Social media literacy among rural people in Indonesia: Empirical findings from a nationwide survey

Abstract

Social media has become a crucial tool for rural people in developing countries, providing access to information about agricultural and home industry markets, technologies, financial resources, and employment prospects. However, it can also negatively impact rural people, leading to increased consumption of fake news and entertainment content. This paper examines the social media literacy of rural people in Indonesia using data from the Indonesia Digital Literacy Survey 2023. The survey involved 4215 respondents from 540 districts and 38 provinces across Indonesia. K-mean cluster analysis and logistics regression models were used to achieve the objective. This paper classified the social media literacy of rural people in Indonesia into three clusters: basic function users, moderate critical users, and critical users. In terms of demographic factors, social media literacy significantly correlates with age, education, and household spending across all clusters. Meanwhile, there is a mixed result for the factors of gender and internet usage.