The internet and digital devices are changing the country'€™s news consumption habits and market trends, which will eventually force newspapers to change technologies and invest more in digital forms, says the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).

The statement was made amid unconfirmed rumors, spreading via a variety of online channels on Sunday, that afternoon newspaper Sinar Harapan might end its print and online editions next year due to a declining newspaper market.

'€œWorld trends in the newspaper market have changed due to growing internet and digital services. Also, people'€™s lifestyles have changed, which has altered people'€™s news consumption habits,'€ AJI chairman Suwarjono told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

'€œA related trend is also hitting our country. Young people are tending to seek easier and faster information; news they can get freely from the internet and social media. Most of the newspaper readers, on the other hand, are older people,'€ he added.

According to the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), Indonesia already has 88.1 million internet users '€” both fixed and mobile '€” last year, up from 71.19 million in 2013.

While in 2012, the total number of internet users in the country was about 63 million, or about 13 percent less than in 2013.

APJII data also showed 49 percent of Indonesian internet users in 2014 were digital natives aged between 18 and 25 years, while 95 percent of all internet users accessed social networking sites.

Indonesia'€™s current economic downturn was another reason for newspapers considering ending their print editions, said Suwarjono.

'€œA classic maneuver likely to be done by companies facing such economic conditions is to cut their promotion budget. This will eventually reduce advertisements in newspapers, which contributes a lot to covering production costs,'€ he added, saying that many companies now preferred to launch digital promotions, instead of conventional advertising in newspapers.

Suwarjono said, therefore, he would not be surprised to see more and more newspapers reducing the number of pages or cutting some print editions. This is also due to the paper used in newspaper production not being cheap.

'€œIn order to survive, newspapers must be able to keep up with digital news trends. I'€™d say, in the near future, the competition between media outlets will be more focused on their online editions,'€ he added.

However, he said he believed some big newspapers would be able to maintain their paper editions, given the number of older people that still preferred to read newspapers instead of online editions.

The government has also been pushing the development of the country'€™s digital economy and has estimated that Indonesia will become the biggest digital market in Southeast Asia by 2020. Indonesia'€™s digital market amounted to US$12 billion in 2014.
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