Newsletter — November 2014

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS ON INDONESIAN PUBLIC CONCERNS

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Dear Valued Clients,

As a data-driven strategic consulting company,

Provetic have always strived to practice our

belief in turning data into valuable insights and

help our clients to navigate the dynamic realm

of Indonesian society. Coming into our second

year of practice, we continue to search for better

ways to utilize data and bring forward insightful

information about the Indonesian people.

Today, we would like to introduce our freshly

published monthly Newsletter. With this

Newsletter, we hope to deliver data analysis and

some insights about several topics that maybe

of interest to our clients. This month, we are

starting with the discussion about Indonesian

Public Concerns.

We believe that by understanding what

Indonesian people are most concerned about,

this information will help government and

policy makers as well as businesses and

organizations to address those issues and

provide solutions that will benefit the whole

society.

We hope you will enjoy reading through this

issue and we look forward to deliver you more

insights in the months to come.

Best Regards,

Iwan Setyawan, CEO

WORDS FROM THE CEO

EDITORIAL TEAM Board of Advisors

Iwan Setyawan, Roby Muhamad,

Shafiq Pontoh, Budhi Sumarso

Managing Editor

Smita Sjahputri

Smita.Sjahputri@provetic.com

Jl. Kerinci 1 no. 2, Kebayoran Baru

Jakarta Selatan 12120

T: +6221 72799613

F: +6221 72799613

www.provetic.com

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The year 2014 has been very important for

Indonesia as a nation. As Susilo Bambang

Yudhoyono ends his presidential term this year,

Indonesians are gearing up to welcome a new

era under the leadership of newly elected

President Joko Widodo.

Social media, especially Twitter, has been

playing a major role as medium for information

exchange, as well as a public opinion platform

during the crucial political campaign period. The

growing importance of the social media as well

as Indonesian's attachment to it is reflected in

the whopping amount of more than one hundred

and sixty million tweets being posted regarding

the legislative and presidential elections up until

this day. Twitter and Facebook were even

dubbed as the new battlefield of political

campaigns and communications.

With internet users in Indonesia predicted to

reach 139 million users in 2015*, Indonesia is

listed as one of the top five countries in the

world with the most number of Twitter users.

It's only natural that businesses and

organization as well as political figures and

government officials want to tap into this ever-

growing communications channel.

Social media is not limited in its uses and

purposes. As the new frontier of two-way

communication medium, social media not only

gives access for information providers to reach

their intended audience, but also as a means to

gain feedback directly from the people.

Moreover, as the world goes digital at an

increasingly rapid speed, it appears that more

Indonesians are also doing the same thing.

In the case of Twitter, not only does it provide a

quick and direct access to reach the public, its

data can also provide us with insightful

information about individual and collective

social behaviors, feelings, and opinions about

various issues, in real-time.

We have seen how much Twitter data was able

to give valuable information on voters’ behavior

during the legislative and presidential campaign

periods. In previous analyses, Provetic

discovered that popularity on Twitter correlates

highly with election result in the last governor

elections in West Java, East Java, and Jakarta.

But with the election coming to its end,

especially in the light of welcoming the new era

under a new presidential leadership, let's look

into another topic that we believe is useful both

for governance as well as business enterprises:

Public Concerns.

“READING” THE MIND OF INDONESIAN PEOPLE:

SOCIAL MEDIA CONVERSATION AND PUBLIC CONCERNS

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Issues regarding Public Welfare, such as fuel

prices, government subsidies, electricity

supply, and wages are topping the list of the

most discussed Public Concerns.

Other issues that are largely discussed

concerned more of the urban dweller

problem of Transportation issues, especially

traffic jams.

Attention also appears to be directed to

issues with large media coverage, such as

Corruption Cases by political figures.

Interestingly, issues that are more complex

and have relatively less direct consequences

like Education and Health Services issues, are

apparently being discussed less.

In short, people are responding to issues that

have direct consequences to the everyday

lives, incite more polarized opinions, as well

as the heavily covered by the media.

People mainly use Twitter as means to

express their worry, hopes, and frustrations

as well as to gain information regarding

specific issues. However, they also use it to

communicate their concerns to the country

leaders or the authorities.

This data can be used to understand the

priorities that people put on issues around

the lives of Indonesians.

The lack of discussion regarding certain

important issues such as Education and

Health Services might indicate the need for

further educating the public on the issues.

Furthermore, by closely following the

conversation about these issues, it can

provide insights about the opportunity to

measure the relative impact of interventions

and the dissemination of topics within issues

that can hold power and engage the people.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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The questions of “what is in

people’s mind?” or “what are the

main concerns of the public?”

have always been interesting to

ask and even more interesting to

answer. In the past two months,

Provetic has taken the liberty of

tracking and analyzing Twitter

conversations, amounting to a

collection of almost four

thousands of tweets, on issues

that we believe to be the main

concern of the Indonesian public.

Public welfare is at the top Breaking down the issues,

specific topics in the mind of

Indonesians

Chart I —

Summary of Issues

Share in Public

Concern

Conversation on

Twitter

As we dig deeper into the top

three issues of Public Welfare,

Corruption and Frauds, and

Transportation; we found one

specific topic that dominates the

respective issues at hand (see

Chart II). More than half of Public

Welfare conversation revolves

around the discussion of fuel

prices, especially on the

speculation and worry about the

price increase, government

subsidies on fuels, and stock issues

(i.e. shortage, distribution). As we

look into the accounts being

mentioned most within this

conversation, news media

accounts such as @detikcom,

@metro_tv, and @kompascom are

on the top of the most mentioned

users list. When people are not

responding to media coverage, it

seems that they are also using

Twitter to reach out to the country

leaders, with @sbyudhoyono and

@jokowi_do2 are among

Public welfare issues top the list

composing more than one third of

Twitter conversations. They

include fuel prices, government

subsidies, electricity supply, and

wages.

Coming in the second is the

discussion of corruption and

fraud cases which have been

covered widely by the media

lately. In the third and fourth

place, with almost the same

amount of weight, are the

Transportation issues such as

traffic jams and the Economic

Issues such as banking and

commodity prices.

Interestingly, conversations that

revolve around the specific issues

of Health Services and Education

only have very little shares in the

whole Public Concern data, which

may indicate that this might not

be of Indonesian public main

concern, they are not very

popular or do not seem to incite

polarizing opinions.

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the top most mentioned.

Conversation on on Corruption

Cases mainly scrutinize and

discuss current major cases being

handled by the Corruption

Eradication Committee (KPK),

especially regarding the

corruption case of Partai

Demokrat’s politician Anas

Urbaningrum, Former Minister

Jero Wacik, and Riau’s governor

Anaas Maamun. Other than

cheering for KPK’s successes in

capturing and bringing the

corruptors to justice, some people

also took it to Twitter to voice out

their hopes that under Joko

Looking at the time of

conversation peaks also indicates

that complaints about traffic jams

occur during the commuting hours

(7-8 AM and 5-6 PM).

It also appears that people using

Twitter to address this problem

directly to the public officials, by

tweeting their complaints and

reports directly to Jakarta’s Traffic

Police account @TMCPoldaMetro,

as well as using it to search for

information of traffic conditions

and alternative routes by tweeting

to accounts providing such

information such as

@radioelshinta and @lewatmana.

Widodo’s leadership, the

government officials could be fully

eradicated.

Within the conversation of

Transportation issues, it appears

that the main concern revolves

around the more urban problems

of traffic in big cities, with tweets

coming from people residing in

Jabodetabek and Banten

dominating the conversation. Top

words being circulated, such as

“Stuck” and “Macet”, reflected the

major complaints and the still

unresolved problem that most

frustrated commuters still have to

face everyday.

Chart II — Specific Topic Shares on the Top Topics of Public Concerns

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One of the surprising findings

within this data analysis is that

discussion about health services

and educational issues appear to

have very little share within the

conversation. Does it mean that

these two topics are not the main

concern of the Indonesian

people?

Health and Educational Issues:

Not on People’s Minds?

The underwhelming cumulative 4%

share of conversation for both

issues might indicate two things,

based on our best knowledge.

Either that the demographic of

Twitter users are skewed towards

the working class and urban

dwellers might come into play in

contributing to the low amount of

the conversation, or that these

issues are just not as popular as the

rest of the issues. Less media

coverage, more complex problems,

and requirement for more in-depth

discussion might also play their

parts in making these issues

become less discussed on Twitter.

As we look deeper into the

conversation of both issues, the

main concern that the Indonesian

people voiced out on Twitter are

mainly poor services and the

expensive prices for both

Educational and Health services.

Especially in the conversation

regarding Health Services, the poor

but costly services are the top main

complaints, while conversation

regarding government’s health

programs such Jaminan Kesehatan

Negara (i.e. BPJS, JKN) only takes

up very miniscule portion of

people's conversation, indicating

lower awareness of such

programs. Meanwhile in the

discussion of the Educational

issues, basic education topics

dominate over higher education,

indicating that most people seem

to be more concerned about

fundamental and elementary type

of education, perhaps as a

reflection of the still lower access

to higher education.

Other explanation is that the

nature of the issues which are of

long-term consequences instead of

a short-term ones, which might

contribute to people assessing it as

lesser priority.

Alternatively, the low composition

of Health and Educational issues

discussed over Twitter maybe

related to the phenomena of

negative information bias. People

are more psychologically engaged

over negative experiences than

positive ones, therefore tending to

converse about problematic issues

and those generate polarizing

opinions. The lack of

conversations of Health and

Educational issues may indicate

than things are “better” if not

comparatively neutral and

therefore people are less troubled

and conflicted over these services

than they are concerning issues

over Public Welfare, Corruption

Cases and Traffic. The lower

engagement also indicate that

these issues maybe

characteristically less polarizing,

suggesting that most Indonesians

may agree or hold a neutral stance

over most educational and health

issues. The lower engagement over

health programs may mean that

people do not feel them to be

problematic, even perhaps, are

successfully implemented.

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We believe that this data has

provided some important

insights into what are the main

concerns that Indonesian

people have. Expectedly, issues

that have always been popular

under the Public Welfare issues

on fuels prices, government

subsidy plans, and electricity

supply are also reflected in

people’s daily conversations on

Twitter. Apart from this, other

issues that also has direct and

recurring impact on people’s

lives such as Transportation

issues, mainly complaints about

traffic jams, also dominate the

discussion on Twittersphere.

But that does not mean that

people are not voicing concern

about larger and more pressing

issues such as Corruption cases

and Economic issues.

The weight and shares of the

specific issues within the whole

might indicate the priority and

conversation on Public Concern

level of importance that people

bring into the respective topics,

which can be used as a guideline

in what to address first by the

authority as well as by

businesses and organizations.

The less discussed issues, such

as Health and Educatonal

Services, are by no means of a

lesser importance, as it might be

due to lower level awareness

and less direct impact, or

alternately, indicate

comparatively less conflicting

state of these issues compared to

those that dominate Twitter

conversations. The nature of the

issues which consequences is

more of long-term impact

instead of short-term might

indicate how Indonesian still

have the knowledge gap

regarding issues that would

benefit them in a long-term.

Hence, we believe that this

provide an opportunity for

further educating the public on

the issues.

We believe that these insights

can provide opportunities to

measure the relative impact of

interventions over related

issues and the dissemination of

topics within issues that can

hold power and engage the

people.

Furthermore by looking at the

various ways that people use

Twitter in addressing their

main concerns, reports on their

thoughts and feelings can be

used to give feedback

authorities, as well as gathering

and responding to information

provided by media and other

sources; We believe that the

growing importance of utilizing

this social media channel should

be taken more seriously both by

the government as well by the

public sector.

KEY TAKEAWAYS AND

FURTHER IMPLICATIONS

© November 2014 — Provetic

Photo Credits:

Cover Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg

1. “Along The Canal (Indonesia)” by Ahron de Leeuw

2. “Macet” by Basibanget

3. “Rain, Gas Station and Dawn” by Riza Nugraha

4. “Curious Local” by Danumurthi Mahendra

All rights under Creative Commons Liscense