"Guarding the Elections Online": New Practices, Trust, and Empowerment of Citizens Identities
Keywords:
elections, internet, cyber activism, democracy, civil society, civic culture, Indonesia, crowdsourcingAbstract
This paper discusses two relatively similar cyber activisms in Indonesia, namely Kawal Pemilu 2014 and Kawal Pilkada 2015 (which mean Guard the 2014 General Election and Guard the 2015 Local Election respectively in Indonesian). Kawal Pemilu that received massive support from the internet users has been acknowledged as a success story of a cyber political crowdsourcing in Indonesia. Kawal Pilkada tried to repeat the success a year after but received fewer supports. Regarding the two organizations, this paper attempts to answer two interrelated questions; (1) What contribution has Kawal Pemilu made to democracy? (2) Why was Kawal Pemilu more popular than Kawal Pilkada? This paper argues that these movements have contributed to democratization in the way that the activisms have reshaped civic culture by introducing new practices, empowering citizens’ identities, and promoting trust. Also, the paper explores arguments that political momentum and mainstream media coverage are influential in determining the success of cyber movements. Methodologically, this paper subscribes to qualitative content analysis as a tool to examine interviews materials as well as online and offline texts
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