Digital media users in Indonesia are still trapped as consumers of content and information circulating in cyberspace. Nonetheless, the ability to use digital media critically has begun to appear to be forming at various levels of society.
This finding results from national research conducted by the Digital Literacy Activists Network (Japelidi) in 2019. The study conducted in 18 cities and involved a total of 2,280 respondents aims to map the digital literacy competencies of Internet users in Indonesia.
Japelidi National Research Coordinator, Ni Made Ras Amanda, said this research was an effort to map the extent of Indonesian people’s competence in digital media. This mapping, according to him, is essential because currently, Internet penetration in Indonesia is increasing, and digital devices are no longer a strange thing to society.
“The ability to use digital devices should be followed by good information management skills. This research aims to map which skills the digital media user community has mastered and which competencies need to be further improved,” he said on Tuesday (8/9).
In this research, the Japelidi team divided ten digital literacy competencies into four categories: skills to consume information functionally, skills to consume critically, functional processing skills (production), and critical processing skills. Based on the data obtained, the highest score is in functional consumption skills. It means that most of the new society uses digital media only to find information. Meanwhile, the lowest score was on production skills which involved critical thinking skills.
“Even though it is low, our findings show that there are some people who can think critically both when consuming information and producing information. The interesting thing is that even though critical skills tend to be found in respondents with a higher level of education, there are some respondents with a lower level of education who also have good critical competence,” said the Lecturer of Communication Sciences at Udayana State University Denpasar.
Meanwhile, based on the age level, users over 55 years of age have a lower literacy level than younger ages, and users aged 21-36 have the highest literacy competence. In terms of occupation groups, retirees and housewives have lower literacy levels. Another finding worth noting, according to Manda is that there is no difference in digital literacy levels between male and female respondents. “Apart from that, based on the monthly expenditure, the digital literacy level is also not different,” he added.
Manda said this research shows that ultimately, all levels of society are responsible for improving digital literacy competencies. He also hopes that people will be better able to use social media to channel creativity, participation, and collaboration so that they act as consumers and message producers.
Japelidi, which is the organizer of this research, is a digital literacy activist community consisting of 167 academics from 82 universities in 32 cities in Indonesia, including UGM. In this Indonesian Society Digital Literacy Mapping Research, as many as 86 researchers from 50 universities in Indonesia took part. The research was carried out in 18 cities throughout Indonesia.
Japelidi Coordinator, Novi Kurnia, added that digital literacy competency mapping research is the second research conducted by Japelidi to determine competencies that deserve attention for future program development. Meanwhile, Japelidi’s first research was carried out in 2017 to map the digital literacy movement in terms of actors, target groups, programs, and partners who became the basis for Japelidi’s collaboration with other stakeholders.
“We deliberately launch the results of this research to coincide with World Literacy Day. Apart from literacy, we feel that digital literacy is something that needs to be highlighted so that the Indonesian people will mature in media, primarily through digital media and the internet,” said the UGM lecturer in Communication.
Source: https://ugm.ac.id/id/berita/20024-kompetensi-literasi-digital-masyarakat-indonesia-mulai-berkembang
