Broadcasting Practices in Homeless Media and Interest in Consuming News on Instagram

A Case Study of the Instagram Account @ceritabekasi.co

Abstract

This research examines the broadcasting activities carried out by the Instagram account @ceritabekasi.co, a homeless media outlet that relies on social media rather than a website as its main channel for news distribution. The study aims to describe these broadcasting activities and to identify the factors that support them in relation to public interest in consuming local news through Instagram. A qualitative approach with a case study method was employed within a constructivist paradigm. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with the account manager, an active follower, and a social media expert as a triangulation informant, and analyzed through data reduction, categorization, and interpretation guided by Everett M. Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Lavidge and Steiner's Hierarchy of Effects Theory. The findings show that broadcasting activities include information gathering, verification, content production, distribution through Instagram features, and audience interaction, and that audience responses can be interpreted with reference to awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and action. Seven interrelated factors were found to support the success of these activities: speed of information delivery, credibility, content visualization, publication consistency, audience interaction, local relevance, and citizen journalism participation.