Social media and politics: Examining the effectiveness of social media for social movements and political discussions in Indonesia

Abstract

The participatory features of social media have promoted people’s engagement in politics. But, as yet, the effectiveness of this form of political participation has not been sufficiently explored. This dissertation investigates the effectiveness and role of social media and in particular, Facebook for social movements and political discussions in Indonesia. To this end, it comprises two interlocking phases: first, an inquiry into the role and contribution of social media to the success of social movements; and, second, an examination of the characteristics and quality of political discussions on Facebook. In the first phase of the project I conducted in-depth interviews to explore the contribution of social media to the success of two significant movements, ‘Coins for Prita’ and ‘Support Bibit-Chandra’. Accordingly, I found that social media functions as alternative media and counterparts to mainstream media contribute to the diffusion of movement messages to the public sphere, the primary factor in almost all successful social movements. By considering the interview findings, I argue that in order to reach their goals, online social movements must be accompanied by other requisites such as the existence of a shared public problem in society: positive mainstream media coverage of the movements; and, politicians’ supportive reactions towards the movements. Qualitative content analysis and an online survey were conducted in the second part of the study to examine the characteristics and quality of the informal political discussions that were formed around the ‘Support Bibit-Chandra’ movement on Facebook. The discussions were examined according to the fourfold framework developed for the analysis from the theoretical literature: diversity of opinions; civility; justification; and background knowledge. The results of this part of the study suggested that civility and politeness, as well as willingness to talk to unlike-minded peers, were dominant patterns of interaction among discussants. However, the rate of disputatious discussion and argument supported by background knowledge was relatively low. After considering people’s justification and arguments, I suggested that the nature of political discussions on Facebook was different from the ideal type of deliberation that mainly aims to reach consensus in the decision-making process. Finally, the thesis argues that the bidirectional interaction between social media and mainstream media in Indonesia played a key role both in the success of the two movements alluded to above and in the formation of public opinion and people’s arguments and discussions.