Politic goes digital, so what?
A review on Internet
Politics
Irmawan Rahyadi
Master of Communication Department. Binus Graduate Program.
Binus Graduate Program
Jakarta, Indonesia
irmawan.rahyadi@binus.edu
Abstract - This article explores and mobilises the concept of ‘internet politics’ as an analytical
entry point for understanding how politics emerge in the digital media world targeted to the public
conversation and constituents believe to promote engagement and participation. Understanding
political communication to public in digital platform is strategic in a digital era where exposure to
political message is inevitable. Some leading academic databases are searched within a methodology
of literature review to report a review of studies on internet politics. The result shows that research
in this area incline towards utilization of a specific platform in digital world. We conclude that
political communication in the digital world started in the west and followed by non-western
researcher. Technological advancement makes possible for people to communicate and gather
virtually as in social media platform, thus any digital platform accessible for a substantial number
of people is a potential channel for political communication where further research in this area
needs to be directed.
Keywords—political communication, political marketing, digital platform, social media, political
message.
I. INTRODUCTION
Young adult and slightly older generation in the era of online communication used to consume
information and persuasion via online media. Exposure push and pull information to their gadget has
become inevitable for most of them. Meanwhile, social cohesion within them restrict their utilization of
online media in a way of digital inclusion is a necessity to overcome social problem (Farooq et al., 2015).
Affiliation to good cause has been a trend in digital era (Chon, 2016; Foster, 2012; Harris and Ruth,
2014). Thus, many more social causes marketing their way through online media breaking norm of
persuading target audiences physically.
A. Social Marketing Online
Social marketing has similar concept to commercial marketing. Primary beneficiaries of the goal are the
main factor that set them apart. Social marketing targets society, while commercial marketing answers to
corporate stakeholders (Lee and Kotler, 2011). Some of the techniques to assist society in social marketing
effort are creating portable content which noticeably posted for online platform and can easily accessed
from gadget. A specific type of portable content is accustomed to social media generated contents.
Consequently, this marketing notion is thought to stem from classic marketing idea then advanced with
social media utilization. Micro blogging where text is the king similarly image and video based social media
are some of the channel of communication where social marketing flourishes to connect to their
beneficiaries. Online activist nowadays as an activity and as a perception seems to take social media by
storm. Social marketers could and have utilized Instagram, Facebook and YouTube as their marketing
channel. This channel can also be seen as platform to collaborate between online activists and as agent of
marketing messages. Are all social marketing campaigns utilized online media always effective? The
answer to this question is not as simple as writing it down on paper. Some social marketing campaign
produced poor result. Some campaign achieved positive program outcomes (Wymer, 2011).
Practitioner needs to underline that even though online platform is used widely and more accessed than
before, there are certain method to target online users and understanding of online platform characteristic
in order to succeed in the social marketing campaign. One of key concepts in the social marketing issue is
accessibility. So, online platform opens up access to information as well as connection to target audiences
with reference to society, based on the niche of the particular social marketing in question (Peattie and
Peattie, 2009). Digital media has been a part of media and marketing campaign as techniques and strategies
to win the audiences whereas the development of expansion of social network propelled the utilization of
online platform.
B. Indonesian Social Marketing
Listed as the fourth largest population in the world, Indonesia has significant potential as social market,
let alone commercial (Worldometer.info, 2019). At the same time, this huge audiences possess a challenge
for social marketing. Some successful social marketing endeavor in Indonesia target a specific element in
the society (Hornik et al.; Nguyen and Rowley, 2015; Pepall et al., 2006). The concept of segmentation is
implemented by campaign launcher in the platform Kitabisa.com (Rijanto, 2018). This platform opens a
playing field for any activist who wants to fund their social cause from public. It is basically a crowdfunding
platform and most of the project funded through this website aims for social cause.
Social marketing efforts is not only a domain for local institutions or activists, but international
organization also launch social campaign in Indonesia. For example, ILO launched a campaign to improve
healthy and responsible working environment (Parker et al., 2015). This type of internationalization of
social marketing also involved local institution as agency in the field. Most of nongovernmental
organization with link to international institution have targeted Indonesian for their social projects, in view
of its big population.
II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
A. Theoretical Framework
Scientific conversation in the literature has mentioned how marketing field can be used for social cause.
Social marketing practiced and sets its theory as an adaptation from the contemporary commercial
marketing (Dann, 2010). Commercial marketing has enhanced earlier compare to social marketing in term
of utilization of channel and innovation of marketing capabilities (Morgan et al., 2018).
Social marketing expanding its reach through variety of niche audiences and cause. Government body
as an initiator of social marketing has been observed in national policy making process where social
marketing policy can improve citizen well-being as one of the elements in the society as the target of
marketing projects. Santos (2011) investigated the British policy on social marketing process. He found
that complete understanding of the political process leads to better management of the national social
marketing and can be copied and implemented to other countries. Using a mixed method of qualitative and
quantitative, this study examined social marketing to reinforce public health efficiency implemented in
England through National Social Marketing Strategy Team consisting of academics, Department of Health,
social organizations and public health officers.
Health promotion, public policy, community coalition, financial and economy are not the only area of
social marketing. Practitioners and policy makers need to know certain background knowledge on the
concept of social marketing if they want to effect change in a competent way. Rundle-Thiele et al. (2019)
explored framework as theory for effort to deliver a solution to social problem. They presented 10 goals to
guide research direction in social marketing containing research design themes, building social marketing
theories and innovating research methodologies. The implication of their study for practice revealed that
practitioner need to understand barrier to and driver to change in ensuring a successful campaign.
B. Research Questions
This study hypothesized that political realm utilizes this Internet media to gain access to abundant audiences
which has been commercially benefited some other party outside the political world. Principally,
communication to audiences under commercial agenda directed toward large gathering of audiences, it
called “market” in economic terms. Internet is relatively standard place to gather for people with certain
similarity in characteristic, interest, demography and point of view (Qu & Watson, 2019).
Considering the term market for financial gain, this large number of people gathering is a potential
constituent for political gain that grow as research focus for interdisciplinary study from different field from
communication to political sciences. The target audiences of communication process from political entity
within the digital world are large in quantity but segmented at the same time, required communicator having
strategies to gain their attention (Guazina et al., 2018; Hansen & Lim, 2018; Lim, 2017; Ovchinnikov,
2014). There are several elements in political communication being implemented in the Internet Politics
field. This study explored and observed this area of literature to get a deeper understanding of the concept
and application.
RQ1. To what degree and in what manner Internet, social media, and related digital platform relate
to the use of all these channels for political purposes
RQ2. Whether there is an explanatory dimension to reasons political entity utilization of Internet
media.
DATA AND METHOD
III.
Data gathered, analyzed and explained and method on how the process of researching the subject are
detailed in this section. This section also refers to the process involved from identification of literature in
Internet Politics. While the exact term of the study explored and widened throughout literature, this section
highlights this study management of data and methodology used to answer the research questions.
Limitation of the study is this study review research and review literature at the same time. There is a risk
of some level of depth in analyzing the topic where it might benefit to the wider audience if future research
explores on only research literature or only review literature. Each individual academic database is observed
as main data sources for analysis purpose to illustrate how politic utilize the internet media in order to
achieve their agenda. Some studies explored specific geographical details, whereas other studies look
deeper into a specific internet media and digital platform.
A. Data
Data presented in this study comes from academic databases which specifically literature in the field of
communication science is mostly available. The databases explored are Sage journal, Taylor and Francis
Journal, ProQuest, Science Direct, Emerald Insight, EBSCO, and WILEY. These resources offer some of
literature findings in the area of Internet Politics. This field of study falls under communication sciences
and political sciences as interdisciplinary field of research. Sage journal contributes most of the data in this
study with leading journal in area of communication with 80-plus academic journals under Politics and
International relations subject and 60-plus academic journals under Communication and Media Studies,
followed by Taylor and Francis with 59 academic journals under Communication Studies, 270 academic
journals under Social Sciences and 237 academic journals under Politics and International Relations.
However, this study explores research focus on interdisciplinary topic where research might be published
in several different journal within the related research field. All other database offers similar category of
journal subjects where the data originated from. Data gathered from resources are limited within a certain
period as research period for the purpose of answering research question with updated literature. Most
literature published in the data come from interdisciplinary studies. Literatures published in academic
journals as research source are the raw data in this study categorized in several different subject will be
detailed in methodology section.
B. Method
The review sources for answering the research question are using qualitative literature review
methodology. Qualitative literature review is one of the review approaches to draw a certain pattern in the
academic literature. Some of the other common approaches are theoretical literature review, which refers
to applying a specific theory in identifying and mapping an academic field (Turner et al., 2018; ).
, systematical integrative literature review. All academic databases are studied as the core sources
of discussion into Internet Politics. Methodology chosen in this study aim for exploring how politic makes
use of the Internet as a medium to disseminate its message to audiences.
Firstly, keywords are identified and used consistently to explore the topic and concept. Keywords are
selected pointing to Internet Politic as main theme, thus data gathering process adapting to search engine
by maintaining keywords to pinpoint search results. Only these two words are used which are “internet”
and “politics”. These two words are joined into a concept of “Internet Politics”. In one particular database,
Taylor and Francis, the “Internet Politics” is categorized as a subject in and of itself. The rest of databases
are explored the same way and resulted in search result which ranked according to relevance but within a
set preset time period. Most of the database provides a feature where users allowed to set their search
process ranking based on relevance and at the same time within a set of time.
Searching this keyword in all database is limited from 2017-2019 focusing the result in relevance within
the period. The reason behind the time period organized in such way is to focus on recent findings in the
databases. Exploring seven electronic databases as key sources conducted within recent publication
generating a set of literature to answer research questions for this study.
he empirical sources for answering the research questions are using qualitative content analysis. Three
Instagram accounts are studied as the core case of social marketing. The qualitative method is chosen for
the reason of it is the method to interpret meaning of qualitative data in some degree, because data never
‘speak for itself’ but a specific meaning is embedded in the data (Schreier, 2012).
The sources are @koalisipejalankaki, @markirterus @trotoarian then later analyzed post per post to
reveal how they use marketing element as social marketing effort especially in digital platform. These three
accounts are the ones which have the advocating content within the area of pedestrian marketing. The study
with content analysis with 3805 postings total for all Instagram accounts that are using image, video and
text content for purpose that vary from the detection of misuse of sidewalks as parking spots for motorbikes
and cars, advertisement banners was obstructing the pedestrian way to motorcycles are riding on the
pedestrian path. This is the preliminary identification of data from searching and observing several hashtags
related to the advocating the right of pedestrian on the sidewalks which narrowed this process of
identification of data sources into these three accounts.
Secondary sources are a mobile application and website links which will be an added marketing tool for
this social cause. These sources will be studied as how this pedestrian marketing by civil society in this
small scale utilized digital platform more than social media. Thus, Instagram accounts are the main data
sources for this research. This specific website and mobile application are the extension of Instagram
accounts in order to understand the whole social marketing of this pedestrian right.
Each post will be taken as an individual case which approach to understand the meaning of data as how
pedestrian marketing was advocated to public in Indonesian. The data found in the Instagram accounts were
chosen on the basis of a most relatable marketing effort to the social cause that is well suited to answer the
research questions. By studying posts that promoted the pedestrian right over sidewalks, it becomes
possible to detect features of the marketing that enable and constrain mode of social marketing within the
digital platform. Data available in the gathered sources is studied to fulfill the noncommercial motive which
is to share key concepts and lesson derived from the analysis of the meaning of any data in the social media
world. (Shalin, 2017). The data gathering process is accumulated data as the total postings at the end of the
research period. Hence, the data compiled and categorized in a coding process. The coding resulted in
different code to better understand the meaning of data in hand.
Coding process, firstly, started with preparing the data follows by reflecting on, documenting personal
perceptions based on literature, manually assign code to data, developing categories and lastly, connecting
the categories (Adu, 2019). Data was prepared through following the three accounts with researcher
personal account and direct-messaged the admin managing the account for checking whether the account
still active or inactive. Manually scrolling down to all posts in the accounts until the end of the line to find
the first post. Following that reflecting upon the ideas being promoted and marketed in the accounts. The
perspective and biases found in this particular acknowledging process are revealing to the understanding
of how civil society marketed social improvement, which will be further elaborated in the analysis part in
the next chapter.
The subsequent step is assigning codes to these data manually. Codes are recognized from the meaning
of data then categorized as code to make process of analysis in place. The codes that are assigned resulted
from previous steps followed by developing categories which will be discussed in the analysis. Categories
found then connected from generating a pattern in Instagram accounts content.
IV. PEDESTRIAN MARKETING USING INSTAGRAM IN INDONESIA
Pedestrian marketing is an effort of promoting the right of pedestrian on sidewalks and their standard
wellbeing in relations to the facility, infrastructure and other road users’ behavior. In Indonesia, there has
been less focus on pedestrians’ wellbeing compare to other road users. It is found from the study that other
road users need more awareness and education in respecting pedestrians on the road. Details of the findings
from this study will be elaborated below categorized as sectional ideas highlighting on how Indonesian
civil society market pedestrian wellbeing via Instagram.
A. International vs. National
The three Instagram accounts as the source of data observed in this study are local element of civil
society targeting Indonesian as target audiences. National coverage is the aim for these three accounts.
Most of the photos posted comes from location around Jakarta area. It has been Jakarta was listed in
63.32 out of 100 in infrastructure security which mean that infrastructure has not given enough security for
the resident including road infrastructure for pedestrian (Nag, 2018). There are some portion of the photos
taken from location outside Jakarta area for example Bogor, Depok, Palembang, Bandung, Yogyakarta,
Surabaya, Malang, Medan, etc. Local governmental and nongovernmental organizations also are
mentioned, and their content are reposted.
While national target is shown as the main focus. Data also shows some international coverage content
for example repost content from @ifpedestrians which an international nongovernment institution which
promoting the right of pedestrians. @koalisipejalankaki is a member of the international organization and
regularly reposts content from the organization timeline. @koalisipejalankaki also launched the same
offline campaign similar to the one launched by @ifpedestrians. This campaign capture pedestrians who
used hopscotch drew deliberately onto sidewalks in Jakarta.
There is also a content about pedestrian-friendly cities around the world showing some cities if organized
well can have better awareness to pedestrian right on the sidewalks. There are some repost contents from
@worldeconomicforum supporting the promotion of healthy urban life. One repost-video promoting
scramble crosswalk installed in intersection in Los Angeles, USA which attracting comments from netizen
about how this type of crosswalk can solve intersection crossing issue for pedestrians. A repost from
@bbcnews about silly walk campaign reportage organized by Monty Python comedy troupe. There were
hundreds of people involved in the campaign held in Budapest, Hungary. This international campaign
resonates with pedestrians right where Budapest is a comfortable city for pedestrians. This video post is an
inspiration to the target audiences of this pedestrian marketing that when the infrastructure well-designed
for pedestrians, pedestrian can have more fun on the street. A satirical video reposted from foxnews. It
shows how “animal” pedestrians in group crossing the road seriously and diligently without any crosswalk
or traffic light.
Language used in the data is mostly Indonesian with some posts from international organization and
news sources which copied pasted as they are in English. It does not take away the main target audiences
of pedestrian marketing which are Indonesian.
B. Discipline vs. Shaming
One of the patterns of idea in the content is looking to educate and share act of discipline among road
users especially emphasizing on pedestrians right on sidewalks. There are several postings in sources of
data in the form of poster and flyer encouraging public to follow rules, regulation, social norm and value.
The target audiences in these particular posts are motor vehicle owner, street vendor, and local government
body in relation to policy change or regulation enforcement. The poster is presented in the postings as photo
capture on scene and some photo also presented as softcopy file. There are some photo and videos covering
regulation enforcing act, for example, some volunteers holding up flyers on the street and local government
team pulling some motorbikes off sidewalks because they are parking in the off-limits spot.
Social media and most of mass media treat controversial content as valuable because it has potential to
draw more attention than the “normal” content. Content found in the data shows that photo of motor
vehicles parking and behaving disregarding pedestrians leading to shaming. The accounts as the original
owner of the contents then mentioned. This technique works as a shaming by getting public notice of this
person or group wrongly act in relations to pedestrians right. The street vendor photo and video also posted
showing photos small scale and big scale commercial block sidewalk for pedestrian mobility. The shaming
of motorbike or car which block pedestrian walkway invites conversation into issue of credibility and
credentials. Some of the comment mentioned that the accounts should cover the plate number of the vehicle.
Some motor vehicle owners even commented and apologized in the comment section because of this
technique.
Sidewalk in Indonesia has different quality and maintenance status across the nation. These accounts
posted video and photos regarding the condition of sidewalks. The bad quality sidewalks photos and videos
range from photos of pavement with holes filled with water from the rain a night earlier to video of a
pedestrian walking down the sidewalk and found a drainage without a cover which is very dangerous for
pedestrians. Mantainance and taking care of
A post shows a photo proposing how an infrastructure is actually disregard the pedestrian in Jakarta.
The caption targeted to provincial government of Jakarta and Instagram account of the governor is
mentioned. It is a construction of culture spot with concrete which at the end of the built will eliminate
most of the tree and sidewalks around the area.
@koalisipejalankaki initiate a campaign #TamasyaTrotoarKita with invitation to share photos or
evidence condition of infrastructure of sidewalks from anywhere in the country. The invitation to enjoy
walking down a comfortable sidewalk and playing a game of hopscotch is also promoted with the campaign.
The data pointed to this theme of discussion also revealed good condition of sidewalk as example or an
ideal condition around the country. Some photos posted also shows good condition and quality in some
places in Indonesia. A photo also shows how Japan local authority designed their drainage cover with
colorful drawing.
The data shows along this theme posts in the Instagram accounts also covering on quality of sidewalks
in relations to the wellbeing of pedestrians. A post on sidewalks which installed with steep curve making it
hard to walk along the pedestrians’ path. Another post on sidewalks with big trees in the middle of the path
making all the the pedestrians must walk around it and get off the sidewalk. Another post on sidewalks with
big plant vase placed in the middle of it blocking pedestrians to walk through it. A critic on quality of
sidewalk near Jakarta MRT lane invited an official account comment and clarification after
@koalisipejalankaki mentioned the account in the caption of the post.
Comparing and contrasting is one of the methods used in the pedestrian marketing by the accounts. A
repost from @ifpedestrians shows two different photos (before and after) when the authority in Amsterdam
removing 10,000 car parking places from the street. It shows the better quality of sidewalk after the
removing. A video repost from @ifpedestrians shows a comparison of a number of cars on the street and
the same number of people in the car if the people just walk to their destination. It shows better condition
of street when most people walk.
C. Users Generated Content (UGC) vs. Repost Content
The data contains both users generated and repost contents in the three Instagram accounts. The accounts
invite public to send their photos relating to streets, sidewalk, discipline on the traffic situation. The photos
also mentioned all the account as the owner of the original photos.
There are balanced proportion between users generated and repost contents found in the data. UGC
refers to original content from administrator. This UGC varied from poster encouraging public to send their
content in regard of pedestrians, video of motorbike riders using pedestrian path to avoid traffic jam, photos
of the behavior of road users in Indonesia an international.
Repost content is the extension of invitation from administrator of accounts targeted to public to send
their content and then the administrator of accounts post it as repost content. Individual accounts are source
of repost content in relations to motor vehicle owner behavior that neglect pedestrians right, for example a
repost from @un1c0rn1902 where a photo shows three motorbike parked in the pedestrians’ path and the
repost also include some mentions in caption to @aniesbaswedan, @dishubjakarta and @dkijakarta. This
type of technique aims for this incident of perpetrator who often disregard the right of pedestrians. The
motor vehicle owner is not the only party in this theme. A violation of pedestrian right also committed by
street vendors who habitually make walking on pedestrians’ path unbearable because of the garbage, space
and accessibility.
Repost content also comes from local authority, for example poster from campaigns organization by
@dishubjakarta, @ntmc_polri, @dishubsurabaya, etc. Also, some repost contain actions form the local
authority when they confiscated motor vehicle or street vendor from the pedestrians’ path. Some repost
contents also come from mass media social media accounts referring to news coverage on pedestrian, road
infrastructure and road users in general.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research has been made possible by the research fund at the Bina Nusantara University. The author
declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article. The author received financial support for the publication of this article from Bina Nusantara
University.
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