Indonesian Politicians’ Social Media Role in Encouraging Civic Engagement

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, as public figures, in social media in encouraging civic engagement. 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 (most Facebook followers, Bandung mayor Ridwan Kamil (most Instagram followers), and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (most Twitter followers). 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) encourage civic engagement. Most of the contents are merely information about their activities and opinions, and there are few invitations for civic engagement. Further studies on politicians' posts on social media and followers' reaction are needed to reveal a more detailed correlation between the two to propose a better role of politicians in encouraging civic engagement.