Millennials Political Preferences - Survey Report

According to a survey in United States[1], Millennials lag behind older generations in their interest and awareness in political issues. On the other hand, they tend to see social issues as merely a social issue only without any politic attached in it. How about in Indonesia? Recently, Jakpat held a survey in order to see the Indonesian Millennials political preferences. We would like to know how they see “politic” in a broad picture, their habit in accessing political news, and also their preferences regarding to political party. This survey involved 297 respondents from across Indonesia, particularly in 10 big cities including Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Medan, Makassar, Denpasar, Palembang, and Balikpapan. Those respondents belong in a range of ages from 17 to 27 year-old.

First of all, we begin with the way Indonesian Millennials interpret the word “politic”. Apparently, when asked about what the first thing that crossed in their minds when they heard the word “politic”, some keywords related to government are appearing in their answers, such as “power” (9%), “government” (5%), “party” (4%), and “governance” (3%). Interestingly, there are also found a lot of keywords with negative value such as “corruption” (8%), “dirty” (7%), “complicated” (6%), and even “cruel”, “foul”, “mean”, and “boring”. These indicate that Indonesian Millennials tend to have a negative sentiment towards what they think as “politic”. Therefore, we asked about what they think towards the meaning of “politic”. Most of their answers are revolving around “government” and “power”. Some of them stated that politic is the way to gain a power over something, to rule and dominate something, and to achieve a certain goal.

Furthermore, when asked about whether they belong to a certain community or organization, only some of (43%) Indonesian Millennials admitted that they do actively belong in community or organization. This indicates that Indonesian Millennials are not so interesting about being active in community or organization. Whereas, participating in a community and organization is actually one of the ways they can learn, understand, and practice the politic.

About the political issues and news, apparently only some of (37%) Indonesian millennials follow the current political issues and news. Interestingly, most (88%) of them who follow the current political issues and news are getting their sources from online media. Meanwhile, other popular sources are including television (69%) and newspaper (44%). These indicates that indeed Indonesian Millennials are acting like a Millennial Generation, which is characterized by their highly dependency towards new media and technology. Furthermore, when asked about the reason why they follow the current political news and issues, some answers with positive value are appeared, such as “because it’s exciting”, “in order to add their insight”, and “to keep up with the recent news of the country”. Those answers indicate that although only some of them who concern, somehow their concerns tend to have positive sentiments, particularly in regard to their own country’s future.

When talking about Millennial Generation, of course we can’t abandon the social media. There are at least three reactions that Indonesian Millennials do when they see the political issue is being discussed in social media: (1) just observing, (2) giving comments, and (3) being indifferent about it. Apparently, most of them (67%) have not ever uploaded a political issue on their personal account of social media.

Lastly, we dig further about Indonesian Millennials’ interest and preference toward political party. Apparently, only 1% of them belong to a certain political party, while the other 99% of them are not actively involved as a member of a certain political party. Among them who are not a member of a political party, when asked whether they are interested to join, most of them (87%) admitted that they don’t have any interest to be a member of a political party. We find that there are 13% of Indonesian Millennials are supporting a certain political party although they are not being active as a member of the party. However, the other 87% stated that they don’t support any political party at all. Those findings indicate that the Millennial Generation in Indonesia has a low interest toward politics. However, there are some potential, because we can see their concerns toward the future of their country, and of course, the government.

[1] Visit http://www.journalism.org/2015/06/01/political-interest-and-awareness-lower-among-millennials/ for further information about the US survey

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (bahasa). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographicsegment preference on each answer.

Result in Bahasa