Index

Abstract

This research investigated the use of social media and its implication on policy changes. The study used a qualitative descriptive approach as its research design. Social media users in Bandar Lampung who respond (criticism, support, suggestion, rejection and disagreement) to public policy in Bandar Lampung were used as the instrument of data collection. The results of the research showed that the presence of social media especially among middle class users was used as an instrument to respond to public policies in Bandar Lampung. There was a change in the relationship between the public and the government, from conventional models shifting to an internet-based relationship model. The findings also showed that not all criticisms, suggestions or opinions of the public had implications for policy changes, except in the case of the traffic engineering management policy. The termination of the traffic engineering management policy happened because this policy did not solve traffic jams around the Tugu Pahlawan to the Teuku Umar street, in Danrem Garuda Hitam. Social media platforms were used as a means for the public to express their criticism and opinion on the policy and the Bandar Lampung government responded by terminating the traffic engineering management policy and restoring the original route. In general, when a public policy is criticized or protested by the public, the Bandar Lampung government’s response tends to argue against the policy.

Keywords: Social media, Public policy,Policy change, Government, Public critics, Public opinion.

Received: 11 November 2019 / Revised: 16 December 2019 / Accepted: 21 January 2020/ Published: 28 February 2020

Contribution/ Originality

The paper’s primary contribution is in finding that a model of political relationship between citizen and government through social media is very beneficial in the process of policy making. In addition, the findings showed social media as political instrument in delivering public aspiration.

1. INTRODUCTION

The relationship between the people and policy makers in the current development is carried out not only through direct communication such as dialogue, hearings, or aspiration nets (Oginni and Moitui, 2015) but also through social media (Gao and Lee, 2017; Haro-de-Rosario et al., 2018). As acknowledged by Scott (2001) social media in a democratic system is considered free from state control so it is measured as a safe environment for communication. Therefore, it can be positively used to advocate the public through discussion, organization including mobilization (Khan, 2017). Accordingly, social media is perceived to be able to support three stages that need to be improved to strengthen relationships with citizens, namely (1) one-way relationships by disseminating information related to improvement of government administration quality; (2) limited two-way relationships, namely by holding public consultations such as facilitating citizens to express their aspirations in public policy making; (3) advanced two-way relationships, by encouraging citizens’ active participation by involving them in the decision-making and policy-making processes (OECD, 2001a; OECD, 2001b).

From this perspective, social media are a means for citizens to articulate and control the process of making public policy. In developed countries, social media applications are used to fulfill the political rights of citizens to obtain information and participate in governance. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are the latest media platforms and networks that serve not only as individual communication channels but also are used as an inseparable means to discuss public and state affairs. Take Facebook as an example. It has aided  almost all social, economic,  political and cultural endeavours around the world (Lee et al., 2017; Sinclair and Grieve, 2017; Cook, 2018; Manzi et al., 2018).

Using social media, the public can easily respond, criticize, advice, or reject policies issued by the government. In terms of the democratic process, the public’s critical responses via social media reflect the freedom to express opinions, criticisms, suggestions, or rejection to government’s action in making public policies or in solving public problems. While there is a means by which to protest or reject policies, if a government does not feel they need to respond or take such criticism into account and feels safe remaining in power despite doing so then it ceases to work in favour of the people.In other words, government policies which are not in accordance with the aspirations of the public or are not in line with the principles of the people's agreement can be protested, rejected, or criticized. Consequently, these will lead to policy changes or input for local governments to make improvements or alteration in public policies. So, in the context of democracy, ICT is a tool to articulate people's needs and aspirations (Yusuf, 2013). This phenomenon is known as click activism. It is a new political phenomenon in cyberspace politics. The term is coined to describe ideas, cases, people or groups, movements carried out by clicking on menus available on social media (Nugroho and Shinta: 2012, Adhirianti: 2013, in Yusuf (2013)).

The trend of click activism is also seen in Indonesia. One of the most notable examples of the activity was found during Indonesia’s presidential election in early 2019. The existence of social media has greatly changed the winning tactics and strategies of the 2019 presidential and vice presidential candidates. This is proved by the presence of both candidates’ teams that handle the dissemination of their campaign materials to voters through various available social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Whatsapp (Goretta et al., 2018; Irawanto, 2019). However, in the case of Indonesia in general, although citizens' social media have been used as a means to control government administration and access various information, in reality there are still gaps, namely the strength of the state is still stronger than the political power of social media in the process of public policy making. Therefore, this power gap serves as the basis of this research.

In recent years, it is noted that the usage of social media has been particularly high among millennial and middle class generations in Bandar Lampung. Their usage ranges from sharing pictures to posting daily activities status, including responding to local government policies. Various public policies were issued during 2010 to 2019 including flyover construction, community development (Bina Lingkungan/Biling) programs, free health service programs, free public service programs, traffic engineering management program, etc. Most of these programs are perceived to be driven by political interests of the city mayor because they acted as execution of his political commitment during the election campaign. The reason behind this perception was basically due to unstandardized mechanism of the programs’ making process. For example, some of the programs’

dispositions did not involve relevant stakeholders to discuss pro-contra for the programs. From such a perspective, social media can reflect the public’s reactions such as approval, support, criticism or even protests against the policies. It is then interesting to examine the way the Government of Bandar Lampung City responded to the critical attitude of the public via social media and its implications for policy changes as it is signaled the public's sensitivity to policy as well as interaction between the public and local government, and the government's attitude in responding to the public’s criticisms.

The use of social media by citizens in fulfilling their political rights to obtain information and participation in governance is respected as a new tradition. This is particularly a novel communication array in Bandar Lampung City, because the political relationship of citizens and the government is mostly carried out by conventional means such as demonstrations, dialogues, or hearings, submissions of open letters to the government, installation of banners, and open complaint boxes. Thus, this article will convey Bandar Lampung citizen relationship with the government in the policy making process including citizens’ critical attitude towards policies made by Bandar Lampung City Government as well as to explain its implications to the policy. The article protrays the phenomenon of social media involvement in the city administration, especially in the process of policy making by Bandar Lampung City Government. The article is also intended to postulate empirical groundwork for further researches in developing models of political relationship between citizens and the government through social media in the policy making process.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Theoretically, running a government always involves an active process which is known as dynamic governance. Dynamic governance is " how these chosen paths, policies, institutions, and structures adapt to uncertain and fast changing environment so that they remain relevant and effective in achieving the long-term desirable outcomes of society" (Neo and Chen, 2007). Therefore, the essence of governance dynamics is how various policies, institutions and structures collaborate effectively so that they can adapt to uncertain conditions and rapid changes in the environment. As a result, policies, institutions and structures remain relevant and effective in achieving long-term public interests. Janssen and van der Voort (2016) even supported this opinion by stating that society always experiences continuous changes and the governmental style should adjust appropriately.
Over a decade, the dimension of communication between governments and citizens has changed because of the emergence of social media. Khan (2017) even purposed that social media are a form of “participatory channel to increase citizens’ awareness and engagement”. It is hoped that by using the channel, the government could derive information related tocitizens’ needs and expectations”.

As an example, plenty of political science scholars are interested in a systematic approach to study the role of Twitter in state politics such as what topics state legislatures currently focus on, how policies are formed prior to bills (through Twitter?), how they are conveyed to the public via Twitter, and how the conveyed agendas compared to the actual agendas of the state bills (Lei et al., 2017). According to Leavey (2013) social media platforms or networks are a social structure made by individuals or organizations which are bound by one or more specific types of interdependencies, preference values, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, conflict, or trade. Generally, there are four social media applications. First, social networks, such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Myspace and Twitter. Second, online publications or media sharing such as Youtube, Flicker, RSS, Slideshare and Twitter. Third, online collaborative platforms such as Wikis (Media Wiki, Intellipidia, and Scholarpedia) and blogs (Wordpress, Blogger, etc.). Fourth, online feedback systems that facilitate comments, voting, rating, as well as surveys and polls to find out trends in public opinion (Ceron and Negri, 2016; Pasek et al., 2019).

The use of social media in the process of administering government is highly related to openness, transparency, even anti-corruption (Panagiotis et al., 2013). The concept of transparency basically addresses citizens’ opportunity in obtaining information in the administration of government, such as budgets, regional regulations, programs and projects (Dwiyanto, 2006). Bellver and Kaufmann (2005) supported this by stating that social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. facilitate submission of social aspirations. In addition, social media have opened ways for a more participatory government, new social dynamic, and a more inclusive civil society (Stewart and Wilson, 2016). It is claimed that the use of social media will have implications for policy changes. According to Parsons (2001) changes in policy may occur in several ways. First, policy innovation which stands for the adoption of solutions for the society’s problems into the government’s policy. Second, policy succession that aims to replace existing policies with new and better policies. Third, policy maintenance is a new policy adjustment to keep the policy on track. Last, policy termination, where the policy is considered no longer appropriate and it is stopped. In the case of changes in public policy in Indonesia, especially in the current era (post the New Order), public access to the process of making and implementing policies has opened the space of the occurance of high political access (Fernandes and Fresly, 2017; Putra et al., 2018).  Every public policy that is not in line with the public interest because it is or involves contrary to value, waste of budget, deviation of authority / power, and incompatibility with alternative policies suggested by the public is usually responded to negatively by the public through social media.

Thus, it is interesting to study policy changes in order to describe the attitude of public criticism and government response and to see whether the attitude of public criticism has an impact on policy changes. No studies to date explore how public responses posted by social media users affect the local government’s public policy change as well as determine types of policy that may get affected by them. Therefore, this article fills this gap by investigating whether and how online opinion posted by Bandar Lampung’s social media users influences public policy agendas of the government at the local level in Bandar Lampung City.

3. METHODOLOGY

This research used the qualitative descriptive approach as its research design. Based on the chosen method, the researchers only developed a concept and gathered the facts but did not do hyphotesis testing It was done by focusing on social media usage, government’s responses and policy changes. The users of social media were residents of Bandar Lampung who use their smart gadgets to access social media. The government's responses were seen through the reactions made by the Bandar Lampung government in responding to aspirations (criticisms, suggestions, protests or opinions) on government policies.

The government’s policies as intended were policies issued by the Bandar Lampung  government, especially those that have stimulated debates between the people of Bandar Lampung, namely: the Bina lingkungan Program, the construction of a flyover, free health service programs, free public service programs (population cards, birth certificates, etc.), and the traffic engineering management program. Meanwhile policy changes were studied by analyzing whether public aspirations or pressure through social media could bring about any changes in terms of policy innovation, policy succession, policy maintenance or termination.

The article data were collected from interviews with the Information and Communication Service (Infokom) of Bandar Lampung City, Bandar Lampung City Secretary, and related stakeholders (256 social media users in Bandar Lampung). In-depth interviews, documentation and observations of internet use in the Bandar Lampung City Government were also used as technical methods of data collection. The interviews were carried out at the local government office within 40-100 minutes. The interviews covered how local governments identify and define policy issues, channels for public aspirations, how they respond to and act on comments, criticisms, suggestions made by the public through social media, as well as how to manage public policies from the perspective of local government and from a public interest. Data analysis was carried out in this research in stages by breaking down data into smaller components based on certain elements and structures as well as through data reduction, data presentation or display and conclusion or verification.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1. Public Policy in Bandar Lampung City

In the era of regional head elections which are directly done by voters, regional heads are required to arrange strategies that consist of visions, missions and programs for the society. In the future, those strategies will be part of the government’s short term plans and programs. The vision, mission and program of regional heads have outcomes to be put into reality because they are part of the commitment and political contracts of regional heads with their stakeholders. The formulation of vision, mission and program of regional heads does not involve a political engagement from various parties (stakeholders) nor is carried out openly by involving public participation. Instead, it is made by political elites within candidates’ inner circles, even tending to be predominantly perceived by the interests of candidates. Some public policies that tend to be part of the perception of interests of Bandar Lampung’ mayor are as follows:

4.1.1. Bina Lingkungan Policy

The program is designed for the sake of elementary, secondary and high school students and run by the Bandar Lampung Government. It is intended to reduce poverty, by providing opportunities for poor citizens to get better futures. The Community Development path is carried out by the Bandar Lampung  Government and expected to be a solution to problems in the realm of education. Many schools have run admission for new students by Community Development Program (PPDB) pathway since the 2011/2012. Candidates that apply for the program have to prepare necessary documents and meet certain requirements including displaying files related to their family condition and identity. The program itself provides free school for selected candidates. All school fees and tuitions have been paid by the government of Bandar Lampung. Based on the description above, it can be concluded that the program provides opportunities for prospective students with background of underprivileged families to enter public schools which are close to their neighborhoods. This community development pathway is also a form of the Bandar Lampung City government's steps to eliminate discrimination and prevent injustice in the field of education.

The Billing Program, which is one of the main programs of the Bandar Lampung  Government as stated in The Mayor's Regulation No. 49 of 2013 Chapter IV Article 10 about the new student admission path, declares  that if the applicants are determined to exceed the 50 percent quota, there is a need for academic selection and verification through a home visit.

4.1.2. The Flyover Policy

Traffic congestion is a major problem in most cities in Indonesia including in Bandar Lampung. Therefore, to meet public satisfaction, public criticisms and public complaints over traffic congestion, solutions must be sought, including widening roads, traffic engineering management, making toll roads in the middle of the city, making underpasses, building flyovers, prioritizing public transportation, building skytrains, etc.

For the last five years, since Herman HN occupied the position of Mayor of Bandar Lampung, the traffic jams in Bandar Lampung have been reduced by building flyover roads (flyovers), widening most of protocol roads, structuring sidewalks and developing public transport (BRT). Especially for flyovers, the construction was conducted since 2015 up to 2017 along several main streets of Bandar Lampung. The flyovers program as one of the ways to overcome traffic jam serves as Mayor Herman HN's priority program. The flyover development program is also one of Herman HN's political contracts with Bandar Lampung citizens as a manifestation of the government's responsibility to reduce traffic congestion.

4.1.3. Traffic Engineering Management Policy

As an effort to solve traffic jams, the Bandar Lampung government carried out traffic engineering management at several main junctions of the city. However, the efforts of the Government of Bandar Lampung turned out to stimulate protests from the public and ironically increased the traffic jam itself. The program induced more traffic jams in several major streets, especially at some intersections of those streets. In August 2016, the traffic engineering management policy was stopped.

4.2. Participation of Social Media Users in Public Policy of Bandar Lampung City Government

According to the results of Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (2016) Indonesia was connected to the global internet since 1994 and since then, internet users in Indonesia have continuously grown. It is claimed that the total number of Indonesian internet users is currently 132.7 million. The survey findings also showed that most Indonesian internet users use the internet for social media, followed by search for entertainment, news reading, education, commercial, and public services. The most common forms of social media used by people throughout the world are blogs, social networks and Wiki.  Similar trends also appear in Bandar Lampung. Social media user numbers in Bandar Lampung also tend to be high. In the context of this study, we wanted to know the implications of using social media for changes in public policy in Bandar Lampung (see Table 1). Among 256 social media users in Bandar Lampung, most of them use Instagram (80%) and around 20% use Facebook and Twitter, as tools to provide criticisms, advice, support and rejection for the three public policies as the case studies mentioned above. Data related to the public response to the three policies can be seen in Table 1.

Table-1. Description of public criticism on bandar lampung mayor’s policy.

No
Policy
Description of public criticism through social media
1
Flyover construction at MBK
  • The Bandar Lampung government is less serious in making policies regarding the construction of Flyover Boemi Kedaton Mall which is characterized by a lack of handling traffic jam due to the construction of the Flyover
  •  Not solve problems in overcoming traffic jam
  •  The public offers an alternative priority for the construction of flyovers in other places
2
Traffic engineering management around Tugu Juang
  • Not solve problems and even further increasing traffic jams instead
  • Not offer other alternatives
  • Not involve experts
  • Public responses are not accommodated
3
Bina Lingkungan Policy
  • Private schools do not get new students
  • Implementation of public development programs is not transparent
  • The bina lingkungan program tends to be forced by the Bandar Lampung government
  • Some economically capable (rich) people can enter the public development program

Source: Result of research analysis, 2018.

The data in Table 1 shows the public responses to the three cases of policies. It showed that there were public disapproval of the policies made by the Bandar Lampung  government. They were expressed in the form of opinions, suggestions, rejections and alternative policy offers. Public expressions in social media are a new phenomenon in establishing relationships between the public and the government.

Table-2. Structure of policy arguments category.

No
Policy
Rejection
Support
Policy Argument
1
Traffic engineering management
It is rejected by the public because it does not solve the problem
Lack of public support
Lack of alternatives, do not involve stakeholders and do not solve problems
2
Flyover construction
Refusal because its implementation tends to be uncoordinated, disrupting traffic
Policy rationality is more profitable
Can answer the problem of traffic jam problems and not less people are harmed
3
Bina Lingkungan Policy
Rejection because the implementation is less transparent and is detrimental to various parties, including private schools and superior high schools
Participation of school access for the poor
The dominance of regional heads is very strong in the public development program

Source: Result of research analysis, 2018.

For the public, social media is used as a tool for aspiration, creating an open virtual space between the government and the public. Thus, the use of social media by citizens can strengthen democratic capacity. In the opinion of Beetham (2005) democracy is not only limited to the electoral process but public control over public affairs. So, the public's attitude through social media is part of public awareness in correcting government policies.

Table 2 shows the quality of public aspirations seen from the aspect of its policy argument structure. The policy argument in Table 2 shows that the power of social media does not end the political action movement to reject policies massively but is only limited to providing a critique of the implementation of policies. As shown in Table 2, there were two policies that Bandar Lampung social media users subtly rejected, namely flyover construction and Bina Lingkungan Policy. These two were condemned not because of their failure to solve problems of Bandar Lampung City but mainly due to the policy implementation that was supposedly “uncoordinated and less transparent”. While the traffic engineering management policy was the only policy that prompted the social media users in Bandar Lampung to deliver their aspiration. 

4.3. The Click Activism and Public Policy Changes

The findings showed that the traffic engineering management policy is the only policy which was stopped. It is claimed that the discontinuation of the policy was not due to the strength of social media but the result of public reaction that was felt directly because the policy did not solve the problem. The traffic engineering management policy’s evaluation, carried out by the Ministry of Transportation, has become the basis for stopping the policy.

Table-3. Social media and policy changes.

No
Policy
Policy changes
Description of policy change arguments
1
Traffic engineering management
Termination
Public criticism is in line with the the fact that the policy does not solve problems
2
Public development policy
No changes
The Bina lingkungan program continues despite the fact that it received tips and suggestions from the public through social media. The government responds to public suggestions only by improving and supervising implementation procedures
3
Flyover construction
No changes
Construction of the flyover in the area of ​​Boemi Kedaton Mall continues to run. The Government's response to public criticisms is insignificant because public support is stronger and other alternative policies to address the problem of traffic jam are considered unworthy

Source: Result of research analysis, 2018.

From the data in Table 3, it appeared that only the traffic engineering management policy was discontinued by the government. It happened because the government responded to public reaction. The policies of public development (biling) and flyover development policy (flyover) faced public reaction, but not strong enough for the Bandar Lampung  government to accommodate the public's aspirations, even though the City Government gave a positive response because some public criticisms were followed up in the implementation of the policies.

It can be said that social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter did not cause policy changes out of thin air, but what it did at least was create an avenue for visibility and a place to spread the word. As Zeitzoff (2017) noted, there must first be some underlying causes such as “a source of new data on conflict” only then is new social media become helpful to induce the public policy change. First, the findings from interviews indicated that social media had allowed Bandar Lampung communities new strategies to object to the Mayor’s improper policies. In other words, not only can they conduct a physical rejection, but also an electronic one. As mentioned by Gladwell (2011) that “these tools alter the dynamics of the public sphere”, and click activism serves as another dimension for the public to actively involve with the government administration.

The second is that new social media creates awareness of public policy issues. It was also found that the click activism that took place in the termination of the traffic engineering management policy was vastly social media-based. Facebook and Instagram updates and comments paved the way for Bandar Lampung social media users’ opinions on rejecting the traffic management to be voiced. In the same vein, quick dissemination and low cost had also allowed the policy rejection to be successful.

The third highlight is that the transformation of social media has allowed more flexibility for massive attention and a greater sense of responsibility. Reuter and Kaufhold (2018) asserted that this current information revolution is less about technology and more about how people react to events through social media. In the past, when multiple riots happened in Jakarta, all what most of Bandar Lampung citizens did was just to hear news from the radio or watch on television.

Now, thanks to the exposure of social media, Bandar Lampung citizens are more empathetic than they were in the past. As the communication arena such as social media gets denser, more complex and interactive, the Bandar Lampung population gains greater access to information and more opportunities to engage in public speech. Apart from obtaining information of the traffic management through social media, they can also share pictures, videos, comments and ‘like’ the comments and updates related to the rejection of the policy on Facebook.

In other contexts, Bandar Lampung citizens have taken a more active role thanks to influences of social media as highlighted by the “Active Audience Theory” of Croteau and Hoynes. At this level, the traffic management policy is a topic that Bandar Lampung social media users are actively involved in, in understanding the policy within their personal and social contexts in rejecting it.

Fourthly, new social media networks provide a platform that the local government cannot yet successfully fully prevent or censor. One may argue that increasing efforts have been attempted to make censorship more extensive as found in China, but with the Internet as a porous vessel, information has its own way to diffuse through to avid audiences. As news, testimonials, status updates on social media related to the traffic management policy were dispersed, the instant rejection, objection, and complains were rapidly found in most accounts of Bandar Lampung social media users.

The process of public policy making in a democratic perspective is that the government must have a responsive attitude to the aspirations of the people, so that public policy will be based on the public interest. At this level, the community must provide rights or access in the process of decisions making or the process of formulating public policies as accommodation of the public interests in policies and public participation in the process of public policies making. From the substantive aspect, society or public must provide access to create dialogue in formulating and making public policies. In this understanding, democracy is a transformative process that enables people and policy makers involved in participation to determine policies and advocate for the collection of participation in democracy, collaboration between stakeholders in the policy making process, and government management based on dialogue. Thus, the process of formulating public policy is placed in an open space to carry out the process of democratization in which there is a dialogical process between elements of decision making and the use of political decisions in formulating a policy. Thus, community involvement in the process of public policy making at least plays a role from starting program initiation, building agreements to programs to be decided, demanding for government transparency to the role of criticizing and providing advice on agendas formulated by the government.

However, the results of the study show empirically that the people's relationship with the government in public policy making, policy issues and policy implementation are still perceived dominantly by the holders of power. From this perspective social media has not become a movement that able to influence the public policy making process.

5. CONCLUSION

From a political perspective, the role of social media in the process of formulating and implementing public policies is something new in the realm of governance. Public expressions in responding to policies made by government can be done without having to go through demonstrative actions, but personally through social media.

In this study which surveyed the policies of the Mayor of Bandar Lampung on environmental development, traffic engineering management, and flyovers construction, public sensitivity was very high in responding to these policies in the form of criticism, suggestion, support and rejection. Nevertheless, the attitude of the Bandar Lampung Government to the public's responses was considered to be mostly dominant. However, social media may facilitate the public’s voice to the government and induce discontinuation of some policies as what happened with the traffic engineering management policy.

Funding: This study received no specific financial support.  

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgement: Both authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study.

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