Democracy under (de)construction in Indonesia: a critical multimodal analysis of Joko Widodo’s Instagram

Abstract

There is a growing interest in technology’s influence on how national identities are crafted and the way social media platforms affect the construction and interpretation of them. However, few studies have explored this issue in the Global South. The present paper focuses on Indonesia, exploring how former president Joko Widodo constructed both his political persona and an Indonesian identity via Instagram. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, we analyzed Widodo’s Instagram posts for August from 2016 to 2023. Findings reveal how Jokowi’s digital persona emphasized his populist image through language and visual communication that created an illusion of closeness to the people. Instagram also served as a site for constructing a specific version of Indonesian national identity through symbolic representations of the nation, including Islamic symbols. Finally, we observed a shift over time which revealed a distancing from everyday citizens, foreshadowing how platforms such as Instagram can be repurposed to support more authoritarian strategies and highlighting the importance of critical multimodal analysis.