Indonesian Politicians’ Social Media Role in Encouraging Civic Engagement
Alia Azmi, Ike Sylvia, Desy Mardhiah

Department of Civic Education Universitas Negeri Padang, Department of Sociology Education Universitas Negeri Padang

Abstract

Among the fields that benefit from the internet and social media use are political participation and civic engagement. Politicians have long been using social media for their interests including campaigning and communicating with their constituents. On the other hand, civic engagement, which might include political and non-political actions, has been transformed by the internet and social media use that there are specific terms of civic online participation. This research aims to reveal the role of politicians in social media in attracting civic engagement both online and offline. This research used qualitative content analysis to reveal messages by politicians in their social media accounts. Politicians are selected based on the number of their followers in the most popular social media platforms; Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Therefore, social media posts of three politicians were analyzed; 2014 presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto who has most followers on Facebook fanpage, Bandung mayor Ridwan Kamil who has most followers on Instagram, and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who has most followers in Twitter. The result shows that those politicians use their social media accounts to: (1) inform about their activities, both personal and institution- or party-related; (2) announce public policies; (3) express their opinions on contemporary issues; (d) greet constituents on national holidays; and (e) invite civic engagement. Most of the contents are merely information about their activities and opinions, and there are few invitations for civic engagement. However, further studies on politicians’ posts on social media and civic engagement are needed to reveal a more detailed correlation between the two to propose a better role of politicians in encouraging civic engagement.

Keywords: civic engagement, politicians’ social media, Prabowo Subianto, Ridwan Kamil, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

Topic: Netizens, Networking and Shared Responsibilities