Microcelebrities on Twitter:
Navigating Ideological State Apparatus in Contemporary Indonesia
April 20, 2022
Microcelebrities have increasingly become more prominent in various media systems, both in terms of specific platforms but also within the borders of nation-states. Coined by Senft (2008), microcelebrities are individuals who present themselves as coherent, branded packages online as a performative demonstration of their own identity. Now more commonly known as influencers, this new professionalisation of roles in the media economy attracts State attention, now put in a position where they have to negotiate their role as an ideological state apparatus. Althusser (1994) uses the term to refer to institutions such as education, religion, family, media, trade unions, and law, which were formally outside state control, but which served to transmit the values of the State.
Social networking sites and platforms have historically played a significant role in the Indonesian media ecosystem, ranging from governance reforms and presidential elections to disaster management response, not least of all owing to the widespread use of Twitter in Indonesia (see Carley et al., 2015; Nurhadriyani et al., 2009). This essay will discuss the extent to which microcelebrities negotiate their role as an ideological state apparatus on Twitter in contemporary Indonesia through issues of health, religious and political information dissemination.
State-Backed Microcelebrities: Shaping Public Health Narratives
Microcelebrities have worked cooperatively under the Indonesian government to propagate health-related messages from the State to the public. The Indonesian Corruption Watch (2020) reports between 2017 to 2020, the Indonesian government invested nearly AU$ 900,000 to compensate Indonesian microcelebrities in spreading government directives to their followers, where if including other sources of state funding that number can surpass AU$90 million altogether with investments toward social media initiatives. Rakhmani and Permana (2020) discuss that 2020 in particular was in response to COVID-19 and subsequently microcelebrities were tasked with disseminating the government’s rapidly changing COVID-19 policies. As Rakhmani and Permana (2020) argue, this was mostly due in part to managing and maintaining positive public sentiment both toward the government and COVID-19 more generally. In a study by Sadasri (2020), content analysis of two Indonesian microcelebrities on Twitter found that their tweets were closely aligned with messages by the government’s National Disaster Management Authority, where the majority of content referred to mutual cooperation and promoting healthy lifestyles citing Indonesia’s Ministry of Health as a key source. The ability for microcelebrities to be able to manage public sentiment more closely is a significant factor why they have increasingly been used by the State, due in part to their centrality in vast strong social networks. According to a study by Tauhid and Ruldeviyani (2020), sentiment analysis of the Indonesian public’s response to Twitter microcelebrities were generally positive, suggesting the potential effectiveness of their influence. Twitter is the most used social networking site in Indonesia, where the country ranks as the fifth most tweeting country in 2014, with 2.4% of the 10.6 billion Twitter posts made between January to March that year came from Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta (Carley et al., 2015). A key feature of platforms in general is their reliance and ability to generate network effects, where the more users that are on a platform makes the platform more valuable for everyone (Srnicek, 2017). Although the health issue does not involve capitalistic intentions, it does become a reason why the Indonesian government has shifted its priorities into investing to Twitter microcelebrities. Considering the large amount of the country’s population actively engaging with content on Twitter, microcelebrities’ strong presence on Twitter signifies one of the most effective ways for the State to reach the public and for the public to respond positively.
Power Struggles and Religious Authority of Microcelebrities
With religious issues, most notably with Islam and Islamic thinking in Indonesia, it is a field of increasing contestation between independent microcelebrities, those employed by the State and those in between. An increasing wave of young Muslim women microcelebrities has taken shape across the world, not least of all in Indonesia. Though mostly promoting Islamic female fashion and other beauty trends, Beta (2019a) argues that popular young Muslim women groups have used their followings across Instagram and Twitter to, for example, promote #muslimvotemuslim sentiment to campaign against the Chinese-Christian then-governer Ahok and called out Muslims who did not share their views as communists, reminiscent of the authoritarian Soeharto New Order regime and the anti-communist purge. Their other work on social media also revolved around spreading their own interpretations of Islam and what it means to be a good Muslim woman (Beta, 2019a; Mohamad, 2021). However, through social media affordances of multi-modality and spreadability, they spread their own versions of dakwah – or religious preaching – as they see fit, signalling a shift in religious authority from religious institutions to individuals and the transformation of how religious messages are spread (Mohamad, 2021). This shift towards newer media systems as compared to the more traditional, as Hosen (2008) suggests, weakens the effectiveness of formal fatwas – a ruling on Islamic law or dogma – issued by officially recognised clerics, which consequently has led to Muslims in Indonesia to selectively pick and choose their own interpretations of Islam, undermining the country’s existing religious ideological state apparatuses such as the Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama and the Indonesian Ulama Council [MUI]. Albeit some effort, these Islamic organisations have struggled to adjust to more modern media systems, namely Twitter, and becomes a key reason why they have lost their influence and why tech-savvy individuals such as young Muslim women’s groups have seen their popularity and influence flourish; to be able to appear as a part of the public, something that Islamic organisations have been unable to do. The religious issue then becomes a power struggle between different actors on Twitter, where in this case microcelebrities act against their role as an ideological state apparatus.
Pragmatic Collaboration for Political Ends
Indonesia’s microcelebrities hold considerable political influence, where the nation’s media ecosystem has allowed for independent cooperation between microcelebrities and the State, where both parties are driven by their own purposes. Neoliberalism refers to policies that allow business domination or giving more freedom to businesses to operate within the market (McChesney, 2001). Throught Senft’s (2008) definition, microcelebrities more closely resemble this understanding of brands. Now this has significant implications towards the political economy and political democracy. As McChesney (2001) argues, neoliberalism flourishes under ineffective democracies or rather governments that are more concerned with reproducing capitalistic intentions. In this context, microcelebrities and the government work pragmatically to achieve the most desirable outcome for both parties. Such was the case with the Indonesia’s 2019 presidential elections. Monica et al. (2019) found that Indonesia’s different political parties had to maintain good relationships with various microcelebrities, arguing that managing public sentiment on Twitter was crucial to their electoral chances. With the then-presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and running mate Sandiaga Uno’s party, Gerindra, it was even more significant in reversing negative public sentiment (Monica et al., 2019). For example, microcelebrity Dian Pelangi actively promotes her support for their campaign rallies, advertising instances where both Prabowo and Sandiaga actively engage with the voting populace and their support for the creative industry (Beta, 2019b). This received 170,000 likes and 1,600 comments, most of which were positive toward Dian’s support for the candidates (Beta, 2019b). As Mohamad (2021) suggests, microcelebrities such as Dian are incentivised from the perspective of fueling their brand popularity on social media, as compared to genuine political support. The influence of microcelebrities in the outcome of the presidential elections should not be understated. Gerinda scored lower in centralisation – the structural importance of key influencers – and modularity – the quality of a partition in a network – across various Twitter hashtag campaigns lead by the respective party’s company of microcelebrities as compared to their counterparts PDI-Perjuangan (Beta, 2019b). Although no direct corelation has been made in the study, it is likely that Gerindra’s lack in effectiveness in microcelebrity influence has lead to their loss in the 2019 presidential elections. A likely factor for this shift in political investment is how microcelebrities are not subject to the same regulations that are imposed on other traditional channels, namely Indonesia’s Press Law and the Press Council. Political influence remains the same but with less risks, such as how historically journalists would provide more favourable coverage to local government offices that support them and negatively report on those who do not (Romano & Prasetyo, 2021). Microcelebrities’ role as an ideological state apparatus is relatively less direct in this case, but both work pragmatically to achieve their own ambitions.
The increasing influence that microcelebrities have is seen throughout the world. In Indonesia, there are instances where they work collaboratively with the State as an ideological state apparatus, yet at other times provide alternative views that are adopted by the masses, views that are not sanctioned by the State. The use of popular personalities by the Indonesian government is not new. However, the growing autonomy and unaccountability of microcelebrities in the case of Twitter is a growing challenge that comes with the rise of new media systems.
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Originally submitted as coursework for the Bachelor of Arts, University of Melbourne
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