Dynamics of the Use of Digital Media as a Source of Information During Media Transition

Abstract

There has been dynamic in the transition of the use of media by news readers from conventional media (Kompas print media) to new media (Kompas.com and KompasTV Instagram account). This causes a change in the communication process starting from the way of producing, delivering, capturing, and disseminating news as well as the content of the news itself which is different from people's habits earlier. The originality of this paper builds on the main ideas constructed from the theory of Uses and Gratification by focusing more on three aspects; audience, media (news content), and function of the media. This study uses a qualitative method with a constructivist analysis and a news content analysis unit that focuses on Kompas.com and KompasTV Instagram account at the onset of Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 in Indonesia by mapping news content based on keywords for the Covid-19 pandemic and the Corona virus news search. This study found that the reading interest among the Indonesian people is more inclined to news that has an audio-visual format than the newspaper format. This is evident from the audience’s feedback in the comment section compiled from data findings. In addition, the lack of the audience’s control results in the poor communication culture among the people, so that there is a potential for media bias and fake news. This study has limitations in that it does not discuss the reader interest from the perspective of conventional news (Kompas print media). Therefore, there should be further comprehensive research by comparing the two types of media.