Sora Park, Caroline Fisher and Lilik Mardjianto (University of Canberra) – Indonesians are increasingly losing trust in the news with more than 60 percent reporting they do not trust or feel ambivalent to the news they read or watch. Further, social media use continues to grow while there has been a rapid move away from television, print and online sources.
Those are among the key findings from the annual global Reuters Institute Digital News Report survey conducted in 48 countries and analysed by the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.
The 2025 survey confirms Indonesians as heavy social media users with a growing appetite for news on the short video platform, TikTok. While news consumption across all news platforms is declining, social media remains the most popular with 57 percent of Indonesians using it as a general source of news and 40 percent are relying on it as their main source of news.
The figure is even higher for consumers aged 18-24 with half of this cohort saying social media platforms are their primary gateway to news.
In a country with extremely high smart phone use, there is strong competition among the social platforms for the attention of Indonesian news consumers. After five years at the top, the popularity of the closed messaging app WhatsApp has fallen 17 percentage points to 43 percent, closely rivalled by YouTube (41 percent, -5pp) and Facebook (39 percent, -3pp). Hot on their heels is the viral video platform TikTok which has surged in popularity from 11 percent in 2021 to 34 percent in 2025.
The strong use of social media and gradual decline in trust reflects a loss of interest in news and high levels of news avoidance. Three quarters (75 percent) of Indonesian news consumers say they sometimes, occasionally or often avoid the mainstream news. This is higher than the global average of 42 countries in the survey (71 percent) and in neighbouring Australia where 69 percent say they avoid the news.
Indonesians avoid the news for a range of reasons primarily because it can lead to arguments and feel there is too much coverage of politics. Around a quarter say they avoid the news because there is too much coverage of war and conflict, it has a negative impact on their mood, and they feel worn out by the sheer volume of it.
Faced with this problem, Indonesians seek new ways to tailor their news. Almost 30 percent surveyed said they would be interested in AI generating news summaries of articles and translating stories into their own native language.
This use of AI to translate stories isn't surprising given that Statistics Indonesia reports there are 746 local languages. Of those, there are 169 local languages which are almost extinct with fewer than 500 speakers each. Despite this, hundreds of local languages are still actively used in daily life by hundreds of ethnic groups across Indonesia.
Indonesians are also rapidly turning to AI chatbots as sources of news. Nine percent of those surveyed said they used AI as a source of news in the past week. This figure possibly reflects the growth in generative AI news sources in recent times.
The Indonesian media industry is also suffering further loss of advertising revenue to news outlets following budget cuts by the federal government, according to the Reuters report. That in turn has led to editorial cost cutting and the wide adoption of AI by journalists to assist them with research, transcription and headlines.
There has also been a rise in AI-led news outlets. For instance, broadcaster TVOne launched TVOneAI which has AI-generated reporters presenting the news across its social media channels. Other outlets, like Liputan6 are using AI for sports, fact-checking, and global news.
The presence of AI in the news industry has attracted the attention of Indonesian journalists working in online news outlets. Aliansi Jurnalis Independen Indonesia notes an increase in the use of AI for several aspects of news production including, but not limited to, data collection, data selection, data analysis, trend analysis, audience analysis, news editing, news framework preparation, content personalisation, and news dissemination. As many as 13 online media members of AMSI (Association of Indonesian Cyber Media) are using AI for one or more stages of news production.
While these developments raise concerns within parts of the news industry about job losses, the Indonesian public appears to be relatively comfortable with the rise of AI generated news. Thirty eight percent of people surveyed said they were very or somewhat comfortable with news being primarily produced by AI with a bit of human oversight and a further 40 percent said they were neither comfortable nor uncomfortable with the development, reflecting a general acceptance of the innovation.
How can mainstream news organisations re-engage audiences who are losing faith in news?
While much of the 2025 survey data reflects an ongoing decline in mainstream news consumption, it also points to possible growth through innovation and remedies to these downward trends.
In this year's survey we asked if respondents had received any type of education or training formal or informal about how to use the news. News literacy refers to the skills that help audiences have control over their relationship with news alongside knowing how news is produced and distributed. News literacy education aims to develop a critical understanding of news, and how to analyse and assess the quality of sources.
Only around one third of Indonesians surveyed said they had received some kind of news literacy education. This was highest among 18 to 24 year olds (48 percent) and lowest among people 55-64 years of age (27 percent). Like in many other countries in the global survey, there is plenty of opportunity for governments and the news industry to boost news literacy education across the wider community.
And it makes good economic sense to do so. The data clearly demonstrate that Indonesians who have received some level of news literacy education are more interested in news, have higher trust in it and are much more likely to pay for it.
They are also much more likely to verify information they consider to be untrustworthy by going to official sources, fact checking websites and Wikipedia. And as the use of generative AI progresses in all areas of life, it is becoming increasingly urgent for governments to ensure that citizens can use the technology, identify and verify AI content; and for news organisations to be transparent about their use of Gen AI as they find ways to tackle the downturn in trust.
The News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC) at the University of Canberra produces the Digital News Report: Australia which is part of a global annual survey of digital news consumption in 48 countries, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The survey was conducted by YouGov at the end of January/beginning of February 2025.
[Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info.]