Document details

Making it Personal: The Campaign Battle on Social Media in Indonesia's 2019 Presidential Election

Singapore: ISEAS (2019), 11 pp.

Series: ISEAS Perspective, 2019: 28

ISSN 2335-6677

"Ranked fourth in the number of Facebook users in the world in 2018, Indonesia has witnessed increasing social media usage as a strategic platform for political campaigns since the third direct presidential election in 2014. Due to their accessibility and relatively low cost, social media platforms are extensively used by both the Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto camps to broadcast short and punchy messages directly to voters. Prabowo sees social media as the means to offset the incumbent president’s advantage of having favourable coverage by the mainstream media. Nevertheless, Widodo still has an edge over Prabowo in the number of online supporters. Reflecting the general nature of Indonesian politics and election campaign dynamics, the social media campaigning by both camps have focused on personal attacks against their opponents while highlighting their own candidates’ personal appeal. There is hardly room for meaningful policy discourse; in any case, policyrelated postings draw little enthusiasm from the netizens." (Executive summary)