February 2018 to April 2019, the intensity of national politics increased as the 2019 simultaneous elections approached. Questions related to internet access and intensive internet access were not included in the questionnaire in the November 2019 survey.
Graph 3. Active internet users
Graph 4. Intensity of social media access
When asked about the type of social media used when using the internet. The majority of people access WhatsApp (59.4 percent), this figure has increased over time from February 2018 to October 2020. In second place, people access YouTube with 47.7 percent, followed by Facebook with 46.2 percent and Instagram with 26.7 percent. The increasing access to YouTube and Instagram is quite interesting to observe, perhaps this increase is due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has increased access to both platforms. Especially since many regions have implemented Work From Home (WFH) and Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) policies. The WFH policy, which uses a lot of internet connections as the main resource for work, allows for increased access to these two platforms. At the bottom, there is access to LINE with 7.8 percent and Twitter with 7.7 percent (Chart 5. Types of Social Media). For the Youtube answer option, we only included this option in the August 2018 survey, while for the LINE answer option, we only included it in the December 2018 survey.
Chart 5. The most accessed types of social media
In the question “From the following social media, which is your source of political information?”, people answered Facebook with 19.1 percent as the main social media for accessing political information sources, followed by Youtube (13.1 percent), WhatsApp (11.8 percent), Instagram (5.2 percent), and Twitter (2.0 percent). Although Facebook is the most accessed social media for obtaining political information, the majority of people did not answer when asked this question with 48.8 percent (Chart 6. Social Media Source of Political Information). Questions about social media as a source of political information began to be included in the questionnaire since the August 2018 survey.
Graph 6. Types of social media most frequently used as sources of political information
In the question “In the past month, which online media have you accessed most often?”, people answered that they often accessed Kompas.com (13.7 percent), followed by Detik.com (6.3 percent), Tribun News (5.9 percent) and CNN Indonesia (2.4 percent). Although Kompas.com was ranked first, the majority of people answered that they did not know or did not answer this question with 66.6 percent (Chart 7. Online Media). The higher percentage of access to online media compared to conventional media is in line with data from the majority of Indonesians who use the internet to get information. Questions about online media were only included in the questionnaire in the February 2019 survey.
Chart 7. Most accessed online media
In general, the trend of media usage data by Indonesian people from 2018 to 2020 shows that more and more Indonesian people are switching from conventional media or print media to online media as the main basis for finding sources of information. The most widely used social media is WhatsApp. This shows that digital platforms with a focus on direct and intensive interaction between individuals such as WhatsApp, are the main source compared to platforms such as YouTube or Instagram.
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