Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia
Muhammad Edy Susilo, Subhan Afifi and Senja Yustitia
Department of Communication Science, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Keywords:
Digital Literacy, Hoax, Social Media, Civil Society.
Abstract:
Social media users in Indonesia are increasing rapidly. This condition will have a bad impact if they have
a low level of digital literacy. Digital literacy in this study is taken from Livingstone concept, that is how
audiences have an access to the information, how they analyze and evaluate the information, and also how
they have a skill to produce the message. The research question is, how is the condition of digital literacy in
Indonesia. The purpose of the research is to find out the policies and roles of the Indonesian government in
realizing digital literacy. This research was conducted using qualitative research methods. Data collected by
in-depth interview technique. The informants in this study came from the government of Indonesia, especially
fromThe Ministry of Communication and Information and The Public Relations of Indonesian National Police,
social media specialists, political influencers, and social media researchers. The study was conducted ahead
of the 2019 Indonesia General Elections, from April 2018 to March 2019. Data is processed by classifying
or categorizing it based on several themes that are in accordance with the focus of the research. The results
showed that social media users in Indonesia have inadequate digital literacy capabilities and therefore they are
easily targeted by hoaxes, including political hoaxes. A few months before the 2019 elections, political hoaxes
spread rapidly. The hoax category indicates that social media users are in the opposite position between the
pros and cons of the government. The results showed that compared to the government, civil society had more
efforts to realize digital literacy. Meanwhile, the government tends to use a curative approach, by blocking
hoax sites or hoax account. The government also processes many hoaxes producers and spreaders in to court
and sent them in to jail.
1 INTRODUCTION
Aufderheide provides an explanation of the five
characteristics of the media: a) media reality is
the result of construction, b) media has commercial
implication, c) media has ideological and political
implication, d) the form and content of each media
have unique aesthetic, code and convention, e)
recipient negotiates the meaning of the media (1992).
By looking at the characteristic of the media
above, the importance of public education is a must.
Educated audience will be able to digest media
messages more carefully and can follow up messages
proportionately. One important study in educating
audiences is media literacy.
Potter defines media literacy as “set of perspective
that we actively use to expose ourselves to the
media to interpret the meaning of the message
we encounter. We build our perspectives from
knowledges structures. To build our knowledges
structures, we need tools and raw material. These
tools are our skills. The raw material is information
from the the media and from the real world. Active
use means that we are aware of messages and
consciously interacting with them” (Potter, 2005).
Another definition of media literacy is ”At its
most basic, media literacy is the active inquiry
and critical thinking about the messages we receive
and create,” (Hobbs and Jensen, 2009), and most
propositions emphasize this connection to critical
thinking. The U.S. The National Association for
Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) defines media
literacy as ”ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create,
and act using all forms of communication.” What
is notable about these definitions, and what we
will see often forms the basis of media literacy
curricula, is a focus on the interpretive responsibilities
of the individual (Bulger and Davidson, 2018).
Livingstone provides a definition of media literacy
that has similarity with the definition above, namely
”the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create
messages across a variety of contexts” (Livingstone,
2019).
The last three definitions appear to be broader
Susilo, M., Afifi, S. and Yustitia, S.
Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia.
DOI: 10.5220/0009100201650174
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education and Humanity (ICoSEEH 2019) - Sustainable Development in Developing Country for Facing Industrial
Revolution 4.0, pages 165-174
ISBN: 978-989-758-464-0
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
165

than Potter’s definition because they have included
the ”create” element carried out by the audience or
the recipient of the message. This shows that media
literacy is a concept that continues to grow along with
the development of communication technology. The
”create” element done by the public is a consequence
of the development of the internet with various
platforms in it. Manuel Castell calls it as the
Creative Audience, which is ”the source of the
remix culture that characterizes the world of mass
self-communication” (2009).
However the presence of the internet has
proven itself that this technology has characteristic
with conventional mass media. Compared
with previous media, the internet converges
the combination of ”3Cs”, namely computing
(digital media and information technologies),
communication (networks, artefacts and practices)
and content (media and information) (Barr, 2000;
Flew, 2000). Dijk stated structurally, media
convergence means integration of three aspects,
namely telecommunication, data communication and
mass communication in one medium (Dijk, 2006).
One of the distinguishing internet media with
previous media is the nature of interactivity. The
internet is a medium that allows the interaction
between the sender and the recipient of the message.
Information from the internet can be viral distributed
so that it can quickly reach the world. The production
of message through the internet also does not require
expensive cost (Beers, 2006).
Based on Hootsuite Wearesocial research released
in January 2019 social media users in Indonesia reach
150 million or 56% of the total population. The
amount is up 20% from the previous survey. While
mobile social media users (gadgets) reach 130 million
or around 48% of the population (Databooks, 2019).
The data shows that the most widely used internet
platform in Indonesia is social media. Boyd and
Ellison defines social media networks as ”web-based
services” which allow user to 1) build public or
semi-public profile in a system, 2) connect with other
users where they can share, 3) see and enter in other
user account that is in the system (Boyd and Ellison,
2007). Social media has a positive function on
many areas. According to Sahar Shekaliu (Shekaliu
et al., 2018) social media has a positive benefits on
volunteerism. Based on their research, volunterism
needs a unique platform to reach out to a massive
audience. On the other hand, owing to its popularity
to human support, social media should also give
back to society by fostering community engagement,
civic participation and highlighting the setbacks of
marginalized and minority groups.
Currently Indonesia is listed as a large social
media user. According to research conducted by We
Are Social, a British media company in collaboration
with Hootsuite, the average of Indonesian spends
three hours 23 minutes a day in accessing social
media. From a report entitled “Essential Insights Into
the Internet, Social Media, Mobile, and E-Commerce
Use Around the World” which was published on
January 30, 2018, of Indonesia’s total population
of 265.4 million, social media active users reached
130 million with penetration 49% (Pertiwi, 2018).
Consecutively, the most widely used social media
in Indonesia are YouTube (43%), Facebook (41%),
WhatsApp (40%), Instagram (38), Line (33), BBM
(28) and Twitter (27% ) (Databoks, 2018).
The different characteristic between social media
and conventional mass media, the issue of media
literacy is becoming increasingly relevant. The term
used also differs into internet literacy (Livingstone,
2004). Martin uses the term digital literacy with
the explanation that the awareness, attitude and
ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools
and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate,
evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources,
construct new knowledge, create media expressions,
and communicate with others, in the context of
specific life situations, in order to enable constructive
social action; and to reflect upon this process (Martin,
2006).
Hoax is one of the contents of social media
that has a negative impact. Moreover, hoaxes that
spread on social media can turn into real world
conflicts. Based on news in KBR.id in Pontianak,
West Kalimantan, there is a hoax about kidnapping
children resulted in the death of a 53 year old man. He
is suspected of being a kidnapper killed by residents.
Provocative information on social media also causes
conflicts between community groups in Samarinda.
Six temples in Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, were
attacked and burned by several hundred residents
provoked by a hoax. Without serious efforts from the
government, the bad impact of the hoax will continue;
the worst impact is destroying the nation’s integration.
Digital literacy is closely related to what is
produced and shared by social media users. This is
a very crucial problem and for that we need to put
it in context. This study focuses on activities on
social media ahead of election in Indonesia. Thus,
political messages on social media are subject to
study from this research. This is in line with the
finding of Astrini (2017), which states that sensitive
issue to social, political, ethnic, religious, racial, and
inter-group issue, are used by the hoax spreaders
to influence public opinion, as many as 91.8% of
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
166

respondents claimed most often receive hoax content
about socio-politic, such as regional head election and
government. Not much different from socio-politic,
the issue of ethnicity, religion, race and inter-group
relations (or SARA in Indonesia terminology) was in
second place with 88.6%.
Based on a survey conducted by the Indonesian
Telematic Society (Mastel) in 2017, the result showed
that social media is the most often channel used
to spread hoax news, with a percentage of 92.40%.
In the second position, the spread of many hoax
news was spread through chat applications, such
as whatsapp, line and BBM with 62.80%. In the
third position with a percentage of 34.90% is a
website. Most of commonly accepted forms of hoax
are written, with a percentage of 62.10%. it is
continued in the second and third position are pictures
and videos, each with a percentage of 37.50% and
0.40% (Mastel, 2017). These conditions underlie the
existence of this research with two big questions that
will be answered are: How is the condition of digital
literacy in Indonesia? How are the policy and role of
the Indonesia government in realizing digital literacy?
2 METHOD
The study was conducted using a descriptive
qualitative approach. Data is obtained through
in-depth interview and relevant reference
investigation. Research data is carried out within a
period of one year, from April 2018 to March 2019.
The consideration of the selection of this period is
because it is a ”political year” in which in 2019 an
Indonesian General Election will be held. In the
lead-up to the election, activity on social media in
search of political support increased. The same
pattern has occurred in the 2014 General Election
(Susilo, 2015).
The research informants consisted of political
influencer, social media researcher, social media
analyst and the Government of the Republic of
Indonesia, especially the Ministry of Communication
and Information of the Republic of Indonesia and the
Public Relations of the Indonesian National Police.
The criteria for selected influencer are those who have
at least 100,000 followers and/or friends on social
media. Social media researcher and social media
analyst selected to be an informants because they
are neutral person and formally has a research about
social media.
In-depth interviews conducted with all informants
based on interview guides that had been made.
To achieve a good level of validity and to obtain
diversity of information, interviews were conducted
several times for each informant. This study uses
triangulation of sources, so that the results of the
interview are complemented with observations and
other relevant documents. The data analysis process
begins by examining all data obtained from various
sources, that is interviews, observations written in
the field notes, documents and other sources. The
next step is data reduction, which is checking
and separating important data from irrelevant data.
Afterwards, the researcher makes a categorization
that suitable with the focus of the study. The final
step is to interpret and display data, so that research
can be understood easily.
3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Hoax as a Reflection on the Low of
Digital Literacy
In this article, the concept of digital literacy uses
the Livingstone model which is ”the ability to
access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in
various contexts”. First, access lies in dynamic
and social process, not just one-time action. After
initial access is established, literacy development
directs users to significantly and continuously change
access condition (updating, enhancing and expanding
hardware and software application). Second,
Analysis, the ability to understand message that
comes to take advantage of online opportunity. Third,
evaluation relates to the assessment of the good from
the bad, credible or not. Fourth, it is content creation.
The internet is a medium that offers unimaginable
opportunity for ordinary people to create online
content. If made in a diagram, it can be described
as follows figure 1 :
By describing through the pyramid, it can be
seen that the digital literacy level moves from the
most basic level to the highest level. This level also
has weighting property, where the ability of digital
literacy at a high level is confirmed to have passed the
level below it.
The lowest level illustrates how user has accessed
to the media. In Livingstone’s words, “Access
rests on a dynamic and social process, not a
one-off act of provision. Once initial access
is established, developing literacy leads users to
alter significantly and continually the conditions of
access (updating, upgrading and extending hardware
and software applications). Problematically, given
socio-demographic inequalities in material, social and
Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia
167

Figure 1: Digital Literacy Model with modification from Livingstone Model
symbolic resources, inequalities in access to online
knowledge, communication and participation will
continue” (2004)
Engagement of user against various media shows
the range of analytical competency. On the internet,
the analytical competency needed is more complex
than print media and audiovisual media. High
competence will enable them to take advantage of
existing online opportunities.
At the third level, evaluation has a difficult
question to determine and legitimize the foundation
of critical literacy: aesthetic, politic and/or economic.
The scope and purpose of the evaluation is also
debated: is media literacy intended to promote
a democratic, diverse, anti-elitist approach to
online representation or to underlie more traditional,
hierarchical discrimination regarding good and bad,
authoritative or unauthoritative? Evaluation almost
always involves judgment. What is considered good
and bad will always be a crucial issue. Various
interests such as politic, economic and ideology will
be the locus in which assessment will be given.
All social media provide channels to deliver
evaluations by giving a ”like” response or various
emoticons that reflect other judgments. Giving
”like” to a message means it will make the message
important. Not only that, ”like” will place message
on the top timeline and potentially make the message
viral.
Not all definitions of media literacy include
content creation as one ability. However, this is
important for two reasons, first, people achieve a
deeper understanding of convention and the benefit
of professionally produced material if they have
direct experience of content production. Second,
the internet offers unimaginable advantage to create
content, even for ordinary people. Leaving aside
content creation aspect from the definition of media
literacy will greatly reduce the potential of the internet
for the public.
On social media, there is one other activity that is
between level evaluation and content creation, which
is ”share” the message. ”Share” message is done after
the user assesses a message. ”share” is not always an
agreement with shared message, because sometimes
”share” is done precisely to show disagreement with
the message. But in general, ”share” in the form of
approval is much greater than the opposite. ’Share’
message means the user is not doing content creation,
but forwarding other people’s message. However,
”share” a message will expand the range of a message.
The number of ”shares” is sometimes used as a basis
for evaluating the success of a message. The habit of
sharing a message cannot be underestimated because
it can make an enlarged message like a snowball that
slides from the top of a hill. A message shared by a
social media account has the opportunity to be read
or seen by all followers or all friends of the account
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
168

owner.
3.2 Indonesian Political Conditions in
Relations to Social Media
Development
The election is a critical stage that will determine the
fate of the nation during a certain period of time.
For Indonesia, the period is 5 years. In election, all
political forces mobilize their energy to gain broad
support from the public. All actors see the election
as an important milestone that must be fought for as
much as possible.
Based on data from the Ministry of Information
and Communication of the Republic of Indonesia,
of all internet users, as many as 95% use the
internet to access social network. The most widely
accessed social media sites are Facebook and Twitter
(http://kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail).
On the other hand, the rapid development
of internet usage and especially social media
in Indonesia coincides with several interesting
phenomena in the political field. The election
of President Joko Widodo who is familiarly called
Jokowi cannot be separated from social media activity
(both positive and negative) in 2014. Jokowi, who at
that time served as governor of Jakarta and ran for
President of Indonesia, became a very popular figure
on social media.
Jokowi’s leadership style is straightforward, his
image is ”clean” (from act of corruption) and his habit
of going down to society makes some people ”fall
in love”. Jokowi was also dubbed ”media darling”
because whatever Jokowi did and said was always
reported in a positive tone by the media.
The interesting thing here is that both Jokowi
and his party do not have their own mass media,
print or television media, like their political rival.
However, after the election result was announced,
Jokowi managed to get the most votes, defeating
political figures who had a media network. But
behind that, it does not mean that there is no negative
news that has plagued Jokowi. The black campaign
also targeted Jokowi and his rival Prabowo Subianto.
In addition, hoax or fake news is also a phenomenon
that emerged at that time. Until this research was
conducted, ahead of the 2019 election, the presence
of hoax showed an increase. This shows that the
contestation of Indonesian presidential election does
not only occur in the real world but also in the realm
of social media.
In general hoax is fake news. An act that is
intended to trick people into believing something is
real when it is not (Information, nd). Referring on a
similar source, a word hoax has an etymology: the
term hoax is believed to be from hocus or something
spoken quickly and there is also hokum, which is a
blend of hocus-pocus and ”bunkum” or ”bunk”.
Although hoax has been around for a long time,
but through the internet hoax is like finding fertile
land. This is also due to the nature of the internet
which has anonymity space. The account owner can
only create an account for a while and then close the
account (fake account).
3.3 Political Hoax in Indonesia
According to the informant of this study, Novi Kurnia,
Researcher of Digital Literacy Researcher Network
Indonesia (Japelidi), hoax is a fake news, information
that does not contain accuracy, not because the author
is not thorough, but because it is intentional (Kurnia
and Astuti, 2017). The intentional aspect is important
in talking about hoax production. She divides hoax
actors as makers and spreaders.
“The maker intentionally makes hoax that is
misleading according to what he wants, but for hoax
spreaders, there can be other reasons why they spread
hoax, such as low understanding of hoax, ignorance
or following-up” Other informant, Fathul Wahid,
social media researcher and academician, said that
hoax is information, news or content that is not
true. There is an element of lies in the informagtion.
According to him there are habits that often occur
in individual which makes the distribution of hoax
more massive, namely the tendency of people to bias
information and believe in information that supports
his initial concept or preference. This is what he
thinks can cause hoax to spread even more. There
is no attempt to also consume different or conflicting
information as part of the effort to cross check the
information.
“Hoax distribution is increasingly prevalent when
dealing with political problem because politics is
closely related to conflict of interest. Secondly,
hoax also thrives on religious issue. In political
matter, hoax is more designed by political opponent.
In broader term, these political opponents can be
anyone, including those in power and opposition”
However, Fathul said that the hoax carried out by
those who have power is far more dangerous because
they have extraordinary resource. The magnitude is
higher because it can mobilize mass and information
to become more massive. From this explanation, it
can be seen that hoax can be produced by anyone, but
who is the producer can make this hoax have different
meaning and destructive power. This is in line with
Novi Kurnia’s statement, that the individual level as
Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia
169

the producer of the message becomes very important.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics
(Kominfo) and the Indonesian National Police
explained the high number of hoax news content
distribution. Even in 2018, the number of hoax
reached 800 thousand contents (Yuliani, 2017). With
that much amount, the traffic of hoax distribution on
Indonesian social media is definitely very dense.
Based on the research, there are many topics used
as hoax, but what stands out is about the rise of the
Indonesian Communist Party, the large number of
foreign workers from China, harassment of Muslims
and Ulama. For the Indonesian state, the communist
party was the worst national trauma after the party’s
rebellion in 1948 and 1965. The previous government
regime, it was always stressed how dangerous
the communist ideology because communism was
anti-God, anti-religious and justified any means to
achieve its objective. This is also reflected in the
propaganda delivered by the Indonesian government
in every era that the PKI is a nightmare for the
Indonesian state.
In the hoax circulating, President of Jokowi
was always attached to the rise of the PKI. The
circulating hoax tried to link President Jokowi’s
ancestor as communist. The supporting party, namely
Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P)
with nationalism ideology was also linked to the
Communist party.
The proximity of the Jokowi government with the
Chinese government also made the hoax about the
invasion of millions of Chinese illegal workers to
Indonesia. Some hoax messages in the form of text,
image or audiovisual seems so real, as if they are
correct information.
The third issue that is used as hoax material is
about how Muslim and Ulama in Indonesia are so
marginalized in the era of Jokowi’s leadership. This
hoax found ”the truth” when he saw some facts about
the persecution of Ulama by unknown people and
the number of Muslims who were arrested for being
accused of being involved in the spread of hoax and
hate speeche. At the same time, report of non-Muslim
who spreads hate speech and hoax are not followed
up by the police. Finally, Muslim in Indonesia feels
that they are treated unfairly by the government even
though in term of quantity the Muslim is the majority
in Indonesia.
The expert staff of the Indonesian Minister of
Communication and Information Henri Subiakto in
his interview with researcher said that the figure
of Jokowi and his supporting party namely Partai
Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P) could not
be separated. The number of hoax targeting the
president is actually difficult to separate from the
existence of the party which is the bearer of Jokowi.
That is why the issue circulating is also identical
with the issue that attacked PDI-P. On one hand, the
Ministry of Communication and Information has also
made various efforts to overcome hoax, for example
by conducting digital literacy activity and inviting
various parties to sit together. Henri said that his party
also invited religious institutions such as the MUI, NU
and Muhammadiyah to jointly fight hoax.
He said that digital literacy program is the
ministry’s priority program with the development
of human resource and digital engineering through
internet screening. The three main activities that will
be carried out are building negative anti-counterfeit
skill such as hoax, cyberbullying, hate speech,
pornography and piracy. Secondly, increasing skill to
produce positive content. Third, the development of
digital transformation skill includes coding, big data
analysis, and others (Kominfo, 2018).
3.4 Digital Literacy and the Spread of
Hoaxes
At this point, the spread of hoaxes is one of the low
reflection of Indonesian digital literacy. Hoax is one
of cybercrime whose impact is not only individual
for the perpetrator, but social impact. Digital literacy
is not merely how people can use the internet, but
how they can do analysis, evaluation and message
production. Anonymity on social media makes hoax
message easy to circulate. Hoax manufacturer can
make a hoax and after the message becomes viral, he
will deactivate the old account and use a new account.
Anomimity is one of the facilities provided by social
media. In mediated context, anonymity is state of
communicating where the identity of communicator
is not readily apparent (Wood and Matthew, 2005).
Communicating on social media creates a digital
footprint and can be tracked who is the producer of
a message, but anonymity can complicate tracking
effort. In addition to anonymity, social media also
provides facility for pseudonimity, namely the use
of fake identity or disguising themselves as other
people. The Indonesian Ministry of Communication
and Information admitted that it was difficult to
prevent the public from creating an anonymous
account on social media because, the government
must cooperate with social media service provider
platform, mostly from abroad. Meanwhile, the
social media platform still uses international rule,
where anonymity is not prohibited (Meilina, 2018).
Without adequate digital literacy capability, social
media user in Indonesia is very easily tossed around
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
170

for various interest, including political and economic
interest. Hoax producer can easily make misleading,
provocative and emotional message. User who
considers the hoax to be correct information will
easily forward the message to friends or followers
on social media. The low digital literacy is in line
with the result of research on the level of world
literacy released in 2016. The research on The
World’s Most Literate Nations was conducted by John
W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State
University in New Britain which stated that Indonesia
was ranked at 60th from 61 countries in the literacy
level. This study not only discusses the ability
to read from a nation, but also discusses ”literate
behavior and their supporting resources” (literacy
behavior and its supporting sources), namely how
society behaves and how people’s access to sources of
literacy plays an important role in this study (CCSU,
2016). One of the informants of this study, Fathul
Wahid, who is a digital literacy activist, said that
hoax distribution can be inhibited if everyone has
information resilience. Information resilience is a
person’s ability to assess the information obtained and
process it further. Processing here can mean storing
or circulating both limited and wide. Information
security of each individual is important because social
media actor is individual. If each individual does not
have the resilience of information, it will be easily
trapped in the narrative of certain group that we do
not know who and what their interest is. Fathul
also said, the second thing that an individual must
possess is sensitivity. This sensitivity is important
because people tend not to think long, do not know
what the implication is, so they underestimate that
even hoax can be bad. This sensitivity, according
to Fathul, is influenced by many things, including
political affiliation, so it is not uncommon for this
to make people do not have common sense in
processing information. “Furthermore there is no
specific criterion about the individual as to what is
the resilience of information and sensitivity. Even
the high level of formal education and employment
is also not a guarantee that they are literate enough
with hoax so that it is wise to process information”.
However, Fathul has a recommendation that an open
minded attitude and awareness to educate others
become one of the solutions that can be done if you
want hoax to decrease in intensity. Novi Kurnia
in her interview with reseacher, also highlighted the
problem of producing this message. In today’s digital
era, lack of literacy is accompanied by the stutter
of individual in seeing who they are, especially on
social media. They are no longer just user but also
message producer. This is what is less realized when
the implication is very different. In the user, the
individual is at the passive level, while the individual
producer becomes active and even interactive. This
means that the problem at the individual level is the
root of the problem of widespread hoax in society. In
general there are two issues that arise in relation to
digital literacy. That is the problem at the level of
awareness of the message maker and the recipient of
the message. The literacy approach to the producer
of messages is like what the government did, namely
regulation and law. Both of them up to now lead
to pros and cons because they are considered not
in harmony with freedom of opinion. At this level,
digital literacy activist tries to make hoax occured
is not higher. Difficulty that often occurs is, there
are hoax spreaders who work by design but there are
also those who become volunteer. They are driven
by hatred and very easily provoked. A massive hoax
can influence other people who might also influence
their political choice. The massive hoax on certain
local issue is then responded to by individual who
has nothing to do with the locality. Seeing the
massive hoax in Indonesia, especially on political
issue, must also touch the family and school level.
This is because the initial building of the nation’s
generation came from these two institutions. The
reading movement in school is also an important
part of digital literacy because digital literacy is
always associated with information literacy. So the
huge action of information literacy indirectly also
suppresses the negative effect of social media activity.
Hoax on social media also shows typical symptom,
namely the polarization of opinion on the side of
”us versus them”, the pro-government side versus the
opposition. Each side believes that their opinion,
belief and political choice are the most correct. At
the same time, they have an opinion that the party
opposites with them is the wrong party. In this case,
they will bring ”data” to confirm that their opinion
is the most correct. The thing that becomes a big
problem is that ”data” which is used as a basis for
belief, in the end turns out to be a hoax. Speaking of
polarization, researcher from “Drone Emprit Media
Research”, Ismail Fahmi said to the researcher
that the government was instrumental in sharpening
the polarization. This triggered an atmosphere of
injustice felt by some parties. According to him, in
the past year the party that contradict to Jokowi (and
also the government) feel that law enforcement by the
government is only used to take action against those
who contradict them. Conversely, if government
supporter spreads hoax, law enforcer does not take
any action. Fahmi said that social media which is
nothing but a medium of communication is only a
Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia
171

tool that has no feeling so that those who appear
on social media are merely technical matter. This
means that a more humanist approach needs to be
done so that dislike of the government does not trigger
widespread hoax. “Law enforcement that is fair on the
one hand is indeed needed, but this dialogue bridge
that can bring the two sides together must also be
done. When Jokowi was appointed president, he was
a parent for all groups, lovers and haters” Fahmi said
that the portion of law enforcement should only be
up to 20 percent, the rest is dialogue and friendship.
Unfortunately, this has not been seen and felt, so
some parties dislike Jokowi and the government do
not get the solution. In social media, Jokowi can
indeed see what the trend is like, including what
conversation is being conveyed by the community.
However the solution to that case must still be at
the level of the real world. Field solution needs
to be developed to be able to elaborate on problem
that arises on social media. The impression of
injustice in the hoax action was also conveyed by
Fathul Wahid. According to him, the impression
that law enforcement is only for the government’s
counter is strongly felt. This impression is very
strong. Ideally, whoever he is, as long as disturbing
peace, it should be dealt with and processed by
law, not just for certain group. If this selective
cutting practice continues, any government-formed
task force will be of no use. On the other hand,
The Ministry as part of the government which was
very intensive in making effort to overcome hoax also
tended to be authoritarian, for example by making
arrest and blocking content. Nevertheless, the soft
diplomacy style approach that has been carried out
is also worthy of being supported by being part of
digital literacy through cyber creation. According to
him, the digital literacy movement must be initiated
by many parties to make it more collaborative. It
can be started from university, school, government
and the media. A study of mapping digital literacy
activity in 9 cities in Indonesia shows that actor
to do the action is more dominated by university.
The second finding shows that there are still more
media literacy activities in the form of one-way
socialization or lecture. Third, the target of digital
literacy activity is mostly to target teenager or student.
Fourth, partner in most digital literacy activity comes
from school (Kurnia, Astuti, 2017). Other civil
society effort, for example, was carried out by the
turnbackhoax community, which was the result of a
discussion of the Anti-Defamation and Hoax Forum
(group on Facebook). This community actively
recruits antihoax volunteers and reports hoax that can
interfere with national unity. The public is given
access to report on hoax that are disturbing, both
through email, SMS, and the Whatsapp application,
and it will be followed up by this community. The
ultimate goal is to eradicate hoax from Indonesia. At
this point, the role of government in digital literacy
has not shown an important role. The threat of
hoax as a cyber crime that can threaten the nation’s
integration is actually addressed by curative effort,
for example by forming a Law Enforcement Sub-Unit
under the Criminal Investigation Unit. This Sub-Unit
is tasked with overcoming hoax that is circulating and
balancing them with correct information. Kominfo
blocks sites that violate the rule but the government
through the Coordinating Ministry for Politics and
Security establishes a Sub-Unit to anticipate a
related propaganda. More anticipatory, systematic
and long-term effort have not been made by the
government. Until this research was conducted,
there was no discourse to include Digital Literacy in
the primary and secondary education curriculum in
school in Indonesia. Inculcating digital literacy in
early time through school can be likened to planting
strong roots so that student can be responsible for
using social media. Meanwhile, eradicating hoax on
social media in curative ways is like just cutting down
branch of tree. The cut branch will be able to sprout
again. The results of the study can be illustrated in the
following figure 2 :
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study concludes that the level of public literacy
in Indonesia, especially digital literacy is still very
low, so the space to become user and producer of
hoax is very easy. This is made easier by the
presence of social media which provides features to
show how the reader responds. For example the
features “like, retweet, share, repost and like”. In
certain case, especially hoax, these features represent
the user’s emotional expression in information. The
ease of the response mechanism will have a worse
effect on the community having the ability and low
evaluation of information. In the Indonesian context,
the public response to hoax information targeting the
government can then be easily classified into two
main polarizations, namely contra and pro Jokowi or
government side. This is further aggravated because
the government is considered to have no tackling way
and only prioritizes repressive curative handling such
as blocking certain account, criminalizing people
spreading hoax and others. Repressive effort based
on digital literacy have not become an important part
in tackling hoax. Even though digital literacy effort is
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
172

Figure 2: The Research Result
one of the most essential steps to create a generation
that has resilience of information and high sensitivity.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics
through its various programs has conducted digital
literacy, however, law enforcement that is unfair
to producer and hoax spreader is still felt by the
community and this has exacerbated polarization and
a more massive distribution of hoax.
The disunity in cyberspace is also followed by
phenomena in the real world. Relation between
individual is affected by their activity on social media.
Polarization in cyberspace is followed by disunity at
the real world level. Especially in term of seeing how
Jokowi’s position and governance are in the frame of
state leadership. This is of course very dangerous
because it can affect national integration.
Furthermore, this research can be developed in the
future at the policy level, first, so that the government
incorporates digital literacy education as a curriculum
at the primary and secondary education level;
secondly, for the government to make regulation for
social media provider at the international level so that
there is a common understanding on the prevention of
social media as a medium for spreading hoax.
Based on Livingstone Model the digital literacy
level moves from the most basic level to the
highest level. This reseserch shows that the
minimal level of hoax production is in the accessing
information sources to the production on content
(content creation). For the reason, one of
research recommendation is to provide curriculum
and regulation so the awareness of information
access leads to good social media behavior. While
regulations and law enforcement can be used to
regulate access and content production.
REFERENCES
Astrini, A. (2017). Hoax dan banalitas kejahatan.
Transformasi Jurnal, 2(32):76–77.
Aufderheide, P. (1992). Media Literacy. A Report of the
National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy.
Aspen Institute, Washington DC.
Barr, T. (2000). Newmedia[dot]Com. Allen & Unwin,
Sidney.
Beers, D. (2006). The public sphere and online,
independent journalism. Canadian Journal of
Education/Revue canadienne de l’
´
education, pages
109–130.
Boyd, D. M. and Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of
computer-mediated Communication, 13(1):210–230.
Bulger, M. and Davidson, P. (Accessed 28 mar 2018).
datasociety[dot]net. [Online]. Available at:
datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety Media
Literacy 2018.pdf.
Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
CCSU (2016). webcapp.ccsu.edu [online]. Available at:
webcapp.ccsu.edu/?news=1767&data [Accessed : 12
jun 2019].
Hoax as a Reflection on the Low Digital Literacy in Indonesia
173

Databooks (2019). Katadata.co.id [Online]. Available at:
databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2019/02/08/
berapa-pengguna-media-sosial-indonesia [Accessed
26 March 2019].
Dijk, J. A. G. M. V. (2006). The Network Society : Social
Aspects of New Media. London: Sage.
Flew, T. (2000). New Media : An Introduction. Melbourne:
Oxford University Press.
Hobbs, R. and Jensen, A. (2009). The past, present, and
future of media literacy education. Journal of media
literacy education, 1(1):1.
Information, E.-W. (n.d). English-Word
Information. [Online]. Available at:
wordinfo.info/unit/3408/s:hoax [Accessed 26 mar
2019].
Kominfo (2013a). Kominfo [Online]. Available at:
kominfo.go.id/index.php/content/detail/3415/Kominfo
+%3A+Pengguna+Internet+di+Indonesia+63+Juta
+Orang/0/berita
satker [Accessed 26 mar 2019].
Kominfo (2013b). Kominfo [Online]. Available at:
kominfo.go.id/content/detail/13943/siaran-pers-no-181
hmkominfo082018-tentang-literasi-digital-siapkan-sdm
-unggul-dan-cerdas-di-era-revolusi-industri-40/0/siaran
pers [Accessed 26 mar 2019].
Kurnia, N. and Astuti, S. I. (2017). Peta gerakan literasi
digital di indonesia: Studi tentang pelaku, ragam
kegiatan, kelompok sasaran dan mitra yang dilakukan
oleh japelidi. INFORMASI, 47(2):149–166.
Livingstone, S. (2019). What is media literacy. Intermedia,
pages 18–20.
Martin, A. (2006). Literacies for the digital age.
Mastel (2017). Mastel [Online]. Available at:
mastel.id/hasil-survey-wabah-hoax-nasional-2017/
[Accessed 17 jun 2019].
Potter, J. W. (2005). Media Literacy (3
t h
Ed). London: Sage
Publications.
Shekaliu, S., Mustafa, S. E., Adnanˆ, H. M., and
Guajardo, J. (2018). The use and effectiveness of
facebook in small-scale volunteer organisation for
refugee children’s education in malaysia. SEARCH,
10(1):53–78.
Wood, A. F. and Matthew, S. J. (2005). Online
Communication Linking Technology, Identity and
Culture (2
nd
Ed). Routledge, New Jersey.
Yuliani, A. (2017). Kominfo [Online]. Available at:
kominfo.go.id/content/detail/12008/ada-800000-situs
-penyebar-hoax-di-indonesia/0/sorotan media
[Accessed 1 june 2019].
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
174