Digitalisation provides convenience for the communities and has a broad impact on all aspects of people’s lives, such as e-commerce in the trade sector, fintech and e-payment in the banking sector, and edutech in the education sector, as well as digital public services that become a tangible manifestation of the Government in providing excellent services.
Indonesia must become digitally independent. The wheel of digital economy must also reach large, micro, and small businesses. Digital independence in various fields requires the cooperation of all elements of the nation. Digital independence must become a movement and awareness of all elements of the nation. Our active roles will further strengthen the efforts to build sovereignty in the midst of various digitalisation challenges.
– Ma’ruf Amin, Vice President
The Vice President underscored that digitalisation is currently the engine of the national economy. Indonesia’s digital economy is predicted to be the largest in Southeast Asia by 2025 with a value of Rp1,700 trillion. There are around 21 million new digital consumers during the pandemic. The accumulated purchase value of internet users in Indonesia also increased by 49%, from US$47 billion US dollars to US$70 billion by the end of 2021.
The government continues to protect a conducive business climate to improve the people’s economy by developing the positive side of digitalisation and opening up more space for the nation’s children to create digital innovations. Indonesia aims to develop positive aspects of digitalisation, such as economic empowerment, the advancement of the creative economy and MSMEs, and to provide space for digital innovation by the nation’s children. Therefore, proportional regulation must be implemented.
Regarding the Draft Regulation on Protecting Publisher Rights, the government will continue to strive for a balanced media ecosystem in the country. The regulation is pivotal to creating healthy business competition and balanced power relations. The regulation aims to protect the interests of the national press in the face of domination of new media and to maintain the media ecosystem so that it can be enjoyed in a balanced way. The regulation is an important element to maintain the media ecosystem so that the benefits of digital space can be enjoyed in a balanced way, and national sovereignty in the digital field can be realised.
Previously, Chairperson of the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI) Atal S. Depari called on the press to continually make an improvement, including the trend and quality of reporting through the Publisher Rights. Through the Publisher Rights, economic incentives, and other related things, the national press community needs to be introspective and to improve themselves. The press must control rapid clickbait journalism, especially online journalism. The press must continue to improve the quality of its reporting and to make improvements in news trends that tend to be biased, provocative, or disobedient,
As reported by OpenGov Asia, the era of digital transformation opens up opportunities for the Indonesian press industry ecosystem to develop. To make the ecosystem healthier, the Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G. Plate encourages industrial cooperation and collaboration amidst technological disruptions that occur both on the market side, behaviour change, and content distribution.
Amid the push for digital transformation globally due to the pandemic, a digital transformation is also important for the press industry so that it can find new media business models. The use of data, which has increased lately, can allow companies to identify and target audiences more accurately. In addition, the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) would make it easier for companies to build personalised products and services for different audiences according to their needs.