Socio-Political News From and For the Young Generation
How What Is Up Indonesia Sets as an Indicator for Instagram as News Source
What Is Up Indonesia or WIUI is an Instagram account run by Indonesian’s young generation providing local socio-political news in English. Founded in 2019 by (then 19-year-old) Faye Simanjuntak and (then 26-year-old) Abigail Limuria, they saw a gap between uninformed youth and local political occurrences — despite being well-aware of Western political news, such as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations (What Is Up, Indonesia? (WIUI), 2021).
Fundamentally, WIUI produces digestible socio-political news through independent research, packaged with pop culture references and memes. As it seems, the objective of WIUI is simple: to be a facilitator for Indonesian socio-political news to the ‘untouched’ market, primarily, English-speaking Indonesians.
WIUI came into my radar as many of my friends within my Instagram circle tend to share and re-share posts on their Instagram story feed. Prior to following the account, the name became familiar with an Instagram aesthetic that is distinctive to their voice and tone in conveying content. In the past two years, WIUI has also been growing with a strong following on Instagram as well as extended its tight group of community on Discord.
Despite claiming to not be a news source, why is WIUI a popular site for Indonesian young audiences?
Hendrickx’s notion of ‘social journalism’ closely defines WIUI as the news on social media channels being produced for the user’s consumption (2021, p. 2). This positions WIUI as a gateway of information where, ‘[Audiences] tell stories from the spaces and places of their everyday lives, and tell them in ways that further infuse these spaces with meaning’ (Papacharissi, 2015, p. 28).
As social media users favour ‘“lighter” or less-demanding modes of interaction with online news content’ (Larsson, 2018, p. 2225), WIUI produces digestible socio-political news through independent research, packaged with pop culture references and memes while still emphasising they are not a news source and encourage its audience to verify their content sources.
In their second anniversary post, the WIUI team conducted a survey and the results showcased positive feedback from their audience. Many claim that the site has been helpful for them, from aiding them to understand the current socio-political events to have WIUI as a safe space for Indonesians who are more comfortable with the English language.
Echoing the sentiments of their followers, what is interesting with WIUI is that they very much stress that they are not a news source and encouraged their users to always check for their original sources. Here, I find that they are merely not facilitators of news, but also an indicator of a news source for their readers to practise critical thinking.
Not only does WIUI emphasise its audience to practise critical thinking, but it also extends a criticism of how journalism in mainstream news outlets lacks its practice of critical thinking in its news production and news consumption. It is apparent with a case like WIUI that its necessity and relevancy lead the outlet to sprout, strive, and find an audience among Indonesian young audiences.
It is worth analysing the development of accounts alike to WIUI just over the last two years, with the COVID-19 pandemic being a catalyst to its followers’ growth as well as the embrace of its community. As the younger generations are already well-engaged in digital media, WIUI’s objective further asserts their own responsibility as well as extends the Indonesian young audience’s responsibility in becoming more aware of the events happening in Indonesia.
Essentially, both sides producer and consumer are playing a part in this engagement. By filling a gap, WIUI brings a meaningful connection through Instagram to their audience in playing a role in their everyday lives as well as towards the larger society.
In 2022, co-founder Faye Simanjuntak decided to leave the WIUI team to prioritise her primary work at the non-profit organisation Rumah Faye. Moreover, WIUI collaborated episodes with Bongkar Indonesia, an Instagram site by Andovi Da Lopez in the Narasi platform, a start-up media outlet founded by one of Indonesia’s prominent national journalists, Najwa Shihab.
With Narasi taking on board the WIUI audience as well, the collaboration seemingly speaks louder than just combining its audiences from both platforms. It seems that both outlets are forming an alliance towards criticising the bigger news media landscape in Indonesia—while being represented by the faces of young Indonesians that are Abigail Limuria and Andovi Da Lopez themselves.
How Instagram Plays a Role in Being A News Source
In my research on Narasi Newsroom, the account presents itself as one of the leading news outlets on Instagram and has been positioning itself not only as a news producer that preserves journalistic values, but also highlights that exercising critical thinking in producing and consuming news content shapes the audience’s trust to the news outlet and the quality of news.
As a result, the news outlet shapes how we perceive Instagram as a channel to consume news and its relevant sources.
In my own endeavour of asking my circle on Instagram whether they view WIUI as a news source, the majority admit that they don’t see the account as one. Nevertheless, like the findings in my research on Narasi Newsroom, the news outlet on Instagram acts as a gateway to navigating news and be informed of the latest updates. To this extent, WIUI acts as an indicator of how practising critical thinking is essential in consuming information on Instagram.
Simply put, the narratives that WIUI offer that is supposedly spoon-feeding their audience, allow an understanding that they could relate to. WIUI helps make sense of the socio-cultural events in a language, not only limited to English but also through its memes and pop cultural references, which the young audience on Instagram could digest well (perhaps pun intended).
References:
Hendrickx, J. (2021). The Rise of Social Journalism: An Explorative Case Study of a Youth-oriented Instagram News Account. Journalism Practice, 1–16.
Larsson, A. O. (2018). The News User on Social Media: A Comparative Study of Interacting with Media Organizations on Facebook and Instagram. Journalism Studies, 19(15), 2225–2242.
Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Toward New Journalism(s): Affective news, hybridity, and liminal spaces. Journalism Studies (London, England), 16(1), 27–40.
What Is Up, Indonesia? (WIUI). (2021, June 6). Why we made “What Is Up, Indonesia?” (WIUI) ft. Abigail Limuria & Faye Simanjuntak. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/uq3NP5Asx5c
