No abstract

The use of social media has been expanding rapidly that it has been recently overwhelmed not only players in Indonesian electoral and political scenes but also general public. While previous studies appeared to put an emphasis on the technological forces (the social media itself), the political forces (the political parties, politicians or candidates) or cultural forces (the voters or social media users) alone to understand the development, this article argues that the use of social media in electoral campaigning requires mediation by economic forces as represented by the political campaign industry. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with key politicians, campaigners, social media users and media people, the involvement of the political campaign industry in the commodification of social media is found. Such a commodification has resulted in the emergence of buzzing, social media users mobilization and social media monitoring. Keywords: Political Campaign Industry, Social Media, Commodification, Electoral Campaign, Online Politics Abstrak Penggunaan media sosial berkembang pesat sehingga membuat pemain dalam pemilihan dan pemilihan politik di Indonesia beberapa tahun ini merasa kewalahan. Penelitian sebelumnya cenderung lebih menekankan kekuatan teknologi (yaitu media sosial itu sendiri), kekuatan politik (partai politik, politisi atau kandidat) atau kekuatan budaya (pemilih atau pengguna media sosial) saja untuk memahami perkembangan tersebut. Penelitian ini berpendapat bahwa penggunaan media sosial dalam kampanye pemilihan umum memerlukan mediasi oleh kekuatan ekonomi yang diwakili oleh industri kampanye politik. Berdasarkan serangkaian wawancara mendalam dengan politisi kunci, juru kampanye, pengguna media sosial dan media, ditemukan bahwa keterlibatan industri kampanye politik dalam komodifikasi media sosial. Komoditas semacam itu telah menghasilkan munculnya aktivitis seperti buzzing, social media users mobilisation dan social media monitoring.

This notes aims to highlight results of a research conducted on the use of social media by women entrepreneurs in managing micro businesses in Indonesian urban areas.The outputs of this study identify the perceptions, beliefs, opinions, and lived experiences of women entrepreneurs on the use of social media as a business tool and the benefits that these businesses bring to their personal, social, and professional lives.This information is insightful in understanding the opportunities given by this type of business and the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs to open and manage such business.At the same time, the study is also able to provide business strategies for other women who want to start social media business as a mode of empowerment.

All around the globe, populism has become increasingly prominent in democratic societies in the developed and developing world. Scholars have attributed this rise at a response to the systematic reproduction of social inequalities entwined with processes of neoliberal globalisation, within which all countries are inextricably and dynamically linked. However, to theorise populism properly, we must look at its manifestations in countries other than the West. By taking the case of Indonesia, the third largest democracy and the largest economy in Southeast Asia, this article critically analyses the role of the political campaign industry in mobilising narratives in electoral discourses. We use the Gramscian notion of consent and coercion, in which the shaping of populist narratives relies on mechanisms of persuasion using mass and social media. Such mechanisms allow the transformation of political discourses in conjunction with oligarchic power struggle. Within this struggle, political campaigners narrate the persona of political elites, while cyber armies divide and polarise, to manufacture allegiance and agitation among the majority of young voters as part of a shifting social base. As such, we argue that, together, the narratives – through engineering consent and coercion – construct authoritarian populism that pits two crowds of “the people” against each other, while aligning them with different sections of the “elite.”