Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Campaigns: Hyper-local and Personal Touchpoints Matter Most

The importance of social media in election campaigns has been much hyped but where Indonesia’s ongoing 2024 presidential election campaigns are concerned, it appears that the most utilised, most trusted sources of information still reside in the physical rather than the virtual realm.

According to an ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute poll conducted nationwide and face-to-face across the archipelago by Lembaga Survei Institute (LSI) in late November 2023, Indonesian respondents relied most on television and direct conversations with family, friends, and co-workers for election-related information. Nearly 45 per cent of the 2,000 respondents said they turned to television for election-related news at least three to four days a week, followed by 34 per cent who had election-related conversations with friends and family at the same frequency. Digital platforms WhatsApp (21 per cent) and YouTube (20 per cent) were the third and fourth most relied upon sources.

Unsurprisingly, for youth respondents (aged 15 to 24 years), who will comprise 20 per cent of Indonesia’s 204.8 million voters this year, the importance of social media and online platforms was significantly higher (Table 1). Although television was still the most important source of election-related news among youth (34 per cent), its importance was significantly lower for this group compared to respondents 25 years old and above. For youth, TikTok and Instagram were tied as the second-most important sources of election-related news (30 per cent), followed closely by direct conversations with family, friends, and co-workers, and YouTube.          

Table 1: Top ten most accessed mediums as sources of election-related news [Share (in %) of respondents with access at or greater than 3-4 days/week]

Rank	All respondents		Age 15-24 (Youth)		Age 25 & above
1	TV	44.8	TV	33.5	TV	47.6
2	Direct conversation with family, friends and co-workers	34.2	TikTok	29.5	Direct conversation with family, friends and co-workers	35.3
3	WhatsApp	21.3	Instagram	29.5	WhatsApp	20.1
4	YouTube	19.7	Direct conversation with family, friends, and co-workers	29.4	YouTube	17.4
5	Facebook	15.6	YouTube	29.0	Direct conversation in a social context	16.4
6	Direct conversation in a social context	15.4	WhatsApp	26.5	Facebook	15.0
7	TikTok	14.4	Online news portal	19.5	TikTok	10.7
8	Instagram	12.3	Facebook	18.1	Online news portal	9.2
9	Online news portal	11.2	Direct conversation in a social context	11.4	Instagram	8.1
10	Radio	4.4	Twitter (X)	5.9	Radio	4.6

When asked to identify the top three most helpful means of getting to know the presidential and vice-presidential (VP) candidates, ranked first were banners/billboards (64 per cent). This was followed by news and dialogues on TV (47 per cent) and advertisements on TV (33 per cent). YouTube (17 per cent) ranked a distant sixth, followed by Facebook (13 per cent), campaign team/volunteer visits (11 per cent), with TikTok and Instagram tied at 9 per cent (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Most helpful mediums for knowing candidates

When asked to identify their most trusted sources of election-related news, the top three were direct conversations with family, friends, and co-workers (45 per cent); television (39 per cent); and direct conversations in a social setting (31 per cent). Newspapers/magazines and YouTube ranked fourth and fifth. Although the top three most trusted sources were the same for the youth segment, these respondents had much higher trust levels in all online platforms relative to older respondents.

Respondents also reflected a relatively high level of trust in Indonesia’s institutions and community leaders, which were significantly more trusted as general sources of information. Clerics (that is, Muslim leaders) and family were the most trusted government and community institutions, followed by other religious (non-Muslim) leaders and the National Armed Forces (TNI). This suggests that while the presence and usage of social media and chat messaging applications are ubiquitous in Indonesia, their potential influence on voter perceptions and behaviour may be mitigated by the voters’ high trust in and the influence of government and community institutions, especially religious leaders.   

The survey’s findings suggest that the tendency towards selective belief in reinforcing one’s view could further weaken the intended impact of swaying voter perceptions and decisions via online electoral propaganda and disinformation.

These findings suggest that the influence and importance of social media campaigns in the current Indonesian hustings should not be overblown. So too the potential impact of fake news and disinformation in swaying voter decisions. In the poll, respondents were asked about several instances of fake news on social media concerning the candidates. In each instance, no more than 22 per cent of respondents said that they had heard the fake news; less than 10 per cent said they believed those examples to be true, regardless whether they had heard of them.

The poll findings also suggest the saliency of selective news exposure and selective belief amongst supporters of the respective presidential pairings. For instance, respondents were asked whether they were aware of the controversial Constitutional Court ruling that paved the way for President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) son Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run as Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto’s running-mate, and that the ruling was presided over by Gibran’s uncle who was then Chief Justice of that court. Significantly, 49 per cent of Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar’s (Team AMIN) supporters and 42 per cent of Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD’s supporters had heard the news compared with a significantly lower 33 per cent of Prabowo-Gibran’s supporters.

Moreover, while 41 per cent of Team AMIN’s supporters and 27 per cent of Ganjar-Mahfud’s supporters believed the news about the court ruling and familial connection, just 19 per cent of Prabowo-Gibran’s supporters thought the news was true. (Note: The ISEAS-LSI poll was done before the presidential/VP debates began.) While 49 per cent of Team AMIN’s supporters had heard about narratives suggesting that Jokowi was seeking to perpetuate a political dynasty via Prabowo-Gibran, only 30 per cent of Prabowo-Gibran’s supporters had. Ganjar-Mahfud’s supporters were almost as shielded from such narratives, with only 35 per cent indicating they had heard such news. While 35 per cent of Team AMIN’s supporters and 19 per cent of Ganjar-Mahfud’s believed this narrative to be true, only 13 per cent of Prabowo-Gibran’s supporters felt the same.   

It seems that the strong popular support enjoyed by the Prabowo-Gibran pairing has been resilient against the negative narratives being propagated about them, partly because of the self-perpetuating effects of voters’ selective exposures and beliefs (before controlling for voters’ profiles). Based on the ISEAS-LSI survey findings, Prabowo-Gibran retain a formidable lead with 45.3 per cent of support from respondents; followed by Ganjar-Mahfud (23.7 per cent) and Anies-Muhaimin (22.4 per cent).  

With just over three weeks of campaigning left to go, there may be time for the candidates to sway voter decisions, especially for the 6.8 per cent of voter respondents who indicated that they were undecided. It would seem that the most effective means to do so remain via physical touchpoints rather than social media. It is unlikely that diehard supporters can be swayed, however. The survey’s findings suggest that the tendency towards selective belief in reinforcing one’s view could further weaken the intended impact of swaying voter perceptions and decisions via online electoral propaganda and disinformation. Instead, such tactics could have the unintended effect of entrenching existing political loyalties and polarisation in Indonesia’s electoral politics.

2024/11