Motives for Using Reddit Social Media on Members of the r/Indonesia Community

The presence of social media provides many conveniences for its use. The many types of social media make the motives for using social media varied, and each individual has their own motives regarding the reasons for using social media. One of them is the social media Reddit. Reddit is a social media in the form of forum that was blocked by the Indonesian government in 2015. This study aims to find out the motives for using Reddit social media in Indonesia, especially for members of the largest Indonesian community on Reddit, namely the r/Indonesia community. This study uses Blumer's theory of motives for using social media and the concept of social media. The method used is qualitative with netnography techniques. Data were collected using in-depth interview techniques and participant observation. The informants in this study are Reddit social media users as well as members of the r/Indonesia community. The results obtained in this study are that the motives behind the use of Reddit social media are divided into three factors, namely motives to obtain information, motives for entertainment, and motives to avoid irrelevant information or spam.

things on this social media, ranging from news, entertainment, information, and interesting communities. Communities on Reddit are called subreddits. Subreddits or communities on Reddit are marked with "r/" in front of them and followed by the name of the community, for example, r/news, r/indonesia, r/ dankmemes, and others. The number of subreddits on Reddit is enormous because to create a community on Reddit, you only need to create a Reddit account. Its user can freely create a community according to their wishes as long as it is in accordance with the existing rules on Reddit. This makes the types of communities on Reddit very diverse, ranging from news, entertainment, information, and others.
It is from this diverse community that Reddit's social media is rich in information through uploads and discussions in the comments column. Reddit, as a place for discussion, is often used as a place to find answers to a problem that is experienced. Reddit users often upload posts just to ask questions or ask other users for advice. Because Reddit is a social media in the form of a forum, a discussion occurs on the forum.
Sometimes, an answer to the problem lies in the discussion that occurs in the forum.

Reddit
Reddit is a social media in the form of a large forum created in 2005. Reddit is an interesting social media in the form of a forum: social media Reddit allows users to share text and media, such as photos and videos, as posts that invite votes and comments.
Reddit social media is also often used as a source of information submitted by its users (Choudhury et al., 2014). A study conducted by Weninger et al. (2013) mentions the basic framework in Reddit, such as Subreddit, posts, comments, votes, and karma.
Communities or forums on Reddit are called "subreddits". Subreddit is a forum or community that has a certain theme or content. Subreddits can be recognized by the "r/" sign in front of them, such as r/science, r/askreddit, r/memes, and others. Reddit users generally don't follow an account but follow content in a community or subreddit. By upvoting and downvoting, the account that comments or uploads posts will get "Karma".
Karma on Reddit is a score or points obtained when someone presses the upvote and downvote buttons on any uploaded post or comment. The karma system enables its users to upload interesting content, make comments and provide useful feedback. A high karma score indicates how active a Reddit user is and how interesting a comment or post has been. The karma system encourages its users to upload good content, make useful comments, and also provide useful feedback (Anderson, 2015).
Like most communities, communities or subreddits also have a moderator whose job is to maintain and manage a subreddit. These moderators can only perform various actions within a managed subreddit, such as deleting and approving posts or comments, modifying the appearance of a subreddit, and banning users who are members of the managed subreddit (Li et al., 2022).

Motives for using social media
Motives are drives in humans that arise as a result of the needs that humans want to fulfill. All human behavior includes drivers, reasons, or impulses in humans that cause humans to do something (Innova, 2016 that provoked a discussion, such as, "Who do you think is the cause", "What are the further impacts", "Have there ever been cases of similar to this before", and so on.
Even though Reddit social media users tend to be anonymous, informants feel that information or discussions submitted by other users are more valuable than other social media where users tend to use real names, although it is possible that there are many anonymous accounts.
The results of this study indicate that there are three motives or reasons that encourage someone to use social media Reddit, especially for members of the r/Indonesia community, namely reasons to get information, get entertainment, and avoid irrelevant information or spam. The need for information is a need that must be met by an individual. Someone will try to meet the information needs by finding the information needed through the help of the media.
Cognitive needs are needs that come from a person to learn, find out, develop, and fulfill self-actualization.
The information on Reddit is considered to be of higher quality compared to other social media. This is related to the role of the moderator in each community, whose job is to supervise and manage uploads and comments in the community.
Reddit allows its users to choose or determine their own community so that the information received can be in accordance with what the user wants. In previous research, according to Fatmawati (2015) in Khairiyah et al. (2022), the need for information is related to problems experienced or faced by an individual. When these individuals feel a lack of information, they fill the lack of information by seeking information from the knowledge they do not have in the selected media. This is consistent with the results Reddit's social media users tend to be anonymous or do not display their real identities. So, personal identity motives are not things that make someone use this social media.

Conclusion
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that the reasons for the use of Reddit social media among members of the r/Indonesia community are divided into three categories, namely to get information, get entertainment, and avoid irrelevant information or spam. Cognitive motives or motives for the need for information can be easily fulfilled because getting information on Reddit's social media is very easy, considering that Reddit has a very large and specific community. Reddit, as a social media in the form of a large forum, allows its users to exchange information regarding a problem they are experiencing. This also adds to the wealth of existing information. Apart from being rich in information, Reddit's social media also presents a lot and varied entertainment, one of which is well-known in Reddit is memes. The large number of memes that exist on Reddit causes this social media to be often referred to as the source of memes on the internet. Apart from memes, entertainment on social media can also be in the form of videos. Reddit also has many subreddits or communities specialized in uploading videos that are funny, interesting, or even videos that are weird and ridiculous. Entertainment can also be obtained through interaction between users through the comments column or direct messages.
The blocking of Reddit's social media by the Indonesian government seems to be a filter to screen its users, especially for Reddit users in Indonesia. This blocking can avoid the emergence of bot accounts that can disrupt or disrupt ongoing discussions so that the information obtained becomes more valuable and avoids spam information. The difference in the results of the research with the theory used, namely the theory of motives for using social media by Blumer, is caused by differences in the characteristics of the social media used, where in this study, there was no personal identity motive. This is because users of social media, Reddit, tend to be anonymous or don't