Email this article 
Indonesia’s public vulnerability to ethnic and religious information
Abstract
This study aims to determine the extent to which ethnic and religious information is believed to be fake news or facts and is spread to people close to them. This type of research is qualitative using a phenomenological approach, namely collecting experience data and testing individual assessments through an experimental stage from a sample of 30 non-expert millennials and gen z in the city of Semarang, Indonesia. The findings of this study reveal several attitudes formed by participants. First, participants believe that fake news still exists and is spread predominantly online. Second, participants believe that they will not be trapped by fake news and have credibility. Third, respondents discuss suspicious information with reference groups. Fourth, dissonance is still prominent in the assessment of information status (fake or fact) and the culture of collectivism appears prominent in this study.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abdullah, Irwan, Hasse Jubba, Saifuddin Zuhri Qudsy, Mustaqim Pabbajah, and Zaenuddin Hudi Prasojo. 2024. “The Use and Abuse of Internet Spaces: Fitna, Desacralization, and Conflict in Indonesia’s Virtual Reality.” Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 16(3):1–12. doi:10.5130/ccs.v16.i3.8962.
Afdal, Afdal, Miftahul Fikri, Neviyarni Neviyarni, Mega Iswari, Indah Sukmawati, Firman Firman, Yeni Karneli, Mardianto Mardianto, and Rezki Hariko. 2023. “Hoax Behavior Tendencies among Indonesian Students: An Analysis during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE) 12(1):59. doi:10.11591/ijere.v12i1.23632.
Ahdiat, Adi. 2022. “Mayoritas Warga RI Cari Informasi Di Media Sosial.” katadata, July 9, 1.
Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. 2017. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(2):211–36.
Altay, Sacha, and Alberto Acerbi. 2024. “People Believe Misinformation Is a Threat Because They Assume Others Are Gullible.” New Media and Society 26(11):6440–61.
Al-Zaman, Md. Sayeed, and Moh Yasir Alimi. 2021. “Islam, Religious Confrontation and Hoaxes in the Digital Public Sphere: Comparison of Bangladesh and Indonesia.” Komunitas 13(2):206–33. doi:10.15294/komunitas.v13i2.27223.
Amrullah, Haekal Fajri, Mohd Nor Shahizan Ali, and Mohd Fauzi Sukimi. 2019. “Information-Seeking Behavior of College Students on Religious Tolerance through Social Media.” Islamiyyat 41(2):9–15.
Arin, K. Peren, Deni Mazrekaj, and Marcel Thum. 2023. “Ability of Detecting and Willingness to Share Fake News.” Scientific Reports 13(7298):1–12.
Asadi, Mohamad Hasan. 2021. “DISINFORMATION, MISINFORMATION, AND HOAXES ON TWITTER: THE IMPACT OF THE POLARIZATION OF ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY.” 25(1).
Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet, and A. Schejter. 2019. Learning in a Networked Society. 1st ed. New York: Springer International Publishing.
Bonvillain, Nancy. 2016. The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics. New York: Routledge.
Bösch, Marcus, and Tom Divon. 2024. “The Sound of Disinformation: TikTok, Computational Propaganda, and the Invasion of Ukraine.” New Media & Society 26(9):5081–5106. doi:10.1177/14614448241251804.
Bosco, Christina, Viviana Patti, Simona Frenda, Alessandra Teresa Cignarella, Marinella Paciello, and Francesca D’Errico. 2023. “Detecting Racial Stereotypes : An Italian Social Media Corpus Where Psychology Meets NLP.” Information Processing & Management 60(1).
BPS. 2000. Statistik Ketahanan Sosial Kota Semarang. Semarang: Pemerintah Kotamadya Semarang.
BPS. 2022. Semarang Municipality in Figures 2022. Semarang: BPS.
Calvo, Dafne, Lorena Cano-Orón, and Germán Llorca-Abad. 2022. “COVID-19 Vaccine Disinformation on YouTube: Analysis of a Viewing Network.” Communication & Society 223–38. doi:10.15581/003.35.2.223-238.
Carroll, Fred. 2022. “The Completely True Story of the Fraudulent Ethiopian Princess : Racial Stereotypes and Journalistic Conventions in the Framing of a Media Hoax.” American Journalism 39(1):51–71.
Ceballos-del-Cid, Yaiza, Bernardo Gómez-Calderón, and Alba Córdoba-Cabús. 2025. “Redes Sociales y Hábitos de Consumo Informativo de Los Jóvenes Españoles: Un Análisis Diacrónico (2021-2023).” Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación 16(1):e28010. doi:10.14198/MEDCOM.28010.
Chadwick, Andrew, Cristian Vaccari, and Natalie-Anne Hall. 2024. “What Explains the Spread of Misinformation in Online Personal Messaging Networks? Exploring the Role of Conflict Avoidance.” Digital Journalism 12(5):574–93. doi:10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038.
Cordana, Gloria Elsa Ave, Hilya Mudrika Arini, and Yun Prihantina Mulyani. 2025. “Topic Modeling of Hoax News and Real News In COVID-19 Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA).” in PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (ICST UGM 2022). Vol. 3120. Yogyakarta Indonesia: Gadjah Mada University.
Das, Rushali. 2025. 80+ Key Social Media Statistics To Keep An Eye On [2025]. Research Report. https://statusbrew.com/insights/social-media-statistics#social-media-usage-statistics.
D’Errico, Francesca, Concetta Papapicco, and Mariona Taule Delor. 2022. “Immigrants, Hell on Board.” Journal of Language and Discrimination 6(2). https://utppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.1558/jld.21228?download=true&journalCode=jld.
Duffy, Andrew, Edson Tandoc, and Rich Ling. 2019. “Too Good to Be True, Too Good Not to Share: The Social Utility of Fake News.” Information, Communication, & Society 23(13):1965–79.
van Eck, Christel W., and Peter H. Feindt. 2022. “Parallel Routes from Copenhagen to Paris : Climate Discourse in Climate Sceptic and Climate Activist Blog.” Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 24(2):194–209.
Erokhina, Yulia. 2022. “Stereotyping of the Russian Orthodox Church in Fake News in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Semiotic and Legal Analysis.” International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique 35(3):1187–1213. doi:10.1007/s11196-022-09888-4.
Fadhilah, Indra Malik Akbar, Yaddarabullah Yaddarabullah, and Silvester Dian Handy Permana. 2021. “Classification Hoax News of Covid-19 on Instagram Using K-Nearest Neighbor.” Pp. 157–61 in Comnetsat 2021. Purwokerto: Institut Teknologi Telkom Purwokerto.
Fallis, Don. 2015. “What Is Disinformation?” Library Trends 63(3):401–26. doi:10.1353/lib.2015.0014.
Fazio, Lisa K., David G. Rand, and Gordon Pennycook. 2019. “Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Equally for Plausible and Implausible Statements.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 26(5):1705–10. doi:10.3758/s13423-019-01651-4.
Griffin, Emory A., Andrew Ledbetter, and Glenn Grayson Sparks. 2019. A First Look at Communication Theory. Tenth edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Horowitz, David. 2021. I Can’t Breathe : How A Racial Hoax Is Killing America. 1st ed. Washington: Regnery Publishing.
Kemp, Paige L., Vanessa M. Loaiza, Colleen M. Kelley, and Christopher N. Wahlheim. 2024. “Correcting Fake News Headlines after Repeated Exposure: Memory and Belief Accuracy in Younger and Older Adults.” Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 9(1):55. doi:10.1186/s41235-024-00585-3.
Kishwar, Azka, and Adeel Zafar. 2023. “Fake News Detection on Pakistani News Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning.” Expert Systems with Applications 211:118558. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2022.118558.
León, Bienvenido, María-Pilar Martínez-Costa, Ramón Salaverría, and Ignacio López-Goñi. 2022. “Health and Science-Related Disinformation on COVID-19: A Content Analysis of Hoaxes Identified by Fact-Checkers in Spain.” Plos One 1–18.
Littlejohn, Stephen W., and Karen A. Foss. 2008. Theories of Human Communication : Ninth Edition. 9th ed. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Long, Maebh. 2020. “Being Obotunde Ijimere and M. Lovori : Mapping Ulli Beier’s Intercultural Hoaxes from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea.” Literature, Critique, and Empire Today 58(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989420962829.
Mansur, Suraya, Nurhayani Saragih, Rajab Ritonga, and Novita Damayanti. 2021. “Fake News on Social Media and Adolescent’s Cognition.” Jurnal ASPIKOM 6(1):29. doi:10.24329/aspikom.v6i1.827.
Maryani, Eni, Detta Rahmawan, and Irma Garnesia. 2019. “The Mediatization of ‘SARA’ Conflict in Indonesian Online Media.” Jurnal ASPIKOM 4(1):184. doi:10.24329/aspikom.v4i1.526.
Mastel. 2019. “Hasil Survey Wabah Hoax Nasional 2019.”
Missier, Clyde Anieldath. 2025. “A Qualitative Study of Digital Religious Influence: Perspectives from Christian, Hindu, and Muslim Gen Y and Gen Z in Mumbai, India.” Religions 16(1):73. doi:10.3390/rel16010073.
Moreno-Castro, Carolina, Empar Vengut-Climent, Lorena Cano-Orón, and Isabel Mendoza-Poudereux. 2021. “Exploratory Study of the Hoaxes Spread via WhatsApp in Spain to Prevent and/or Cure COVID-19.” Gaceta Sanitaria 35(6):534–41. doi:10.1016/j.gaceta.2020.07.008.
Newman, Nic, Richard Fletcher, Craig T. Robertson, Amy Ross Arguedas, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2024. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. doi:10.60625/RISJ-VY6N-4V57.
Notley, Tanya, Michael Dezuanni, and Sora Park. 2023. Young Australians Increasingly Get News from Social Media, but Many Don’t Understand Algorithms. Australia: The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/young-australians-increasingly-get-news-from-social-media-but-many-dont-understand-algorithms-215427.
Olmos-Alcaraz, Antonia. 2023. “Islamophobia and Twitter: The Political Discourse of the Extreme Right in Spain and Its Impact on the Public.” Religions 14(4):506.
Papapicco, Concetta, Isabella Lamanna, and Francesca D’Errico. 2022. “Adolescents’ Vulnerability to Fake News and to Racial Hoaxes: A Qualitative Analysis on Italian Sample.” Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 6(3):20. doi:10.3390/mti6030020.
Petty, Richard E., and John T. Cacioppo. 1996. Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.
Pierson, Ashley M., Vinushini Arunagiri, and Debra M. Bond. 2022. “‘You Didn’t Cause Racism, and You Have to Solve It Anyways’: Antiracist Adaptations to Dialectical Behavior Therapy for White Therapists.” Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 29(4):796–815. doi:10.1016/j.cbpra.2021.11.001.
Pothitou, Evangelia, Maria Perifanou, and Anastasios A. Economides. 2025. “Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Fake News: A Comparative Study of Instagram Users in Greece and Portugal.” Information 16(1):41. doi:10.3390/info16010041.
Prathama, Nikolaus Ageng. 2017. “NEGOSIASI IDENTITAS DALAM REKONSILIASI KONFLIK ANTARETNIS (KASUS : RELASI ETNIS MADURA DENGAN ETNIS DAYAK).” Interaksi: Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi 6(1):110. doi:10.14710/interaksi.6.1.110-119.
Prathama, Nikolaus Ageng, MJ Rizqon Hasani, and Muhammad Irali Akbar. 2022. “SARA Hoax: Phenomena, Meaning, and Conflict Management.” Jurnal ASPIKOM 7(2).
Rapp, David N. 2016. “The Consequences of Reading Inaccurate Information.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 25(4):281–85.
Russell-Brown, Katheryn. 2020. “The Dog Walker, The Birdwatcher and Racial Voice : The Manifest Need To Punish Racial Hoaxes.” University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy 31:1–11.
Russell-Brown, Katheryn. 2021. The Color of Crime : Racial Hoaxes, White Crime, Media Messages, Police Violence, and Other Race Based-Harms. Third Edition. New York: New York University Press.
Safitri, Priska Nur, Santi Indra Astuti, Nuril Hidayah, Cahya Suryani, Mizati Dewi Wasdiana, and Anita Wahid. 2022. “When Politics and Religion Become Disaster: An Annual Mapping of Hoax in Indonesia.” Ultimacomm: Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi 13(2):343–57. doi:10.31937/ultimacomm.v13i2.2104.
Salovich, Nikita A., Amalia M. Donovan, Scott R. Hinze, and David N. Rapp. 2021. “Can Confidence Help Account for and Redress the Effects of Reading Inaccurate Information?” Memory & Cognition 49(2):293–310. doi:10.3758/s13421-020-01096-4.
Salovich, Nikita A, Megan N. Imundo, and David N. Rapp. 2022. “Story Stimuli for Instantiating True and False Beliefs about the World.” Behavior Research Methods 55(4):1907–23.
Salovich, Nikita A., Anya M. Kirsch, and David N. Rapp. 2022. “Evaluative Mindsets Can Protect against the Influence of False Information.” Cognition 225:105121. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105121.
Sánchez Del Vas, Rocío, and Jorge Tuñón Navarro. 2024. “Disinformation on the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War: Two Sides of the Same Coin?” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11(1):851. doi:10.1057/s41599-024-03355-0.
Schmotter, Caleb H. 2025. “The Myth of Ethnicity: Understanding the Relationship Between Genotype, Phenotype, and Ethnotype.” Ethnopolitics. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2025.2464506.
Siani, Alessandro, Maria Joseph, and Claudiu Dacin. 2024. “Susceptibility to Scientific Misinformation and Perception of News Source Reliability in Secondary School Students.” Discover Education 3(1):93. doi:10.1007/s44217-024-00194-8.
Swire, Briony, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, and Stephan Lewandowsky. 2017. “The Role of Familiarity in Correcting Inaccurate Information.” Journal of Experimental Psychology : Learning, Memory, and Cognition 43(12):1948–61.
Tatang, Fitriani*, Tatang Herman, and Siti Fatimah. 2022. “The Phenomenology of Indonesian Coastal Students: Are They Ready for Online Blended Learning?” European Journal of Educational Research 11(4):2181–94. doi:10.12973/eu-jer.11.4.2181.
Vissenberg, Joyce, and Leen d’Haenens. 2020. “‘I Sometimes Have Doubts about The News on Facebook’: Adolescents’ Encounters with Fake News on The Internet.” Jurnal Komunikasi Indonesia IX(2):64–70.
Volk, Sophia C., Anne Schulz, Sina Blassnig, Sarah Marschlich, Minh Hao Nguyen, and Nadine Strauß. 2025. “Selecting, Avoiding, Disconnecting: A Focus Group Study of People’s Strategies for Dealing with Information Abundance in the Contexts of News, Entertainment, and Personal Communication.” Information, Communication & Society 28(1):21–40. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2024.2358167.
Widarini, Dwi Ajeng, Fizzy Andriani, Natalina Nilamsari, and Eni Kardi Wiyati. 2021. Kepercayaan Publik Terhadap Media Arus Utama Di Era Pandemi Covid19. Laporan Akhir Penelitian. Jakarta: Dewan Pers. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://dewanpers.or.id/assets/documents/laporan/Lap_Akhir_Penelitian_Universitas_Prof._Dr.Moestopo_(Beragama)_110821.pdf.
Widyawati, Nina. 2014. Etnisitas dan Agama Sebagai Isu Politik : Kampanye JK-Wiranto pada Pemilu 2009. 1st ed. Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia.
Wirawan. 2010. Konflik dan Manajemen Konflik : Teori, Aplikasi, dan Penelitian. 1st ed. 1. Jakarta: Salemba Humanika.
Wright, Chrysalis, Rebecca Brinklow-Vaughn, Kelsea Johannes, and Fiordaliz Rodriguez. 2021. “Media Portrayals of Immigration and Refugees in Hard and Fake News and Their Impact on Consumer Attitudes.” Howard Journal of Communication 32(4):331–51.
Xu, Jiawei, Vladimir Zadorozhny, Danchen Zhang, and John Grant. 2022. “FaNDS: Fake News Detection System Using Energy Flow.” Data & Knowledge Engineering 139:101985. doi:10.1016/j.datak.2022.101985.
Zvereva, Ekaterina A., and Valeriya A. Chvorova. 2020. “Generation Y and Z: Features Media Consumption.” Vestnik NSU. Series: History and Philology 19(6):131–40. doi:10.25205/1818-7919-2020-19-6-131-140.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24329/aspikom.v10i2.1648
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License