Use of Social Media as a Political Tool

In today's digital era, various digital platforms and people's lifestyles are slowly changing, which increasingly needs anything related to the digital world, especially social media. Social media is one of the digital media that is very often used by the public, it can be said that social media is one of the digital media that is currently a human need. Social media is a medium to socialize with each other online, allowing its users to interact with each other without being limited in space and time. Social media consciously or unconsciously today coexists with humans, especially nowadays people interact more often with others through social media than face to face as before the rise of social media as it is today. Social media does bring convenience to its users if used properly. In addition to changes in human behavior habits in general, the change from the analog era to the digital age also brought about change in the world of politics. Through social media dissemination of the hottest issues regarding political news can be conveyed quickly and widely, therefore it can be said that social media becomes the best place to convey information about political information, especially in Indonesia, where the majority of the population is very active in using social media. According to Windhiadi Y.S. and Priyono S. in the journal entitled STRATEGY MESSAGE POLITICAL ACTORS IN SOCIAL MEDIA (Case Study of South Tangerang Mayor's Account Banten) Vol. 2, No. 1 of 2020 Indonesian society is classified as the most active social media user in the world. Based on research conducted by We Are Social, a British media company working with Hootsuite, the average Indonesian spends three hours and 23 minutes a day accessing social media. In addition to its rapid and widespread spread, the cost of politics on social media is fairly cheap compared to other media. During political campaigns, candidates who are running in mayoral, governor, or presidential election competitions often use social media as a means of political communication to the general public. Social media is interactive so that people can give feedback directly to each candidate. The backlash can be positive and negative for candidates running in elections. According to Budiyono in a journal entitled Social Media and Political Communication: Social Media as Political Communication Ahead of the DKI JAKARTA REGIONAL ELECTIONS 2017 Vol. 11, No. 11 of 2016, in this digital era, especially in the context of political campaigns, social media has played a role as a means of communication that can connect political actors with their constituents, between communicators and communion remotely and massively. Each political offender and his or her participants can express their interests or political rights freely without obstruction that impedes the process of political communication. The use of social media is very influential to campaign in the world of politics, if used wisely it is likely to gain the trust of the recipients of political information related to a political party running for election. A recent study by the Excellence in Journalism project, the Pew Research Center, for example, on the 2008 Presidential Election in the United States, as stated by the Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Amy Mitchell, concluded that Obama's election campaign had made history, not only because Barrack Obama was the first African American to be elected president, but also the first presidential candidate to effectively utilize social media as a primary campaign strategy (Ya'cob Billiocta, 2014). Nowadays, it is time for social media to be utilized properly by politicians in Indonesia, be it to communicate with the public or as a tool to campaign for a program. Using social media in the world of politics is expected to foster a sense of interest of millennials as the future of the nation, considering that politics is very important in a democratic country such as the Indonesian state where all policies and life of the Indonesian nation are regulated in political policy. Millennials should be open-minded to politicians in looking at the political life of politicians that can be seen on social media.