DISINFORMASI KEAGAMAAN DI INDONESIA: TINJAUAN WACANA

Abstract

This paper attempts to describe the disinformation on communism, the Republic of China, and Chinese Indonesians that show the correlation between ethnicity and religious sentiments, especially Islam intertwined with historical narratives from the early days of the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia. The interwoven narratives were used to describe a projection of disinformation impact desired by the disinformation actors. Data on religious disinformation discourse was obtained from the cekfakta.com managed by the Indonesian Anti-Defamation Society (Mafindo). The site confirmed whether or not the information is classified as disinformation. The data were analyzed using the theoretical foundation of critical discourse analysis proposed by Fairclough (1989; 1992; 1995) and speech acts developed by Austin (1968) and Searle (1969). Islamic religious disinformation in Indonesia may have a high degree of persuasion since it has a historical foundation, the underlying narrative is maintained by authoritative actors, and is supported by economic inequality conditions among groups of people associated with aspects of religion and ethnicity. This persuasion power can ignite the mental state of the recipient of disinformation dominated by anger, hatred, or revenge in interpreting a discourse. This disinformation can also change the demographic resource potentials into political resources because it is able to reach the majority of Indonesia population. The incident of Chinese worship houses burning in Tanjung Balai shows that the religious disinformation also brings about a potency to escalate into riots or conflicts among groups of people.