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Short abstract:

Can studying Indonesia - the world’s fourth most populous nation and third largest democracy - help us develop an infodemic ‘vaccine’? Research comes from fieldwork during the 2024 elections, including on how digital media campaigners shaped election-related discourse.

Long abstract:

The World Health Organisation defines an ‘infodemic’ via the concept of communicative abundance, or “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments”. This paper will examine to what extent the term ‘infodemic’ is useful in the context of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation and third largest democracy. Indonesia has an over- abundance of online pseudo-news sites, social media commentaries, paid influencers and buzzers, and much more. Meanwhile, independent media companies are laying off professional journalists. Has Indonesia seen serious disinformation affecting its 2024 presidential elections? Or is Indonesia’s kaleidoscopic digital public sphere countering such trends? These questions are important because digitally-driven disinformation and populism is growing, impacting the quality and health of large democracies such as the US, the Philippines, India and Brazil. Indonesia has been a largely stable democracy for over 25 years. Its independent media and freedom of expression on social media has been a key part of this largely vibrant democracy. However in recent times Indonesia’s democracy is declining, with some analysts describing the country as moving towards ‘digital authoritarianism. This paper ultimately asks: if ‘infodemiology’ is ‘the study of information and how to manage it’, studying Indonesia might lead us to develop an infodemic ‘vaccine’.