“Guarding The Elections Online”: New Practices, Trust, and Empowerment of Citizens Identities
Antony Lee
| Abstract views: 783
| 
views: 363
Abstract
This paper scrutinizes two relatively similar cyber activisms in Indonesia, namely Guard the 2014 General Election and Guard the 2015 Local Election. The two movements serve as cases to study cyber activisms’ contributions to democracy. Guard the General Election, which received massive support from the internet users, has been acknowledged as a success story of a cyber political crowdsourcing in Indonesia. Guard the Local Election tried to repeat the success a year after, but received fewer supports. By scrutinizing those movements, this writing attempts to answer two connected questions of (1) how can cyber social movements contribute to democracy? (2) Why were some cyber movements received more popular support than the others? This paper argues, these movements have contributed to democratization in the way that the activisms reshaped civic culture; introducing new practices, empowering citizens’ identities, and strengthening trust. Also, the writing explores arguments that political momentum and mainstream media coverage are influential on determining the successfulness of cyber movements. Methodologically, this paper subscribes to qualitative content analysis as a tool to examine interviews materials as well as online and offline texts.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
“Ainun Najib, Teknologi Informasi untuk Negeri” [Ainun Najib, Information Technology for a Nation]. (2014), kompas.com, 22nd July. Available in http://tekno.kompas.com/read/2014/07/22/18374667/Ainun.Najib.Teknologi.Informasi.untuk.Negeri (Accessed 21st September 2014).
“Asia Internet Use, Population Data and Facebook Statistic – June 2016” (2016), Internetworldstats.com, available in http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm (Accessed 15th September 2016).
“C1 Pemilu 2014” [C1 Form’s Election 2014]. (2014), kpu.go.id. Available in
https://pemilu2014.kpu.go.id/c1.php (Accessed 26th September 2014).
“How Open Data Restored Citizen Trust in Indonesian Election”. (2014), futuregov.asia. Available in http://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2014/sep/26/how-open-data-restored-citizen-trust-indonesian-el/ (Accessed 26th September 2014).
“Indonesian Technies Crowdsource Election Results”. (2014), ft.com, 18th July. Available in http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6c62a8b6-0e33-11e4-85ab-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3DqpIRJNh (Accessed 20th September 2014).
“Indonesian Police Fifth Most Corrupt Institution in the Country: Transparency International”. (2017). Jakartaglobe.id, 10th March. Available in https://jakartaglobe.id/context/indonesian-police-fifth-corrupt-institution-country-transparency-international (Accessed 8th April 2017)
“Infografis Change.org Indonesia 2013”. Available in http://houseofinfographics.com/infografis-change-org-indonesia-di-tahun-2013/ (Acccessed 17th September 2016).
“Infografis Change.org Indonesia 2014”. Available in http://houseofinfographics.com/infografis-change-org-2014/ (Accessed 17th September 2016).
“Infografis Change.org Indonesia 2015”. Available in http://houseofinfographics.com/infografis-change-org-2015/ (Accessed 17th September 2016).
“Prabowo Refuses to Concede Defeat”. (2014), thejakartaglobe.com, 9th July. Available in http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/prabowo-refuses-concede-defeat/ (Accessed in 21th September 2014).
“Profil Pengguna Internet Indonesia 2014” [the Profile of Indonesian’ Internet Users 2014]. (2015). Asosiasi Penyelenggara Jasa Internet Indonesia. Available in https://apjii.or.id/downfile/file/PROFILPENGGUNAINTERNETINDONESIA2014.pdf (Accessed 16th September 2016).
Antlöv, Hans., Brinkerhoff, Derick W., Rapp, Elke. (2010), “Civil Society Capacity Building from Democratic Reform: Experience and Lessons from Indonesia”. In Voluntas, Vol. 21: pp. 417-439.
Belair-Gagnon, Valeria. (2015). Social Media at BBC News: The Remaking of Crisis Reporting. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bennett, W.L. and A. Segerberg, (2011), “Digital media and the personalization of collective action: Social technology and the organization of protests against the global economic crisis”. In Information, Communication & Society 14 (6): pp770-799.
Bryman, Alan. 2004. Social Research Methods. (2ndEd). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, Louis., Manion, Lawrence., Morrison, Keith. (2007). Research Methods in Education. (6th Ed). Abingdon: Routledge.
Cornelius, Wayne A. (2003), "Interviewing Undocumented Immigrants: Methodological Reflection Based on Fieldwork in Mexico and in the US". In Fielding, Nigel (Ed), Interviewing Volume II. London: SAGE Publication
Dahlgren, Peter. (2003), “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu”. In Corner, John and Pels, Dick (Eds). Media and the Restyling of Politics. London: SAGE Publications.
Dahlgren, Peter. (2004), “Civic Cultures and Net Activism: Modest Hopes for the EU Public Sphere”. In Conference on One EU-Many Publics?. Scotland, UK, 5-6 February. Available in http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/projects/cidel/old/WorkshopStirling/PaperDahlgren.pdf (Accessed 22nd September 2014).
Dahlgren, Peter. and Olsson, Tobias. (2007), “From Public Sphere to Civic Culture: Young Citizen’s Internet Uses”. In Butsch, Richard (Ed). Media and Public Sphere. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dahlgren, Peter. (2009). Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication, and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahlgren, Peter. (2011), Young Citizens and Political Participation: Online Media and Civic Culture”. In Taiwan Journal of Democracy Vol. 7, No. 2: pp. 11-25.
Dahlgren, Peter. (2013). The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dahlgren, Peter. (2014), “Social Media and Political Participation: Discourse and Deflection”. In Fuchs, Christian. And Sandoval, Marisol. Critique, Social Media, and the Information Society. Abingdon: Routledge.
Freelon, Deen. (2014), “Online Civic Activism: Where Does It Fit?”. In Policy and Internet Vol. 6, No. 2: pp 192-198.
Fuchs, C. (2012) “Some reflections on Manuel Castells’ book Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age”. triple C 10(2): pp775-795. Available at: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/459 (Accessed 1st September 2014).
Gazali, Effendi. (2014), “Learning by Clicking: An Experiment with Social Media Democracy in Indonesia”. In the International Communication Gazette Vol. 76 (4-5): pp 425-439.
Hamid, Usman (2014). Dinamo: Digital Nation Movement. Jakarta: Bentang Pustaka.
Jadi, Soepri. (2014). Kawal Pemilu 2014 [Facebook]. 19th July. Available in https://m.facebook.com/notes/kawal-pemilu-2014/faqs-frequently-asked-questions-kawalpemiluorg/1454251508176811 (Accessed 26th September 2014).
Kawal Pemilu 2014 (2014) [Facebook]. Available in https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kawal-Pemilu-2014/1452601258341836 (Accessed 21st September 2014).
Komisi Pemilihan Umum [The General Election Commission]. (2016). Data and Info graphic Book: 2014 Legislative and Presidential Election. Jakarta: KPU.
La Rosa, Amaro. (2014), “Social Media and Social Movements Around the World”. In Patrut, Bogdan and Patrut, Monica (Eds). Social Media in Politics: Case Studies on the Political Power of Social Media. London: Springer.
Lee, Antony. (2016), “Pasang Surut Partisipati Politik di Dunia Maya” [The Tides of Political Engagement on Cyber Spaces]. In Tinjauan Kompas: Menatap Indonesia 2016 [Kompas’ Outlook: Indonesia’s Outlook 2016]. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas
Lim, Merlyna. (2013), “Many Clicks but Little Sticks: Social Media Activism in Indonesia”. In Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 43, No. 4: pp 636-657.
Mietzner, Marcus. (2012), “Indonesia’s Democratic Stagnation: Anti-Reformist Elites and Resilient Civil Society”. In Democratization Vol. 19, No. 2: pp 209-229.
Morozov, Evgeny. (2011). The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Perseus Book Group.
Priyono, AE et al. (2014). Media Sosial Alat Gerakan Sipil [Social Media, Civil Movement’s Tool]. Jakarta: Public Virtue Institute.
Romero, Leocadia Diaz. (2014), “On the Web and Contemporary Social Movements”. ”. In Patrut, Bogdan and Patrut, Monica (Eds). Social Media in Politics: Case Studies on the Political Power of Social Media. London: Springer.
Yang, Guobin. (2009), “Online Activism”. In Journal of Democracy Vol. 20, No. 3: pp 33-36.
Yangyue, Liu. (2011), “Crafting a Democratic Enclave on the Cyberspace: Case Studies of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore”. In Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs Vol. 4: pp. 33-55.
Zaid, Bouziane. (2016), “Internet and Democracy in Morocco: A Force for Change and Instrument for Repression”. In Global Media and Communication, Vol. 12, No. 1: pp. 49-66.
Interviews
Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah, Commissioner of the Indonesian General Election Commission, September 23, 2016.
Daniel Zuchron, Commissioner of the Indonesian Election Supervisory Agency, September 27, 2016.
Khairul Anshar, Initiator of Kawal Pilkada (Guard the Local Elections), September 26, 2016.
Ratna, volunteer of Kawal Pilkada and Kawal Pemilu, September 27, 2016.
Herry Dharmawan, volunteer of Kawal Pilkada, September 23, 2016.
Iqbal Farabi, volunteer of Kawal Pemilu, October 6, 2016.
Dianjar, journalist of TVRI (Indonesian National Broadcasting), September 27, 2016.
Dian Ramdhani, journalist of Seputar Indonesia Newspaper, October 7, 2016.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
