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Social media most favored outlet for Jakarta gubernatorial candidate talk
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Get ready: Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama (second from right) and his running mate, Djarot Saiful Hidayat (second from left) hand over their 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election registration documents to Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) chairman Sumarno in Jakarta on Sept. 21, 2016. (Antara Photo/Rosa Panggabean)
T
he second round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, which is scheduled for April 19 and will include two candidates, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Anies Baswedan, has garnered a large amount of discussion by Indonesia’s internet users, a survey reveals.
Australian media monitoring company Isentia recorded 733,450 posts on social media from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26 that mentioned Ahok or Anies.
Jakarta Isentia country general manager Luciana Budiman said internet users talked about Ahok more intensely than Anies. Discussions about Ahok amounted to 501,970 posts while Anies got 231,480 posts. Twitter contributed 89.99 percent of total discussion on social media.
“The hike in discussions about Ahok occurred on certain days, for example on Feb. 16 and Feb. 21. The increase in discussions were triggered by news about quick count results of the regional head elections held on Feb. 15,” she said in a press statement on Wednesday.
As many as 30,743 national and local news outlets were monitored. It says online media provided the most conventional news coverage for both candidates, of which Anies comprised 28 percent of the discussion to Ahok's 72 percent.
“In general, the contribution of conventional media related to both candidates only reached 4.02 percent while discussions about them on social media reached 95.98 percent,” Luciana said. (ebf)
