Online Political Participation and Netizen Anonymity in Indonesia’s Digital Democracy
Pulung S Perbawani(1*), Rahayu Rahayu(2), Irham Nur Anshari(3)
(1) Universitas Gadjah Mada
(2) Universitas Gadjah Mada
(3) Universitas Gadjah Mada
(*) Corresponding Author
Abstract
The growth of social media in Indonesia has contributed to an increase in the public’s online political participation. This phenomenon has brought forward discussion regarding the pros and cons of online political participation, as related to participants’ identities. The lack of traceability regarding participants’ identities has posed some challenges, including the accountability and legitimacy of opinions.
This research seeks to achieve a comprehensive understanding of anonymity in political participation. By applying the theory of online disinhibition effect, this research attempts to explain the dynamics of anonymity, its implications for political participation on social media, and the effects of anonymity on the quality of digital democracy. Using surveys, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews, this research seeks to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the issues.
The findings show that the varied degrees of anonymity employed by citizens affect their political participation. In addition, anonymity can be understood as citizens’ mechanism for coping with various possible consequences, such as legal and social retribution in the personal and professional context. We argue that the option to remain anonymous on social media has increased the extent of political participation in Indonesia. However, this increase in the quantity of participation has not necessarily been followed by an increase in its quality. Such a situation, ironically, is due to the nature of anonymity itself, which is further explained through the framework of the online disinhibition effect.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Bargh, J. A., Mc Kenna, K.Y.A., & Fitzsimons, G.M. (2002). Can you see the real me? Activation and expression of the "true self" on the Internet. Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 33–48.
Bergström, L. (2006). Political Participation: A qualitative study of citizens in Hong Kong (Dissertation, Karlstad University, Sweden). Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-257
Cho, D., & Acquisti, A. (2013). The more social cues, the less trolling? An empirical study of online commenting behavior. Retrieved from http://www.infosecon.net/workshop/downloads/2013/pdf/The_More_Social_Cues,_The_Less_Trolling_An_Empirical_Study_of_Online_Commenting_Behavior.pdf
Dahlgren, P.(2005). The Internet, public spheres, and political communication: Dispersion and deliberation. Political communication 22 (2).147-162.
Dahlgren, P. (2009). Media and political engagement: Citizens, communication and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Day, P., & Schuler, D. (2004). Shaping the network society: Opportunities and challenges. In P. Day & D. Schuler (Eds.), Shaping the network society: The new role of civil society in cyberspace (pp. 1–16). United Kingdom: MIT Press.
Diakopoulos, N., & Naaman, M. (2011). Towards quality discourse in online news comments. Proceedings of the ACM 2011 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, 133–142.
Eka, R. (2018, August 16). Laporan DailySocial: Distribusi hoax di media sosial 2018. Dailysocial.id. Retrieved from http://dailysocial.id
Ellison, N. B., Blackwell, L., Lampe, C., & Trieu, P. (2016). 'The question exists, but you don't exist with it': Strategic anonymity in the social lives of adolescents. Social Media + Society, 2(4), doi: 10.1177/2056305116670673
Fenton, N., & Barassi, V. (2011). Alternative media and social networking sites: The politics of individuation and political participation. The Communication Review, 14(3), 179–196.
Freelon, D. G. (2010). Analyzing online political discussion using three models of democratic communication. New Media and Society, 12(7), 1172–1190.
Hacker, K. L., & Van Dijk, J. (Eds.). (2000). Digital democracy: Issues of theory and practice. London: Sage.
Hague, B. N., & Loader, B. (1999). Digital democracy: Discourse and decision making in the information age. New York: Routledge.
Hill, K. A., & Hughes, J. E. (1998). Cyberpolitics: Citizen activism in the age of the Internet. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Hill, D. T., & Sen, K. (2000). The internet in Indonesia's new democracy. Democratization, 7(1), 119–136.
Kasus Saracen: Pesan kebencian dan hoax di media sosial 'memang terorganisir'. (2017, August, 27). BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/
Kemp, S. (2018, January 30). Digital in 2018: World's internet users pass the 4 billion mark. Wearesocial.com. Retrieved from http://wearesocial.com/
Kennedy, H. (2006). Beyond anonymity, or future directions for internet identity research. New Media & Society, 8(6), 859–876.
Kling, R., Lee, Y.C., Teich, A., & Frankel, M.S. (1999). Assessing anonymous communication on the internet: Policy deliberations. Information Society, 15(2), 79–90.
Lim, M. (2013). Many clicks but little sticks: Social media activism in Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(4), 636–657.
Loader, B.D., & Mercea, D. (2011). Networking democracy? Social media innovations in participatory politics. Information, Communication and Society, 14(6), 757–769.
Lutfia, I. (2010, August 6). Journalist, bloggers weigh in on role of new media. Jakarta Globe. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/
Min, S.J. (2010). From the digital divide to the democratic divide: Internet skills, political interest, and the second-level digital divide in political internet use. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 7(1), 22–35.
Nugroho, Y. (2008). Adopting Technology, transforming society: The internet and the reshaping of civil society activism in Indonesia. International Journal of Emerging Technologies & Society, 6(2), 77–105.
Nugroho, Y. (2011). Citizens in @ction. Manchester: Institute of Innovation Research. Manchester Business School, University of Manchester.
Nurhadryani, Y., Maslow, S., & Yamamoto, H. (2009). 'Democracy 1.0' meets 'Web 2.0': E-Campaigning and the role of ICTs in Indonesia's political reform process since 1998. Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, 15(2), 211–222.
Papacharissi, Z. (2004). Democracy online: Civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups. New Media & Society, 6(2), 259–283.
Polat, R.K. (2005). The Internet and political participation: Exploring the explanatory links. European Journal of Communication, 20(4): 435–459.
Pontes, A., Hen, M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018). Towards a conceptualization of young people's political engagement: A qualitative focus group study. Societies. (8). doi: 10.3390/soc8010017
Rasmussen, T. (2014) Internet and the political public sphere. Sociology Compass, 8(12), 1315–1329.
Reader, B. (2012). Free press vs. free speech? The rhetoric of 'civility' in regard to anonymous online comments. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(3), 495–513.
Rowe, I. (2015). Civility 2.0: a comparative analysis of incivility in online political discussion. Information, Communication & Society, 18(2), 121–138.
Santana, A.D. 2014. Virtuous or vitriolic. Journalism Practice, 8(1), 18–33.
Saraswati, M. (2018). Social media and the political campaign industry in Indonesia. Jurnal Komunikasi Ikatan Sarjana Komunikasi Indonesia, 3(1), 51–65.
Setu, F. (2018, August 27) Kominfo gandeng Qlue perangi konten negatif di internet. Kementrian Komunikasi dan Informatika. Retrieved from http://www.kominfo.go.id/.
Suler, J. (2004). Online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326.
Tsagarousianou, R. (1999). Electronic democracy: Rhetoric and reality. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 24(2), 189–208.
Van Dijk, J. (2003). Digital democracy: Vision and reality. Public Administration in the Information Age: Revisited. IOS- Press.
Wallace, K.A. (1999). Anonymity. Ethics and Information Technology, 1(21), 21–31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.41905
Article Metrics
Abstract views : 9016 | views : 6294Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2018 PCD Journal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Gadjah Mada University Jl. Sosio-Yustisia Bulaksumur Yogyakarta 55281
Telp (0274) 563362 Ext. 150; +62 811 2515 863 - email: pcd@ugm.ac.id