Contestation of Islamic Radicalism in Online Media: A Study with Foucault’s Theory on Power Relation

Abstract

This article aims to study the patterns of Islamic discourses constructed by radical Islamic groups in social media. This article focuses on analyzing several Instagram accounts of the groups in shaping Islamic discourses. The discourses of Islamic radicalism were actually not a new idea, even now it has become one of the most talked phenomena. This study discusses the discourse of Islamic radicalism on social media, which is one of its missions is to promote the idea of formalizing Islamic sharia in Indonesia. The results showed that the forms of Islamic radicalism discourses on social media such as the invitation to avoid bid'ah, the campaign to implement Islamic law or Islamic state, Islamic Khilafah discourse that carries "anti-democracy", and a campaign to marginalize women's role in the public sphere. These issues are produced by radical Islamic groups through social media because these media are considered to be strategic and effective in campaigning their discourses as a means of ideological struggle. Fundamentalist Islamic groups are very keen to read the gap, they distinguish a change in the daily lifestyle of modern society which cannot be separated from the gadget. Therefore, they try to master and construct Islamic discourses in cyberspace with their point of view without considering to allow the differences of contextual understanding.

Opinions on Content That Are Extremely Controversial on the Indonesian Twitter

“…Whoever can establish themselves as the dominant party in the radical discourse space does so in large part because of how that discourse has developed and what the public has been most likely to absorb. Therefore, organizations with different agendas or interests in the radical discourse will attempt to fill that space with conceptions, understandings, knowledge, and ideas consistent with their objectives, with the hope that these things would be accepted as facts or universal truths by the public take in information and join the conversation (Haramain et al, 2020).…”