Covering Elections in Indonesia: The Task at Hand
What kind of interactive tools are needed to promote and facilitate civic engagement? How can political discussions be encouraged between different age groups? These were some of the questions to be answered by the journalism prototypes created at the Jakarta Editors Lab, in March 2018.
‘As the third largest democracy in the world, Indonesia is known to host the world biggest one-day election.’ The scale and difficulties tied to elections in Indonesia are well summarised by Titi Anggraini, executive director at Perludem Association for Election and Democracy.
In this context, helping the general public navigate through the numerous issues (misinformation, political apathy, media partisanship) is key to maintaining a healthy democracy in the country.
- How can innovative and more effective ways to collect, visualise, and present accurate data to audiences be developed?
- What kind of interactive tools are needed to promote and facilitate civic engagement? How can political discussions be encouraged between different age groups? Anggraini added:
If there is an instrument that allows voters to connect with candidates and political parties without having to doubt the accuracy of the information, it will address many of the needs and constraints faced by Indonesian voters today.’
- And finally, how can we fight against misinformation at a critical time such as elections?
To answer these questions, some of the best Indonesian media newsrooms were gathered to think of tools and services to improve this election coverage.
That was the purpose of the Jakarta Editors Lab, organised by The Global Editors Network in collaboration with Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (The Alliance of Independent Journalists), supported by Google News Lab and the host venue, University of Multimedia Nusantara (UMN).
Every Editors Lab team consisted of a journalist, a developer, and a designer. The thirteen participating teams were from: Kompas, Tempo, Katadata, CNN Indonesia, Liputan6, Jawa Pos’ Radar Bojonegoro, UMN, The Jakarta Post, IDN Times, Beritagar, ZonaUtara, Suara, and KabarMakassar.
On the third and last day of the hacktahon, each prototype was presented in front of a jury of experts composed of Irene Jay Liu from Google News Lab, Kuek Ser Kuang Keng from PRI and Data-N, Sarah Toporoff from the Global Editors Network, Titi Anggraini from Perludem (Association for Election and Democracy), and Stanley Adi Prasetyo from Indonesian Press Council.
The Prototypes
1. Fact checking and fighting misinformation
Some teams chose to focus on fighting the misinformation that tends to spread around elections, by providing fact checks and educating their readership on spotting lies and hoaxes.
- Katadata Team prototyped Ayo Peka, or ‘Let’s Be Aware.’ The team noted that during political debates, candidates use vague or euphemistic language that can easily be misunderstood or interpreted in a variety of ways. That is why they prototyped Ayo Peka, a web app that analyses and explains the language used during political debates and makes it understandable to a wide audience.
- The Jakarta Post created Fact or Fake, a quiz that challenges users to look critically at stories and distinguish hoaxes from real news. They plan to use the data from the results of the quiz to report on media literacy trends among their readers.
- The Kompas.com team created Say No to Hoax, which tackles mis- and disinformation about candidates. The quiz challenges users to look critically at viral social posts about candidates in their local election and decide whether they’re real or fake.
2. Learning about your candidates
Regional elections in Indonesia are complex affairs. In June 2018, according to East Asia Forum, 171 regional areas will simultaneously take to the polls to elect new mayors, regents, and governors. Voters, especially young or first-time voters, can easily feel overwhelmed by the task of choosing a party or candidate. The result is low voter turnout. Several teams wanted to make this process more accessible to voters.
- The team from CNN Indonesia created The Candidates, a mobile app that voters can use to compare candidates based on their political track records and the history of public sentiment around their previous positions held.
- Beritagar created Fact Check Quiz. Much of the misinformation spread around candidates is based on basic information about them, such as their name, religion, the political parties they support, their political background, wealth, previous job, voting number, etc. Politicians register this basic information when they announce their candidacy and Beritagar wanted to make these registrations more visible. The data comes from the Election Commission and the Corruption Eradication Commission and uses accessible language and graphics to create factsheets.
- The team from UMN also decided to look at the candidates track records with Kenal Calon or ‘Know the Candidate’. They present each political candidate in an entertaining way to appeal to young voters. The site simplifies the information in the form of memes, so electors can get to know their prospective leaders in a fun way.
- Tempo created Leader Match. Users are presented with a series of political issues and must swipe right or left depending on their stance. The user is then presented with the candidates that are the closest aligned with their views.
- Suara created Jleb, a web app that lets voters choose which programmes they like, and compare candidates side-by-side.
- Liputan6 prototyped Trivia Pemilu, or ‘Election Trivia’, a game aimed at raising awareness of election systems for millennials. The game provides infographics on facts regarding elections — rules, regulations, and the processes involved.
3. Community engagement
Others decided to focus on voter disillusionment. Political coverage tends to overemphasise on candidates and focus less on issues. These teams want to listen to the communities they serve, understand their needs, and ensure accountability on these issues from the parties and candidates.
- The team from IDN Times made Z-lection, a feature for their site, where audience can submit questions about political issues or candidates via their social accounts. Inspired by Quora, IDN Times journalists will then answer the most upvoted questions in various fun formats such as infographics, videos, etc.
- Team ZonaUtara presented Mata Desa, ‘The Village’s Eye’, an app targeting villagers around Manado, Sulawesi. It will track the issues that are most important to communities and the party’s historical accountability on their promises around these issues.
- Kabar Makassar created Bertanyaki, meaning ‘Please Ask’ in the local dialect. It is a platform for readers to share their wishes for the upcoming election. Their responses will then be distributed to the winning candidates so that some of their hopes can be put into action.
- Jawa Pos Radar Bojonegoro made the prototype Ayo ke TPS, ‘Let’s Go Vote’. The project includes a newspaper column featuring attractive infographics targeting young voters in rural Central Javanese town of Bojonegoro. The column will have a barcode that, when scanned, reveals cartoons and comics about the election to encourage citizens to go vote.
The Winner
The prototype ‘Leader Match’ by Tempo — a Tinder of sorts for political affinities — was voted best by the jury.
Sadika Hamid, Tempo team’s journalist, explains what the idea was and how the tool can be used:
‘Maybe for each of us it was different, but for me the toughest part was in narrowing down the ideas. We had so many ideas. It was difficult to pick one that is simple enough to actually work. We went through a lot of stages, a lot of editing. Riky our developer was the one with the initial idea of how to help voters get to know their candidates. I came up with the idea of a swiping interface. During brainstorming, one of us said ‘Oh this is kind of like matchmaking’. Hence ‘Leader Match’.
Now we are confident that the implementation of this app will go well. I think the template can work great not only for matchmaking, or finding the right candidate, but it can also be used for many other applications.’
Jury member Titi Anggraini commented on the event:
‘A competition like this is very useful especially if it can be implemented to support the elections in Indonesia. Not only will this help voters to better recognise political parties as well as the candidates, but it will also trigger the voters’ critical reasoning in studying the vision and mission of programmes from the political parties and their candidates. It will also help to prevent hoaxes or false news from spreading. The results from this competition will undoubtedly be able to facilitate the nation’s political education since it is created by newsrooms and media journalists who are credible.
My hope is that the products of Jakarta Editors Lab 2018 can be implemented as an instrument to be used during the local elections in 2018 and presidential election in 2019. The prototypes made by the journalists involved here are all very interesting and full of innovative content. I think this answers the voters’ need for instruments that can bridge them with candidates as well as with the political parties.
The team from Tempo will participate in the Editors Lab Final, which will take place at the GEN Summit 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, on 30 May to 1 June 2018.
— Putri Minangsari contributed to this article
