Newsletter — Febuary 2015

SOCIAL MEDIA EVALUATION ON FIRST 100 DAYS IN THE OFFICE

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Dear Valued Clients,

Last January, as a nation, we have finally

reached the end of First 100 Days of Jokowi’s

term in the Office. The completion of this period

had been traditionally used as benchmark in

evaluating the performance of new government

era as well as measuring the extent of people’s

support for their new leaders.

As social media has become an integral part of

daily and political lives of Indonesian, it is only

natural that we come back to this medium to

capture the discussion and evaluation of the

people regarding Jokowi and his Kabinet Kerja.

We believe that although the sentiment shown

in this data might be preliminary to predict the

whole course of Jokowi’s term, but it is

nevertheless still important, as it would provide

a glimpse of the dynamics within the people of

Indonesia in dealing with the changing political

atmosphere.

Our data would not only provide raw numbers,

but also more indepth information on the topic

discussed, sentiment development, as well as

perception indexing.

Lastly, we hope you enjoy this edition.

Best Regards,

Iwan Setyawan, CEO

WORDS FROM THE CEO

EDITORIAL TEAM Board of Advisors

Iwan Setyawan, Roby Muhamad, Ph.D,

Shafiq Pontoh, Budhi Sumarso

Managing Editor

Smita Sjahputri

Smita.Sjahputri@provetic.com

Jl. Kerinci 1 no. 2, Kebayoran Baru

Jakarta Selatan 12120

T: +6221 72799613

F: +6221 72799613

www.provetic.com

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On 28 October 2014, Joko Widodo was

inaugurated as the latest president-elect of the

country. Expectation was high and people were

enthusiastic in anticipating every move and

progress made by Jokowi. However, it appeared

that the “President of the People” might not been

able to always please everybody in all his

decisions.

There was no doubt that all eyes were on the new

leader right from the start and controversy

started as early as the announcement of chosen

ministers to join the cabinet, dubbed the “Kabinet

Kerja”. Jokowi had tried to prove his commitment

of choosing only the best suited people for the

respective minister post, running through the list

with KPK and dropping names that got bad

remarks from the anti-graft institution.

However, when he finally released the names of

the ministers, public appeared to not be 100%

sure with some of the president’s choices.

A hundred days later, it appears that the first

days in the Office had not been a walk in the park

for the Jokowi and his ministers. Whereas

positive vibes were high at the beginning, the end

of 100 days left a mixed reviews by the general

public; some decision were being praised highly

while others left the people felt disappointed.

Although measuring the success of a new

government based only on the performance of its

first 100 days would be inadequate and might

even be a little unfair, but people were still

putting much attention in this period as a

yardstick to evaluate Jokowi and his Kabinet

Kerja.

How actually was the people in social media

reacted to the first 100 days of Jokowi’s

government?

Provetic tracked the conversation revolving the

president and his cabinet in the period of first

100 days in the Office. The social media data

captured the development of people’s sentiment

throughout the first 100 days as well as the most

popular topics of discussions, revealing how

people are discussing and evaluating the

performance of the new government as well as

the relevant issues surrounding them.

Social media conversation data also reveal a few

names out of Jokowi’s cabinet ministers line-up

who rose in popularity, both in positive and

negative light. Furthermore, this realtime data

would be able to portray how people’s support

and sentiment are changing, an important

indicator of government’s success.

KEEPING TABS ON THE NEW BATCH OF LEADERS: SOCIAL MEDIA EVALUATION OF JOKOWI AND HIS MINISTERS

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People’s interest in the new

government is translated into

high conversation buzz,

however, there’s an indication

that support is declining

In the first 100 days of Joko

Widodo’s term in the Office,

conversation regarding the new

president has been consistently

high – with average number of

conversation revolves around the

20,000 tweets per day.

Trendwise, conversation peaks

are higher at the beginning of

the term, stabilizing around the

second month, and then

increasing again during the third

month.

Chart I — Daily buzz and peaks of

conversation regarding Joko

Widodo in the first 100 days in the

Office.

on the day where Jokowi made the

public announcement to lift the

subsidy on fuel which

subsequently increase the fuel

prices.

This was one of the first decision

made by the new government

which resulted in highly polarized

reaction by the public, as seen in

previous analyses.

After the initial high conversation

level in discussing the country’s

new leader, social media appears

to have quieten down a little.

Coming into the second month in

the Office, there was not any

noticable conversation topic that

stood up among the rest

throughout the month.

However, the calm state was

unfortunately short-lived. Coming

into the third month in the Office,

Jokowi made a decision —which

appears to be a shocking one for

many people — to nominate Budi

Gunawan for the position of

National Police Chief.

In the first few weeks of Jokowi’s

term in the Office, the expectation

and enthusiasm of people with

their new leader is very apparent

in the social media Twitter, as

indicated by the high conversation

level.

The controversial issue about a

satay seller who were allegedly

making defaming remarks about

Jokowi momentarily took over

people’s attention and became one

of the most discussed topic at the

beginning of Jokowi’s term.

This issue incidentally occur at the

same time with Jokowi’s visit to

the Mount Sinabung’s victims at

the evacuation site, causing highly

elevated social media conversation

amounting to a whooping 70,000

tweets in just a day.

The next notable peak occured

N = 2,030,738 tweets

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referred to as “KPK vs Polri”

conflict.

Once again, Jokowi was being

massively addressed by the public

to take his stance in the matter. In

fact, the dispute between KPK and

Indonesian Police Force (Polri)

became one of the most discussed

topics within the conversation

regarding Jokowi, beating out

other top topics such as

distribution of Jokowi’s “Kartu

Sakti” as part of the nation-wide

welfare program, capital

punishment for drugs cases,

demolition of illegal foreign fishing

boats, and the most discussed early

topic of the defamation from a

satay seller.

Chart III — Development of sentiment distribution in the conversation of

Jokowi

Top 3 topics being discussed in

the first 100 days in the Office

were “Kpk vs Polri” Case (176K

tweets), Fuel Price Increase

(133K tweets), and “Kabinet

Kerja” (91K tweets).

While the biggest hope people

expressed were for Jokowi to be

“Brave” and “Stern”.

Chart II — Top Impression from conversation about Jokowi’s first 100 Days

in the Office

People immediately reacted to this

decision and expressing their

dissappointment through the

hashtag #shameonyoujokowi,

which appeared more than 14,000

times on Twitter in that period

alone.

A few days after the nomination,

the country’s most esteemed anti-

graft institution, the Corruption

Eradication Commission (KPK)

announced Budi Gunawan as

suspect in fat account case.

This event appeared to have

started a chain of events which

eventually become what people

Unfortunately, this issue might

also impacted the way people

perceived Jokowi.

As what the media claimed to be a

loss in public support for the new

Indonesian President, the social

media conversation data actually

shows relatively similar pattern, in

which positive sentiment

conversation was declining —

especially so within the last

month— with negative sentiment

conversation getting more

prominent (see Chart III);

indicating less fevourable view by

the public.

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Minister of Maritime Affair

and Fishery Susi Pudjiastuti

was the most popular.

Followed by Minister of

Transportation Ignasius Jonan

Chart III —

Top 10 most popular ministers from

“Kabinet Kerja” on Twitter

discussed topics regarding Susi

Pudjiastuti. However, eventually it

was her no-nonsense approach to

handling illegal fishing offences by

foreign parties that captured

people’s attention and become the

most discussed topic in social

media.

The second most popular minister

was Minister of Transportation,

Ignasius Jonan. The former PT KAI

director was already a familiar

name in social media sphere even

before he was inaugurated as

minister and was much praised for

his achievement in upgrading the

commuter line train services in

Jakarta areas.

However, it was the Air Asia plane

crash tragedy that got the public

talking about him and started to

evaluate his performance as new

minister. His remarks about low

cost carrier being unsafe due to

cheap tickets and his ministry’s

plan to change the regulation on

airline tickets sparked people’s

attention. Many commented that

he had made a rather inaccurate

statement, expressing criticism of

his lack of understanding about

transportation regulation issue.

Within the first 100 days in the

Office, three of the female

ministers in Jokowi’s cabinet

managed to become the most

popular and most discussed

ministers in social media.

The Minister of Maritime Affairs and

Fisheries , Susi Pudjiastuti, was

grabbing people’s attention and

interest right from the start and

managed to keep the public engaged in

most part of her first few days in as

ministers.

At first, public were most

interested in her not-so-

conventional appearance and

demeanor, with “Tatto”, “Smoking”,

and “Junior high-school graduate”

appeared in the list of most

Apart from Jokowi, his line of

ministers were also under

people’s close scrutiny. Some of

them managed to become “social

media darlings”; while others

were reaping harsh criticisms

from the public.

Provetic look into the

conversation data of each

minister in Kabinet Kerja to see

how people perceive the newly

appointed ministers.

Minister of Education and

Cullture, Anies Baswedan, was

the most positively perceived

minister; while Coordinating

Minister for Political, Legal,

and Security Affairs Tedjo

Edhy was the most negative

Based on the conversation data,

Provetic also analyze how positive

and negative each of the ministers

was being perceived by the public.

Out of the 34 ministers in Kabinet

Kerja, the most positive perception

by the public in social media is

received by the Minister of

Most positively perceived Minister

Most negatively perceived Minister

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Education and Culture, Anies

Baswedan. The academician,

founder of Indonesia Mengajar and

former rector of Paramadia

University appeared to have

managed to capture people’s heart.

One of the first moves that gained

a lot of attention was his decision

to terminate the full

implementation of much criticized

2013 national school curriculum.

This seemed to have gained him a

lot of support.

On the other hand, among all the

other ministers, the Coordinating

Minister for Political, Legal, and

Security Affairs Tedjo Edhy was

being perceived with most

negative views from the public.

In the recent case of KPK vs. Polri

incident, Tedjo Edhy made

unfortunate remarks in which he

referred to the people who were

gearing up in supporting KPK to be

“nonsense people” or “rakyat tidak

jelas”. The remarks obviously

angered a lot of people, and

created backlash for the former

armyman.

Despite some bad coverage and

discussion, overall data shown that

people’s enthusiasm and high

hopes for the new government is

still unrelenting. Most of the top

impression for the ministers still

shows that people were having

high expectation that they would

make the difference needed by the

country.

Although 100 days is not enough

to use as benchmark, but it surely

able to project how people are

perceiving and evaluating their

new leader. It is now time for the

government to continue

performing to the people’s

standards.

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First 100 days of Joko Widodo’s

term in the office was highly

anticipated by majority of the

public. Although the new

government stated that they

would not officially conduct a

First 100 Days Evaluation, but

the general public still do so in

they own term.

Social media provide this

unique opportunity to capture

the development of people’s

discussion and sentiment

regarding the new government.

Jokowi started off the term with

a very positive sentiment from

the public. Support were very

high and people were

sympathetic with his caring

demeanor towards the grief

stricken people of Sinabung.

First controversial decision that

has to be undertaken by new

government was in increasing

the fuel prices. This decision

appeared to be significantly

important in people’s lives as it

managed to became the second

most discussed topic regarding

Jokowi’s government. However,

although this decision appeared

to be highly controversial and

lead to polarized responses, but

overall it did not make Jokowi’s

image suffer. Positive sentiment

was still high. Unfortunately, it

appeared that towards the end

of first 100 days, public’s

positive sentiment started to

take a dip.

The ongoing case involving the

Corruption Eradication

Commission and Indonesian

Police Force, or most commonly

known as “KPK vs Polri” conflict

appeared to provide a backlash

to how people perceived the new

president.

As the topic become one of the

most discussed by the public,

expression of disappointment

and hope for Jokowi to become

braver and more stern took over

the social media conversation.

Jokowi was not the only one

being in the spotlight, as his line

of ministers were also being

highly evaluated by the public.

Susi Pudjiastuti and Ignasius

Jonan became the two most

popular ministers, while Anies

Baswedan became the most

positively perceived and Tedjo

Edhy the most negative.

Gaining people’s support is

crucial for any government to

perform well, and even in the

course of 100 days, social media

has already provided so much

important insights needed to

track the development of

people’s perception towards the

new government.

When utilized effectively,

government officials could

benefit tremendously by

addressing the most pressing

issue based on people’s interest

— a strategy to keep people’s

satisfaction in check and

ensuring public unrelentless

support.

KEY TAKEAWAYS AND

FURTHER IMPLICATIONS

© Febuary 2015— Provetic

Photo Credits:

Cover Photo by Benny Lin

1. “Susunan Kabinet” by Idham Dahlan

2. “Sarinah” by Ivanatman

All rights under Creative Commons Liscense