Media Effects on Voter Turnout & Vote Direction in Indonesia's 2019 Legislative Election
Since the 1998 Reformasi, Indonesia's media landscape has undergone a radical transformation. The repeal of restrictive laws birthed an ecosystem of 1,362 press companies across print, broadcast, and cyber/digital media.
Today, traditional TV and radio coexist with a massive surge in internet users. As media becomes the "fourth pillar" of Indonesian democracy, it serves as the primary bridge between political parties and the public.
But in an era of information saturation, we must ask: Does increased media access lead to higher democratic participation, or simply more noise?
Academic studies of Indonesian voters typically rely on three pillars:
However, external factors — specifically Media Effects — are often relegated to the sidelines. This research integrates media consumption into these traditional models, using aggregate data from all 34 Provinces to see the "big picture" of the 2019 legislative race.
To uncover these hidden relationships, we utilized SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Modeling Partial Least Square). This technique allowed us to test and estimate complex relationships between multiple variables simultaneously.
We executed 32 distinct test models, analyzing how provincial trends in media consumption (TV, Radio, Newspaper, Internet, and Google Search) correlated with the performance of major parties like PDIP, Gerindra, and PKB.
By using aggregate data from BPS and KPU, we move from "what people say" to "what the numbers show" across the entire archipelago.
In the digital age, we expect the Internet to be the primary driver of participation. However, our data suggests otherwise.
The effect of the Internet on Voter Turnout was found to be weak. Instead, Radio emerged as a significant positive predictor. In provinces where more citizens listened to the radio, participation in the 2019 election was consistently higher.
This suggests that radio remains a potent, perhaps overlooked, tool for civic mobilization in Indonesia's more remote or traditional regions.
Media effects are not a "blanket" influence; they are highly fragmented across different political parties:
This confirms that different media platforms serve as "triggers" for different segments of the electorate. The "echo chamber" in Indonesia isn't one big room — it's a series of smaller, media-specific corridors.
Media alone is rarely the decider. However, when we look at the Combined Model — merging Media with Sociology (Religion/Ethnicity) and Economics (Poverty) — the predictive power skyrockets.
For PDIP, the combined model explained a staggering 83.9% of the variance in provincial vote direction. This proves that media acts as a "multiplier" for existing social and economic conditions.
It doesn't replace the voter's identity; it reinforces it.
Our findings show that media effects in 2019 were fragmented and often weak at a provincial level. This suggests that the "battle for the voter" happens at a much more local scale.
To improve future research and democratic transparency, we recommend: