Abstract
Celebrity politicians are a growing phenomenon and have recently become a concern in popular and academic cultures. Aside from raising many opinions and thoughts on how politicians behave to be celebrities, many academic texts about celebrity politicians who are showing political activity in the context of celebrity politics in society. Politicians in designing marketing communications strategies for imaging are usually done by highlighting leadership styles and political policies. However, such strategy is now more developed by some politicians by increasing the involvement and high visibility of non-political fields, such as entertainment, arts and sports. Critical researchers, in his study, concluded that celebrity politicians were regarded as a less elegant form of democratic politics, allegedly transforming the political sphere into dramas in theater, duping the electors, and exerting undue influence on political education. Social media that is identical with popularity and more widely used among the young as a popular medium on the internet make social media as an alternative that allows politicians to apply the strategy of celebrity politicians. This research is useful to show the potential of a politician in Indonesia to apply popular cultural strategies and act to be more celebrity in social media to increase their popularity. This study analyzed the messages on Mayor of Bandung Ridwan Kamil’stwitter microblog during the period of January to June 2016. Researchers analyzed 396 tweets that posted by Ridwan Kamil during that period. The result, based on the identification of politician and celebrity messages, it was found that 229 tweets were included into the politicianmessage, and 167 tweets were categorized as a celebrity message. Interestingly, although the comparison of politician’s tweets were more messages of politician than celebrity messages, however statistics showed different things. Out of 396 tweets with the numbers of replies, retweets, and likes that werewithin every tweets, when summed in overall, then the numbers of messages which wereresponded by followers is more on celebrity messages. The result from this study, in comparison of the total number of replies, 50.57% for celebrity message and49.43% politician message. While the comparisons in total retweets, 56.75% for celebrity message and 43.25% forpolitician message. In comparison of overall number of likes, 50.70% for celebritymessage and 49.30%for politician message. The findings in the study indicates a tendency that people on the internet responds more to celebrity messages than politician messages in social media. The most responses were identified as coming from celebrity tweets and the overall number of followers’ responses was also morelikely to be on celebrity messages. This result shows the tendency that celebrity messages in politicians are more popular and favored by followers in social media than on messages of politicians.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Event | 1st Indonesia International Graduate Conference on Communication (IGCC) 2017 - ID, Depok, Indonesia Duration: 1 Jan 2017 → … |
Conference
Conference | 1st Indonesia International Graduate Conference on Communication (IGCC) 2017 |
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Country/Territory | Indonesia |
City | Depok |
Period | 1/01/17 → … |
Keywords
- Politicians; Celebrities; Celebrity Politicians; Ridwan Kamil; Social Media