Concentrated, Corporate, and Camouflaged: The Nature of AI News Coverage in Indonesia

Asian Journal of Media and Communication E-ISSN: 2579-6119, P-ISSN: 2579-6100 Volume 8, Number 2, 2024 DOI: 10.20885/asjmc.vol8.iss2.art4 Concentrated, Corporate, and Camouflaged: The Nature of AI News Coverage in Indonesia Rio Tuasikal Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom Abstract. The adaptation of artificial technology in society requires a healthy public discourse. This necessitates nuanced and diverse views provided by mainstream media. However, there has not been empirical understanding of editorial practice towards AI in Indonesia, and whether news outlets have cited balanced voices. Drawing from a similar study in the United Kingdom, this paper seeks to identify the primary news sources and topics on the coverage of AI in Indonesian media outlets. This paper analysed 777 news articles from January to June 2024, published by five major news sites namely Liputan6.com, Detik.com, Kompas.com, tvonenews.com, and Tempo.co. This paper found that of 1025 news sources, people representing the business sector dominated the conversation (55.6%), far beyond government (16.39%) and academics (13%). We also found that of 777 published articles, more than half discussed the AI industry itself (58.9%), compared to AI impact on society and labour (23.5%), and misuse and regulation (16.2%). We conclude that these media outlets have failed to provide varied viewpoints for the public, paving avenues for asymmetrical business-led debate, and allowing promotional messaging to camouflage as journalism reports. Article History Submitted November 8, 2024 Accepted December 9, 2024 Published December 23, 2024 Keywords: Editorial mapping; news source; promotional journalism; Indonesian media; artificial intelligence. 1. Introduction News coverage is vital to public debates, as it facilitates monitoring, holding power to account, and maintaining deliberation (Fenton, 2010). A functioning debate requires diversity of opinions being represented in news media, according to which the public can engage and make informed decisions (Just, 2009; Masini et al., 2017). News coverage about AI is no exception. In fact, news is shaping public awareness and trust of new technology, which are central for its adoption and usage (Sartori & Theodoru, 2022). AI has been on the news for at least four decades, but it has become more intensive since 2015 (Sun et al., 2020). Moreover, news about AI has nearly quadrupled from 2010 to 2015 and written longer (Nguyen & Hekman, 2024). With a handful exceptions, most of the existing studies on AI were conducted in the Global North, with the main commonalities of narratives and sources. Studies on narrative have found that news on AI are deeply polarised, either focusing on utopian solutions like a workless future, or dystopian threat that will undermine humanity (Chubb et al., 2022). Regardless, news coverage is expected to be fair, where all Copyright © 2024 Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-sa/4.0/) 133 Volume 8, Number 2, 2024, 133-144 important views are presented; while also accurate, where facts are published with context (Kern, 2008). Despite some news emphasising risks or limitations of AI have been present, news that focus on benefits of AI appeared more frequently (Sun et al., 2020). In Canada, for example, AI is frequently written from a business lens, and when it is published as tech news, they tend to be techno-optimistic and in glorious terms (Dandurand et al., 2022). AI is also imagined in a much more positive light, despite anxiety towards the technology that may stem from popular culture like television series and films (Wang et al., 2023). While in the United Kingdom, news about industry products and announcements accounted for nearly 60% of news articles. Media constantly asserts AI potential as a solution to various public problems, often without balancing it with discussion on its effects (Brennen et al., 2018). Commonalities also present when it comes to news sources. Masini et al. (2017) argues that, at an article level, presenting several types of actors and/or multiple viewpoints ensures journalism diversity. However, news on AI has been heavily influenced by only 3 main players, namely business, government, and research sectors, while citizens and critical voices were largely non-existent (Sun et al., 2020). In the UK, media quoted industry players more than anyone else (33%), almost twice from academia, and six times from government (Brennen et al., 2018). Similarly in the US, American newspapers overwhelmingly cited business sources (64.7%), followed by scientists (29.1%), and non-science experts (23.6%). Another study found that in 2009-2012, science and research institutions were cited more frequently, and it has changed in 2015 to government and politicians (Chuan et al., 2019). While various studies have revealed the ubiquity of business sources in AI news, there has not been similar assessment in Indonesia. This examination has been increasingly more important, given increased attention towards this technology. The Indonesian government seems to be paying quite a lot of attention to this technology. In the past few months, the then-President Joko Widodo has met with the CEO of Microsoft and the CEO of Apple. They discussed investment plans and the construction of data centres in Indonesia (Tarigan, 2024). Similarly, a number of government officials, mainly from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, have discussed the application of AI on a number of occasions (Sutrisno, 2024). This paper is particularly concerned with the news sources. Phillips (2015) argues that relationships between journalists and sources, added with prioritisation of information, shape news for their audiences. Furthermore, she argues that news sources are reflective of existing power structures, and linked to what we called as ‘primary definers’, who frame what the problem is (Hall et al., 1978: 59). Journalists should be also aware of the source’s motive, as they may aim to influence events, stop something from happening, or have some questionable motives (Rusbridger, 2020). Thus, this paper aims to answers the following questions: What type of news sources led the narrative of AI news in Indonesia? What are the topics being discussed in AI news in Indonesia? 2. Methods This paper mixes quantitative and qualitative approaches. To identify the main actors that led the narrative in Indonesia, this paper sought all unique news sources from 777 news articles published between January 1-June 30, 2024. The corpus was populated from 5 leading online outlets, namely Liputan6.com, Detik.com, Kompas.com, tvOnenews.com, and Tempo.co. These free-to-access outlets were curated to represent wide reach but different media ownerships, political stances, and readers demographics. 134 Rio T (...truncated)