Educational Content Most Popular with Digital News Audiences

Referring to the "Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2024" report, several press companies that monitor the behavior of press product audiences see that Whatsapp, Tiktok, the Google search engine, and YouTube are the a channel that many people like to find news.

The tendency to seek news through social media channels is also happening in Indonesia. This is reflected in the publication of "Digital 2024: Indonesia" by We Are Social, which shows that only 41 percent of internet users in Indonesia specifically access news portals or news applications to obtain journalistic information. This figure is far apart from social media users, which reach 98.4 percent.

In the era of social media information ecosystems, media companies certainly adapt to platforms that are preferred by audiences to maintain relationships and attract younger audiences. However, the strategy of presenting content on various platforms is not enough to attract audiences to consume news.

There are several factors that are indicated as the cause. One of them lies in the discontinuity between the audience's needs and the content produced by the press company.

Former BBC journalist and now an independent media consultant, Dmitry Shishkin, has an alternative proposal for solutions and innovations to reconcile the need for news and content production for press companies. Dmitry conducted research on news content from BBC Russia, where he worked, from 2016-2021.

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Research was carried out by grouping types of articles based on six categories. Consisting of update me in the form of daily news or straight news, then keep me on trend which contains information about lifestyle and entertainment as well as reviews of current events. allows the audience not to be left behind in the development of a topic. The third category is give me perspective where needs can be answered with opinions related to current events.

Furthermore, the educate me category requires educative content, for example about the timeline of an event or the history of institutions, figures or important events, also related to the background of a events that are not reviewed in event report type content.

The fifth category is inspire me which can be filled with inspirational story content from figures or content that sparks creative ideas, such as cooking recipes.

Lastly, divert me or a category for audiences who are really bored with current main (mainstream) issues so that the content offered contains topics which is not currently in the public eye.

Increase the amount of content that is in demand

In this research, initial data was collected between August and December 2016 on BBC Russia's journalistic products and 5,099 articles were obtained. Of this number, 3,743 articles were in the straight news category. This means that the majority of media crews devote energy to producing factual information on a daily basis. Judging from its readability performance, articles from BBC Russia received an average of 8,833 pageviews for each article.

The performance is relatively low compared to the data collected from August to December 2021, after a change in editorial policy was implemented to present articles according to audience demand. As a result, at the end of 2021, the number of articles produced in five months was only 1,999, or about 60 percent compared to the same period in 2016. This means that journalists have a reduced workload in terms of the amount of content published.

Even though the quantity has decreased, by presenting content according to the audience's interests, BBC Russia managed to increase pageview performance per content by 188.7 percent. Referring to the results of the experiment, there are at least two achievements. Firstly, increasing the number of audiences and secondly it is more efficient in the amount of content production because it is relatively more targeted according to consumer needs.

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The type of content that has been trimmed the most is in the form of event reports, reduced by about 70 percent compared to the initial condition. This can be understood as information in the form of event reports are currently being produced by many sources. Producers of news events are not only limited to mass media companies, but also individuals who are connected to the internet, which makes the news events very diverse in terms of their sources.

The content that is encouraged to increase its production in order to increase the number of readers is that which has the nuance of educate me. Audiences need content that explains the problem of an event, or its relationship to other events, not just knowing what the event is.

One example is when Iran attacked Israel and Israel retaliated. The audience is more interested in content that explains why it happened and how the direction of the conflict will develop, along with its accompanying impacts. Therefore, it is not just about stopping at the attack itself.

The experiment that Dmitry carried out on BBC Russia was also carried out by Aliya Itzkowitz, a senior consultant from Financial Times Strategies, on three press companies in England. The results obtained were similar. The majority of content produced is daily event reports with low readability performance, while the amount of content in the educate me category that many audiences are interested in is small.

Based on the research results, it appears that audiences avoid news products not only because of saturation but also because of the lack of content types that interest them. The phenomenon of news audience in Russia and England may also occur in other countries, including Indonesia.

It could be that, in order to attract audiences again, especially young ones, there needs to be a policy from mass media institutions to increase the production of educational content. The news presented is not only informative, but also full of knowledge and insight. (R&D COMPAS)