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As political discourse heats up on social media, young voters learn to block noise
With internet-savvy Gen-Zers and millennials predicted to make up more than half of the voters in the 2024 presidential election, social media is again expected to be one of the key platforms to lure votes.
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With the youth bound to make up more than half of the voter roll in the upcoming 2024 elections, as per a CSIS survey, political parties are putting more focus on social media exposure. (Shutterstock/Rawpixel.com)
With the internet-savvy Gen-Zers and millennials predicted to make up more than half of the voters in the 2024 presidential election, social media is again expected to be one of the key platforms to lure votes. While online chatter has been filled with messages supporting – and vilifying – certain potential candidates, added with a dose of identity politics, prospective voters see these conversations as nothing more than just noise.
A Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) survey released in September estimated that members of Gen-Zers and millennials, defined as those aged 17 to 39, would make up nearly 60 percent of the voters in 2024. This is likely to also include an undisclosed number of first-time voters.
The youth-focused survey also found that 59 percent of respondents use social media as their primary source of information, hence the importance of social media platforms for campaign purposes. But being lightly moderated, there has already been signs of a repeat of the last two presidential elections, where misinformation and hate speech proliferated across social media.
Analyzing social media chatter in the week of Oct. 16 to 23, right after Anies Baswedan ended his tenure as Jakarta governor, big data consultancy firm Drone Emprit found “anger” to be the most prevalent emotion in these conversations.
“Supporters and haters of Anies trade insults with each other, with identity politics being the main issue,” Drone Emprit founder Ismail Fahmi tweeted on Wednesday.
The divide goes deeper than just Anies, as Drone Emprit found that the NasDem Party-backed presidential candidate practically served as the figurehead of the opposition. Supporters of the current administration and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo banded together with supporters of Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, who is one of the three most electable prospective presidential candidates, while the opposition camp and Anies sympathizers gathered on the other side.
Blocking noise
