Journalist Credibility based on Digital Media Used

Suraya Mansur

and Nur Kholisoh

Lecturer of University of Mercu Buana Jakarta Indonesia

Keyword Digital Media, Journalist, Work Pattern

Abstract This research studies the digital media consumption pattern of journalists. This consumption pattern is done

by journalists to support their job. The work pattern of journalists in finding news fundamentally depends on

the credibility of the sources. The process of choosing sources and finding ideas and information is usually

done conventionally, thus presently done through social media. This study was conducted by surveying 60

journalists in Jakarta. The method used for data analysis was descriptive statistics. Results showed that the

majority of respondents had a high social media usage pattern; thus, it can be said that social media carries a

great influence toward the work pattern of journalists. This can be seen from the majority of respondents who

admitted that they had written about growing issues in social media as news in conventional media; they even

admitted to interviewing some sources because they monitored their opinions and comments on social media.

The type of journalists who became respondents in Jabodetabek were creators, conversationalists and Joiners;

the rest participated by consuming social medias and collecting informations. Journalists in this position acted

only as consumers.

1 INTRODUCTION

Media technology grows hand to hand with

civilization growth. As with the concept of

technological determinism that depicts every

happening or every action of humans to be influenced

by the growth of technology. The theory of

Determinism by Marshall McLuhan in 1962 in his

book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of

Typographic Man asserted that the changes that

happen in the various methods of communication,

will also shape the existence of humans themselves

(McLuhan M. ,The Gutenberg Galaxy : The Making

of Typographic Man, 1962).

The changes in the age of communication after

four previous stages, the Tribal Age, Literate Age,

Print Age, and Electronic Age. (LittleJohn, 2009)

(Little John, 1996: 341-347), have ushered a new age,

the Electronic Age. This era was kickstarted by the

invention of the world’s first traditional telegraph by

Samuel Morse that led to the emergence of more jaw-

dropping electronic-based and computer-based

communication products. The emergence of those

electronic-based and computer-based communication

products, also marked the invention of a lot of

communication devices or technology - such as the

telegram, telephone, radio, film, television, VCR, fax,

computer, and the internet.

Some people have felt the effects of the growth of

technology. The way they consume information from

media changed. The growth of digital technology,

that started around the nineties, have significantly

influenced the process of consuming and producing

media. As if digitalization has become the culture of

society nowadays, one facet of it being the use of

media for communication.

The consumption pattern of digital media in each

group of people can vary depending on the needs and

goals. A journalist as media worker often also use

social media. The way journalist use internet and

social media can be seen from the survey done by

Maverick and Paramadina University in 2013; only 1

out of 100 Indonesian journalist chose radio, and 5

out of 100 chose television as a source of news. The

credibility of those media fell short when compared

to online media and printed media, which reached

54% and 29% respectively. Other findings said that

even though social media has become one of the

means to find journalistic ideas, the credibility is still

questioned. Only 2 out of 10 Indonesian Journalists

think of social media as a trusted source of

information. Even so, twitter, facebook and blogs

446

Mansur, S. and Kholisoh, N.

Journalist Credibility based on Digital Media Used.

DOI: 10.5220/0010044604460451

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference of Computer, Environment, Agriculture, Social Science, Health Science, Engineering and Technology (ICEST 2018), pages 446-451

ISBN: 978-989-758-496-1

became the most used social media by journalists in

finding journalistic ideas. (Maverick, 2013)

http://www.maverick.co.id/journalists/2013/_01/ind

onesia-journalists-technographics-full-report/.

The research clarified that the internet, especially

social media, has changed the work pattern of those

journalists, especially in finding information and

journalistic ideas from the internet. This phenomena

became interesting to be examined further - about the

pattern of social media usage by journalists. Based on

the background of the problem that has been put

forward, the problems of this research are as follow:

What needs are the journalists searching for through

digital media? What are the forms of digital media

utilization by journalists for their journalistic needs?

What is the implication toward the overall work

pattern of journalists? How far is the pattern of social

media usage by the journalists in Indonesia?

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of the pattern of information

consumption discussed in this research referred to the

technique or means of getting information through

media. The interaction between individuals and

communication media is the need of the individuals

themselves. The word “consume,” referring to the

Economic Dictionary, means “humans behavior,

direct or indirect, to spend or reduce the utility of a

thing at the last satisfaction of the needs” (Sigit &

Sujana, 2007). This is related to the communication

pattern, done by someone in using communication

media.

Based on that explanation, human actions in

finding information from media, is the

communication process between humans and other

components of communication - in this case

communication media. Use of communication media

by humans is determined by technological aspect that

keeps growing in every stage of civilization.

Referring to the category of social technographic

ladder@, made by forrester research Inc (Forrester,

2010)(source:

http://empowered.forrester.com/ladder2010/), there

are 7 types of activity of internet users. The category

can be seen from the table below

Table 1.1: Activity of Internat Users

Creators Publish a blog

Publish your own web pages

Upload video ypu created

Upload audio/music you created

Write Article or stories and

ost the

Critics Post rating/review of products or services

Comment on someone else’s blog

Contribute to online forums

Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki

Collectors Use RSS feeds

Vote for web sites online

Add ta

s to web

es or

hotos

Joiners Maintain profile on a social networking

site

Visit social networkin

sites

Spectators Read blogs

Listen to podcasts

Watch video from others users

Read online forums

Read customer ratin

/reviews

Inactives None of the above

Group include Consumers participating in at least one of

the indicated activities at least monthl

Creators make social content go. They write blogs or

upload video, music, or text

Critics respond to content from others. They post

reviews, comment on blogs, participate in forums and

edit wiki articles

Collectors organize content for themselves or others

using RSS feeds, tags, and voting sites like Digg.com

Joiners connect in social networks like MySpace and

facebook

Spectator, consumer social content including blogs,

user generated video, podcasts, forum, or reviews

Inactives, neither create nor consumer social content

of any kind (source:

http://empowered.forrester.com/ladder2010/)

The growth of technology, as with the concept of

technological determinism by Marshall McLuhan,

depicts every happening or every action of humans to

be influenced by the growth of technology. McLuhan

said, technology shapes individual in how they think,

they act in society, and technology will lead human to

progress from one age of technology to another. For

example, from the tribal society which didn’t know

letters, to the society which used printing

communication devices, to the society which used

electronic communication devices. The essence of the

theory of determinism is the finding or growth of

communication technology is the factor which

changed human culture. According to McLuhan, our

culture is shaped by how we communicate (McLuhan

M. , 2002).

Journalist Credibility based on Digital Media Used

447

The sophistication of communication technology

in the electronic age eased the process of human

communication. Indeed, in some condition, according

to McLuhan, (McLuhan M , Understanding Media :

The Extension of Man, 1999), this electronic period

is the most sophisticated period of the growth of

human communication, replacing the previous

period. McLuhan had also predicted technology to

always progress with more advanced innovations. On

top of that, for humans to live in a global village. In

the growth of communication technology, the concept

of global village pictured every humans in the world

to live under one village. According to that definition,

communication media in the present digital age, can

bring humans to “touch” with other humans,

whenever, wherever, and right at that moment.

Mitchell V Charnley (Kusumaningrat, 2006)

defined news as “

is the timely report of facts or

opinion that hold interest and importance, or both,

for a considerable of people.” . Based on the above

definition for news, researchers understood, news is

the information sought after by most people because

it contains reports that hold interest and importance.

News also has continuity, in which the continuity in

this case - news is always delivered on-time.

Communication technology grows hand to hand

with the growth of human civilization in

communicating. The competence of communicating

humans in communication technology consists of

three things:

1. User, in which communicating humans as social

scientist needs to be based on communication

technology

2. Content of technology, for example

communication technology in the form of

television or online media, then the ones who

filled them are communicating humans.

3. Research of the social impact of communication

technology. Communicating humans need to

have the ability to research the social impact of

communication technology, like researching the

impact of technological progress to online media

users.

New media theory is a theory developed by

Pierre Levy (Straubhaar & LaRose, 2002), who said

that new media is a theory that discuss media growth.

There are two views from the new media theory. First,

the social interaction view that differentiate media

with the closeness of eye-to-eye interaction.

The appearance of new media with all its form

and function, will not be able to just replace the old or

conventional media. This is in line with the

categorization of communication technological

advancement age that was done by Rogers (Rogers,

1986) that the appearance of new media cannot just

replace traditional media that is still needed by society

to be a source of information according to their own

characteristic. Generally according to Flemming,

Hemingway, Moore and Welford (Fleming,

Hemmingway, Moore, & Welford, 2006) the work

pattern of journalists are divided into three steps,

which are: (1) selecting news, (2) finding news, (3)

writing news.

Selecting news. In this step, the work function of

journalists starts from selecting the news around them.

This selecting process needs journalists’ discernment

to take potential newsworthy issues. Some media

companies have their own rules in deciding which

issues are newsworthy or not. In this case, journalists

need to decide news that have news value. O’Neill,

Deirdre and Tony Harcup (Harcup & O’Neill,

2017)(2009) divided news value into some category:

The power elite, Celebrity, Entertainment, Surprise,

Bad news, good news, magnitude, relevance,

follownup, and newspaper agenda. News value

becomes a reference for journalists in writing an issue.

Finding news. In brief, Fleming et all (Fleming,

Hemmingway, Moore, & Welford, 2006) explained

the steps of finding news, as a way for journalists to

access information from news sources. News source,

among others, comes from press release, newsroom

diaries, emergency services, charities and pressure

group, local government, trade organisation,

consumer groups, internet research, wire and email.

In the age of new media, it is made possible for

journalists to find information from the internet and

pack it back into news. The age of new media made

it possible for journaliste to pick a different way of

producing and distributing news, as explained by

Becker and Vald (Becker & Vlad, 2009) “the internet

has changed much about the way news is produced

and distributed. Journalist now can do their work in

their work in their own and distribute their messages

on their own.”

Writing News. This step is where journalists do the

last process of journalistic work steps, before

distributing it through the media. The thing that needs

to be noticed by journalists according to Fleming et all

(Fleming, hemmingway, Moore & Welford, 2006)

about the importance of the “human angle, facts, and

balance” principle. This matter is of the way a

journalist works in writing their news by emphasizing

their humanity. News related to human interest or

human’s life are the most interesting news to the

audiences. Here, the fact means “an event as it is that

is seen and heard by journalists.” The next principle is

balance. Balance means “the way a journalist works

that contains both parties of importance so justice can

be gained.”

ICEST 2018 - 3rd International Conference of Computer, Environment, Agriculture, Social Science, Health Science, Engineering and

Technology

448

3 RESEARCH METHOD

To find out the pattern of digital media usage of

journalists in Indonesia, this research chose positivist

paradigm. Moreover, this research used quantitative

approach. The method used in quantitative research

was the the descriptive survey method.

Part of or the overall object or phenomena that

would be observed was mass media workers both

electronic and press in Jakarta - for a total of 60

respondents. Sampling technique used was purposive

sampling. This research used questionnaire as a tool

for measuring the data. Data analysis technique used

was descriptive statistic.

4 RESEARCH RESULTS AND

DISCUSSION

Research showed there were more male than female

as media workers, 38 people and 22 people

respectively. The usage of media by journalists were

quite high - more than 10 times uses social media

every day (70%). Respondents said more than 6 hours

a day using social media (27%) the rest 3-6 hours a

day (43%). Every journalist on average has 3-4 social

media (52%). This showed that the use of social

media is now inseparable from the daily lives and

work pattern of journalists.

Conscious or not, journalists also use social media

on their daily work. Journalists’ work pattern starts

from finding information from the sources and

publish that information or just communicating and

discussing with other people through social media.

This can be seen from the result of the research,

journalists tend to write about issues on social media

as news in traditional media. Most journalists

answered they had (83%). A lot of journalist also

wrote about issues from social media to traditional

media (83%). On top of that, journalists also had done

interviews through social media and publish it on

traditional media. This showed that journalists trusted

the sites they read in digital/social media. Journalists

assumed that the work pattern of those news sites

have through a series of flow of news, thus the news

sites or social media that they read and quoted could

be trusted (having a high credibility)

The result of the research also showed the social

category that became the type of the journalists that

became respondents:

Table 1.2: Journalists Types

Activity of journalists

in social media

Activity type

Uploading works to

social media accounts

or blogs or private

website

Creators

Only reading forums,

or blogs, or friends'

status updates in

social media,

watching video/film

and listenin

to music

Spectators

Updating status in

social media accounts

Conversationalist

Activating RSS to

collect information

Collectors

Making a private

social media account

and visiting others’

social media account

Joiners

Commenting on

others’ social media

account

Critics

At present, journalists are very active on social media.

Based on the activities they do, most journalists are

these three types: Creators, Conversationalists, and

Joiners. The few that are not those three are either

collectors or critics. It can be concluded that

journalists are active in contributing information by

publishing their writings online. Meanwhile the rest

participate with consuming social media and

collecting information. Journalists in this position

only acted as consumers.

Table 1.3. Needs Fulfilled by Social Medias:

eeds fulfilled b

Social Medias f

Building relation/ relationship/ friendship

Discussing and exchanging information

News/ information update

Obtaining knowledge

Nurturing personal skills

Entertainment

Showing one’s worth

Showing personal status

From the above result, journalists use social

media more for building relations, including with

sources. This networking skills showed the

excellence of journalists that they could get access

and network with the parties that became their

Journalist Credibility based on Digital Media Used

449

sources. This is also seen from the needs for

discussion and information exchange also news/

information update. This is the result of the opening

of access and network through social media.

Table 1.4: Social Media Usage For Journalist

Social Media Usa

e of Journalistic Job f

Finding data or information (texts, pictures)

Finding out current issues which catch the

ublic’s e

es 96

Finding ideas for news

Monitoring the development of issues

Doing data/information verification

Posting written articles

Discussing about issues with other

ournalists 78

Identifying opinion of figures

The result of the research showed that social

media influenced the entirety of the work pattern of

journalists in Jakarta. This process started from

finding news sources both events and people’s

opinions, selecting news sources, writing and

publishing. The result of the research showed social

media is used to find data or information (98%) and

monitoring the development or issues (98%). Also,

finding out current issues which catch the public’s

eyes. This shower journalists utilized social media to

get documents either information, photo, or news-

relevant pictures from the data that have been

uploaded by someone else. On the stage of selecting

news, journalists also utilized social media to get

news ideas and finding the current issues that catch

the public’s eyes and monitoring that development.

Issues journalists wrote of course are issues that

have news value. The issues from social media is

what journalists follow up. The result can be seen

from list 1.5 below

Table 1.5: Issues followed up from social media

Issues followed up from social media f

Shocking and unexpected events (disasters,

etc.) 98

Issues concerning public interests (price

increase of electricity, gasoline, healthcare,

etc) 98

Figures, institutions, or famous people

Updates or the continuation of previous news

Hobby, funny stories, community, etc light

and amusin

information 87

Achievement, accomplishment, and positive

thin

s about someone 73

Scandals and bad things that happen to

someone 70

The result of the research above showed the issue

that have high news value and become the spotlight is

issues about unexpected/shocking events and issues

concerning public interests. Based on Habermas’

opinion regarding public spaces, a lot of people

nowadays use digital media in this case social media

to share the problems that happen in society. Because

of that, right now people tend to be citizen journalist

that report ongoing event as the parties that are on the

scene of the event. Journalists just have to monitor the

development of issues on unexpected events like

flood or other natural disasters. Social media became

a invaluable sources for journalists to observe and

monitor this event.

The work pattern of journalist has been researched

by Santoso and Budianto too (Santoso & Budianto,

2016) Firstly, internet-based television differs from

standard conventional television, the use of human

resources are diminished to lessen the production and

post-production cost. Secondly, the management of

informative content is not only on the process of

content production but also the virtual-based

distribution strategy. Lastly, a slim structure and a

creative culture successfully produce a variety of

creative program because it is supported by youths

familiar with digital technology.

Social Media give the chances for anyone to

connect and interact. Through social media,

audiences and journalists can interact interactively,

easily, and relatively cheap. Journalists can also

access and network with other people, especially their

sources. Content or information that are in social

media is very abundant - overloading, even.

Regarding this journalists still need to make sure of

the credibility of their sources. Because of that

journalist still need to thoroughly check or verify all

information sources from social media. This kind of

thing was also said by the research of Mulyana and

Morissan (Mulyana & Morissan, 2015) also

conducted a research on the use of the Internet and

social media. The results shown that, ‘(1) The

average percentage news commentary assessed

manners are as much as 74 percent while the average

percentage of news comments judged to be polite is

as much as 26.3 percent. (2) The amount of 74 per

cent for comments considered polite indicates that the

new media audience, especially visitors of portal

news in Indonesia has a relatively good level of

politeness. (3) Based on data obtained from the three

ICEST 2018 - 3rd International Conference of Computer, Environment, Agriculture, Social Science, Health Science, Engineering and

Technology

450

coders in the study, the average percentage of news

comments judged to be polite is as much as 26.3

percent. Thus, the level of politeness visitors news

portal in Indonesia is categorized as a courtesy.

5 CONCLUSION AND ADVICE

The majority of respondents have a high pattern of

social media usage, thus influence of social media

toward the work pattern of journalists is also high.

This can be seen from the majority of respondents

admitting they had wrote about issues developing in

social media in conventional media. Moreso, they

admitted too that they had interviewed sources

because they monitored their opinions and comments

on social media. The types of journalists that became

respondents and is in Jabodetabek are as creators,

conversationalist, and Joiners, the rest participated

with consuming social media and collecting

information. Journalists in this position only acted as

consumers.

The existence of social media caused

communication patterns between journalist, sources

and media management also audiences. Besides that,

social media also spawned journalist citizens that

report the events that happen around them, so they

became the source of data that journalists use on the

news they work on.

The recommendation of this research is, among

the ambush of the flood of information through social

media, journalists need to also be a gatekeeper that

needs to ensure the credibility of the news they wrote

by also doing a thorough check or verification to all

information sources obtained from social media.

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