Prabowo Subianto was finally elected as President of the Republic of Indonesia in the 2024 General Election with the personal branding ‘Gemoy’. This phenomenon grew rapidly on social media, especially TikTok, and affected his political image. Although previous studies have primarily examined the meaning of this branding qualitatively, this study fills the gap by quantitatively analysing the frequency, hashtag and sentiment of conversations on Tiktok and their contribution to image formation. These public interactions are then analysed using Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT). This study uses a constructivist paradigm with a qualitative approach. The Netnography method is applied by utilising social media monitoring analytical tools to capture public conversations on the TikTok platform between 1 September 2023 and 14 February 2024. The results show that the ‘Gemoy’ narrative is a fantasy theme constructed by Prabowo and his campaign team in a communicative drama with elements of characters, actions, and settings that form a collective imagination among the public. This study contributes to strengthening the understanding that social media can be strategically orchestrated to build personal branding of political figures, providing new insights for the study of political communication in the digital era.

Authors:
Irwan Saputra, Kindi PR and Strategic Communications Consulting, Indonesia
Pratiwa Dyatmika, Mining Industry Indonesia (MIND ID), Indonesia
Amirul Hazmi Hamdan, Kindi PR and Strategic Communications Consulting, Indonesia

About the Presenter(s)
Irwan Saputra is a CEO of Kindi PR based in Indonesia. His interest in communication is specifically for crisis management, political communications, and reputation management. His projects are mostly related to government, politics, and corporate.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/irwan-saputra-0692/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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