Discursive opportunity structure and the contribution of social media to the success of social movements in Indonesia

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to investigate the contribution of social media to the success of two significant social movements in Indonesia, i.e. ‘Coins for Prita’ and ‘Support Bibit-Chandra’. To this end, discursive opportunity structure was adopted as the main theoretical framework. In addition, in-depth interviews with key Indonesian journalists, social media activists and media scholars were conducted to examine the issue. The results of this study suggest that diffusion of the movements' messages into the public sphere, along with the politicians' supportive resonance towards the cases, were the main factors influencing the success of these two movements. Importantly, this article argues that while the most important role in this process was played by the vast and positive mainstream media coverage of the cases, social media also played a key role given they initiated the movement discourse and directed it towards mainstream media.

Keywords:

• social media
• social movements
• Indonesia
• discursive opportunity structure
• media coverage
• Corruption Eradication Commission
• Prita Mulyasari

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on the earlier version of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hamideh Molaei

Hamideh Molaei has recently finished her PhD thesis titled ‘Social media and politics: Examining the effectiveness of social media for social movements and political discussions in Indonesia’ in the Department of Media and Communications, the University of Sydney, Australia. Her interest is on the Internet and political participation in Indonesia. Her other interest is intercultural communication and she published several papers in this area. She has bachelor and master degrees in social communication sciences from the University of Tehran, Iran.