The emergence of social media platforms as primary news distributors has fundamentally changed the economics of journalism, particularly for investigative reporting. Over the past decade, platforms like Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and Google have become gatekeepers of news consumption, leveraging algorithmic curation to prioritize content that maximizes user engagement (Lee, 2024). Despite a move to further democratize information, the transition has resulted in an inherent tension: the clash between click-based monetization and creating serious journalism in the public interest (Flew et al., 2024). Investigative journalism, which takes time, resources and ethical integrity to do, is at a disadvantage in the attention economy that favors viral and emotionally laden content (Degen et al., 2024). The paradox is heightened for local media, which experience a double whammy: a drop in traditional revenue while being pressured to adapt to an algorithmic logic that does not favor serious journalism (Matamoros-Fernández and Farkas, 2021).

The logic of the attention economy poses an existential threat to investigative journalism—which requires long periods, large resources, and is often high-risk—research in Indonesia (Dan et al., 2020; Moe and Madsen, 2021). Investigative media including Tempo and Kompas face contradictory pressure in business models: investigation has social impact (such as reporting on e-KTP corruption or human rights violations in Papua), but the interactions on digital platforms are limited (Bojic, 2022; Bonina et al., 2021). Due to the discrepancy between production costs and per-click advertising funds, in an analysis of the Alliance of Independent Journalists of 60% of Indonesian local media in the past 5 years, journalists have abandoned their investigative journalism sections. This dynamic corresponds with global results on platform capture (Flensburg and Lomborg, 2023; Gerlitz et al., 2019; Wang and Wu, 2021), whereby media are caught in a structural dependency rooted in algorithms that conflictingly align with the values of public journalism.

There is a great knowledge vacuum in present research on how these algorithmic pressures subtly compromise the viability of investigative journalism. Few have critically examined the systemic repercussions for investigative reporting—especially at the local level, where such journalism plays a vital democratic role in exposing corruption and holding power accountable—even while research has examined platform dominance in news distribution (Kaushik and Pandey, 2024; Murschetz, 2020) or the rise of clickbait (Bazaco et al., 2019; Lischka and Garz, 2023). For example, local inquiries into environmental crime, or corruption in a city, do not often have the” shareable quality” of celebrity gossip or heated political issues, and hence become economically invisible in the algorithmic feed (Nowak-Teter and Łódzki, 2024). In turn, this can create an incentive structure that skews media companies to ordain investigative teams a lower priority for cheaper and more entertaining content (Dwivedi et al., 2023; Schäfer and Painter, 2021).

The author examines how the algorithmic monetization framework of social media undermines the sustainability of investigative journalism in the local media context. Taking from examples (the dismantling of investigative desks at local media) and frameworks: platform capture (Pignard-Cheynel and Amigo, 2023) and attention economy (Zheng and Mason, 2022), the author argues that algorithmic systems are participatory actors in re-shaping journalism’s values, often to the detriment of its democratic purposes, rather than neutral tools. The authors identify potential solutions to counter these pressures, including regulatory solutions and hybrid funding. This manuscript review adds to the ongoing dialogue of preserving investigative journalism in an increasingly platform economy by connecting media economics, journalism practices (Mattoni and Ceccobelli, 2018; Nenadić et al., 2024; Trifonova Price and Antonova, 2024).

The platformization of media is shifting the dynamics of journalism by shifting the control of content distribution, audience engagement and monetization to technology companies. Under these circumstances, newsrooms are increasingly functioning in a “platform-dependent” mode, where editorial decisions—if not outright driven—are determined by engagement optimization and monetization mechanisms devised by global digital intermediaries (Nielsen and Ganter, 2022). These changes have also restructured journalism as a profession, reducing editorial independence, incentivizing speed and virality over verification, and fragmenting audience news consumption (Carlson and Usher, 2016). More fundamentally, as Pickard (2019) notes, these changes represent the deep-structural violence of market-driven media systems, where commercial logics continue to erode the public service ethos of journalism.

These changes have almost unequivocally harmful results for investigative journalism which is time-intensive to investigate, requires deep fact-checking and is deeply informed by invested editorial relationships. This type of journalism is not sustainable in an environment that sees algorithmic visibility and engagement data, as a basis of worth over deep reporting (Anderson, 2018). The situation becomes even more acute at the local level, where newsrooms often operate with limited financial and technological resources. As Flensburg and Lomborg note, the process of datafication exacerbates dependence on third-party digital infrastructures, restricting the agency of smaller outlets and increasing their vulnerability to platform fluctuations (Flensburg and Lomborg, 2023). Therefore, while platformisation reshapes journalism broadly, its compounded impact on investigative journalism—and particularly on local investigative journalism—represents a layered structural crisis.

Investigative journalism grapples with significant constraints related to the digital media economy, where production costs exceed revenue costs. Data indicates that a detailed investigative piece (a 6-month investigation on corruption) could only rack up 1,000 clicks. However, a simple clickbait piece, celebrity gossip, or possibly political polarization content could easily rack up 100,000 clicks within 24 h (Kuntadi et al., 2022). This disparity creates structural disincentives for the media to invest in investigative reporting, especially locally. In Indonesia, this pressure is exacerbated by the decline in traditional advertising revenue and dependence on platform-based monetization, which only values highly viral content.

Producing investigative journalism requires significant resources: long time, specialized teams, strict verification, and legal protection—factors that clickbait content lacks (Molyneux and Coddington, 2020). For example, Tempo’s investigation into corruption in the oil and gas sector took 6 months. It involved five journalists, but its advertising revenue was outperformed by lifestyle content produced in hours (Ikonen et al., 2017). The impact is that many local media outlets have turned to churnalism—practices of re-quoting or producing quick news without in-depth verification—to meet the demands of algorithms (Lundahl, 2020). This phenomenon erodes the media’s capacity as a democratic watchdog, especially in uncovering local corruption cases or human rights violations (Pickard, 2019).

This economic imbalance has reduced investigative teams in local Indonesian media. AJI data in 2023 shows that 70% of regional media have reduced or closed their investigative sections in the past decade. Meanwhile, platforms like Facebook and Google accumulate 80% of digital advertising revenue without a proportional allocation for public interest-based content (Nieborg and Poell, 2018). This condition deepens the media’s dependence on the logic of the attention economy (Wu, 2023), where journalistic value is measured through engagement metrics, not social impact (Anderson, 2020; Graves and Anderson, 2020).

The systemic challenges posed by both platformisation and algorithmic monetisation do not lend themselves easily to solutions purely at the level of the individual newsroom, or the journalist. Solutions to the sustainability of engaged, investigative journalism—particularly at the local level—will require structural efforts, and innovation from within. This section outlines two broad categories of systemic responses: external structural interventions, which aim to intervene into the broader digital and civic problem space, and internal responses, which arise from within the media system.

The purpose of this study was to investigate platformisation effects on journalism and specifically in relation to how these platformisation-related structural changes undermine local investigative journalism. Looking specifically at Indonesia, the findings demonstrated how systems of algorithmic monetisation, and audience metrics, underwrote anti-investigative practices that are time intensive, need independence, and can provide investigative depth. With local newsrooms operating on limited financial resources, there is greater fo rce to compromise the scope of investigative journalism, producing an investigative ecosystem that is fragile, often jeopardising the central function of journalism as a public good.

By foregrounding the case of Indonesia, this paper contributes to global discussions around the political economy of platforms, demonstrating how platform capture operates in democracies in the Global South largely unregulated. Local investigative journalism not only operates at an economically unsustainable level under platform logics but it is also politically vulnerable, with potential eliminates to critical public space without meaningful and democratic accountability or oversight.

In response, the study highlights a potential future of collaborative journalism as a structural model which adapts to the local context, instead of being reliant on funding innovation. Collaborative networks not only present an opportunity to share resources and redistribute editorial labour, but they also work to amplify and prioritise public-interest reporting across newsrooms. Future research would extend to consider how platform governance, media innovation, and civic participation converge to produce change to journalistic resilience, particularly in cases where both state power and platform power asymmetries restrict the public service role of the press.