Inactive Jakarta Governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, or famously called as Ahok, tops the list of most reported and commented politicians among netizens. This emerged in a discussion themed Most Popular Issues and Political Figures in Indonesian Digital Media 2016, hosted by Center for Digital Society (CfDS) of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).
"Ahok is the politician that receives the most shares with 479 news items with 1,185 comments in online media," said research manager of CfDS, Viyasa Rahyaputra, S.IP., on Tuesday (24/1) when presenting their research outcomes at the office of CfDS at UGM.
CfDS did the research to examine the most popular issues and figures in Indonesian as seen by digital media during 2016. As many as 5,969 news items with a total of 12,876 comments were collected and analysed from 4 online media and one social media: Tribun News, Detik News, Kompas, and Liputan 6 as well as Facebook from random samples.
Viyasa said the reporting of Ahok appears equally both in online media or Facebook each month. Interestingly, despite the legal case affecting Ahok between October-December, positive tone in news channels soared sharply than in preceding months while positive comments on Ahok declined on Facebook. "Positive sentiment appears more in comments to the reports related to Ahok," he said.
Other politicians that get most reported and commented are President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), Prabowo Subianto, and Anies Baswedan.
Fahreza Daniswara, CfDS research assistant, said reports on President ‘Jokowi’ appears equally every month in all online media and Facebook. They also create more positive sentiments. Prabowo is more reported by Kompas online between September-December 2016 with many negative comments in online media as opposed to positive comments on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Anies Baswedan is mostly reported in tribunnews.com during November-December 2016. Anies tends to receive negative comments than positive. SBY mostly reported by kompas.com with the highest reporting between September-November 2016. Comments on the reports carry more negative sentiment.
“SBY gets the most negative comments than other politicians,” he said.
The research also observes other popular arts and entertainment figures such as Mario Teguh Raffi Ahmad, Agnes Monica, Arifin Ilham, AA Gym, and Yusuf Mansur.
Five most popular issues throughout 2016 in online media and Facebook are Jakarta governor elections, reclamation in Jakarta, tax amnesty, Eid homecoming, and fake vaccines.