Muhammad Beni Saputra – In a speech delivered to students at Universitas Pakuan in Bogor in June of this year, West Java Governor and digital populist Dedi Mulyadi (famously known as Kang Dedi or KDM) stated that leaders did not need the media to channel their voices – social media could do it for free.
KDM's statement reflected his actions in practice. In April, just a month after assuming office, he drastically cut his office's media budget from IDR 50 billion to just IDR 3 billion. KDM publicly expressed pride in this decision to other local leaders, framing it as an effort to save government funds.
KDM's move will significantly reduce the number of paid so-called 'news partnerships' between local governments and local media in Indonesia. These have long served as the last lifeline for struggling regional media outlets in Indonesia, despite the serious ethical issues they raise.
KDM's remarks sparked protests from several local media outlets in West Java, which regard him as 'belittling the professional media'. Nevertheless, he remained steadfast in his position and has become a rising star in Indonesia's political arena.
The twilight of local media?
KDM's firm reluctance to prioritise the local legacy media in his PR spending, along with his rapid rise in Indonesian politics, tells a broader story about the media power of local politicians who no longer rely on mainstream outlets.
Politicians like him now have greater independence in crafting their own 'news' and shaping their public image. This poses a serious challenge to the future of local media businesses, which have long struggled to retain audiences and secure advertising in the digital age.
In fact, the local media in Indonesia are in major decline.
After the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998, the local media were quickly co-opted by local politicians. This intensified with the introduction of decentralisation, when local media became the main platform for local politicians seeking to win elections and sustain political influence. In fact, local media flourished in the first decade after the end of the New Order, with an unprecedented 1,000 or more outlets.
Local media's co-optation by local politicians made the former financially dependent on the latter. This was clearly seen in newspapers' sources of income in 2010, when the political sector became the top advertiser. This led local governments to offer partnership deals with local media, with the latter basically paid to write public service announcements – or even partisan political stories – as news articles. This scheme is, to a certain extent, similar to the concept of 'native advertising' offered by established media outlets.
But now digitalisation has changed everything. For local politicians, the opportunity to masuk koran (appear in newspapers) or masuk TV (appear on television) is no longer a big deal. Social mediaprovide local politicians with free access to reach a wider public, and greater independence to shape their own messages. This makes working with local media, which is a relatively expensive business, obsolete for many local politicians.
This shift is further reinforced by changes in news consumption habits, with audiences increasingly preferring social media over legacy news outlets. At the same time, many newspapers and local television stations have either ceased operations or are struggling due to digitalisation.
This has further convinced local politicians that mainstream local media have lost their once considerable influence. Many of them now only offer them "take-it-or-leave-it" partnership schemes, providing small amounts of money that local media must compete for, rather than the previously lucrative direct offers.
KDM has even insisted that the media should be satisfied with access to information as the incentive, rather than having paid cooperation agreements. While paid partnerships obviously raise serious questions about journalistic integrity, ending them could be the final nail in the local media coffin.
Digital populists vs. traditional media
Local politicians capitalising on social media for political gain, as KDM is doing is, of course, not a new phenomenon.
Many other politicians have leveraged it to support their political careers – Jokowi, Ahok, and Ridwan Kamil are good examples. But, unlike KDM, they all remained reliant on mainstream media for much of their political success. They also did not exhibit hostility toward mainstream media; in fact, they were considered media darlings, reflecting their strong relationships with mainstream outlets.
What is new is that KDM's stance of simply saying 'no' to legacy media has had little impact on his political career – and that clearly demonstrates the immense power social media has won him.
KDM's conflicts with some of West Java's outlets did not escalate into political catastrophes that could have endangered his career. This is true even for some of his most controversial policies, such as sending "naughty" children to military barracks, and requiring vasectomies for social-welfare recipients.
While these policies received criticism from some mainstream media outlets, their narratives never gained enough traction to trigger mass protests. Quite the opposite, KDM's popularity kept rising. In his first 100 days in office, his performance rating reached 94.7%, the highest of all local leaders in Java, according to a poll by the Indonesian Political Indicators Survey Institute.
The same survey also found that West Java residents responded positively to the military barracks program for children. In other words, KDM successfully navigated the challenges posed by mainstream media coverage of the program, while simultaneously shaping positive public perceptions through his social media accounts.
Moreover, his profile continues to grow. He is now the second-most prominent potential candidate for the 2029 presidential election, ranking just behind the current president, Prabowo Subianto. All this has been possible because KDM can connect with the masses through social media accounts that have millions of followers and high engagement.
The last lifeline for local media
Now that local politicians like KDM are reducing their reliance on the mainstream media, legacy local media's future existence looks increasingly bleak. There are two reasons for this. First, they cannot rely on digital advertising, as the market is dominated by international technology companies such as Google and Meta, which account for approximately 70% of the sector.
The second reason is the shift in news consumption. As previously explained, news is now primarily consumed through social media. This has paved the way for the rise of pseudo-media accounts and influencers, who are now becoming 'news platforms'. Their lifeline is endorsements, be it from politicians or local businesses. Their rise has further eroded the revenues of local media from conventional sources, as funds that once went to them now flow en masse to the new players.
With both digital and conventional revenue sources shrinking, more and more local outlets are, at times quite desperately, demonstrating their commitment to strengthen patronage with local politicians in the hope of securing paid (if ethically problematic) kerjasama (cooperation) deals.
For many of local media businesses, the patronage pathway is now the only hope for a stable income stream, although the amounts are far lower than they once were.
Yet, given the attitudes exhibited by local politicians like KDM – and the shift in news consumption – this last frontier is unlikely to last much longer. And when the money finally runs out, many local outlets will simply be forced to shut up shop.