Construing Likes, Shares, and Profile Picture Changes as Digital Political Participation in the Brave Pink and Hero Green Movement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55681/ijssh.v4i3.3968Keywords:
Digital Political Participation, Slacktivism, Social Construction of Reality, Social Media, Young VotersAbstract
This study examines how young Indonesian voters aged 18–35 make sense of low-cost digital participation, such as liking, sharing, and changing profile pictures, during the Brave Pink and Hero Green (17+8) campaign in August 2025. Using an interpretive qualitative approach, the study draws on Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) social construction of reality and in-depth interviews with 10 Millennial and Gen Z informants. The findings show that the meaning of these digital actions is formed through externalization, objectivation, and internalization. Similar actions do not always carry the same meaning for those who perform them. Liking, sharing, or changing a profile picture, therefore, cannot be understood as either slacktivism or meaningful participation based on the action alone. How participants understand their actions is also shaped by their motivations and the conditions surrounding their involvement. No clear difference was found between Millennial and Gen Z informants; differences were more apparent in their motivations and the extent of their participation.
References
Agarwal, N. (2023). Emergent definition of online social activism. International Journal of Development and Conflict, 13, 17–38. https://ijdc.online/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/13_1_2_Nikhil-Agarwal.pdf
Amalia, A. R., Aidah, S., Aqida, A., & Wahidin, D. (2025). Slacktivism sebagai Bentuk Pendidikan Politik: Studi Kasus Gerakan Sosial Online di Indonesia. Jurnal Kalacakra: Ilmu Sosial dan Pendidikan, 6(1), 72–86. https://doi.org/10.31002/kalacakra.v6i1.9426
Bahriansyah, I. M., Anriani, S., Mulyadi, M., Subono, N. I., & Nurisnaeny, P. S. (2025). Mobilisasi Partisipasi Politik Generasi Z dalam Aksi Indonesia Gelap 2025. Jurnal Manajemen Pendidikan dan Ilmu Sosial, 6(5), 4347–4356. https://doi.org/10.38035/jmpis.v6i5.6295
Barati, M. (2023). Casual Social Media Use Among Youth: Effects on Online and Offline Political Participation. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2312.10095
Batubara, C. V. (2024). The Story of Online Activism in Indonesia: An Analysis of the Blue Garuda Case. Journal Election and Political Parties, 1(2), 45–56. https://jurnal.literasipublisher.co.id/index.php/jepp/article/view/89
Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2012). The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 739–768. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Doubleday.
Bimber, B., Cantijoch Cunill, M., Copeland, L., & Gibson, R. (2015). Digital Media and Political Participation: The Moderating Role of Political Interest across Acts and over Time. Social Science Computer Review, 33(1), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439314526559
Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (3 ed.). SAGE Publications.
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (4 (ed.)). SAGE.
Ekman, J., & Amnå, E. (2012). Political Participation and Civic Engagement: Towards a New Typology. Human Affairs, 22(3), 283–300. https://doi.org/10.2478/s13374-012-0024-1
Fernandes, A. F., Suryahudaya, E. G., & Okthariza, N. O. (2023). Pemilih Muda dalam Pemilihan Umum 2024: Dinamis, Adaptif dan Responsif. Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). https://csis.or.id/publication/pemilih-muda-dalam-pemilihan-umum-2024-dinamis-adaptif-dan-responsif/
Firamadhina, F. I. R., & Krisnani, H. (2020). Perilaku Generasi Z terhadap penggunaan media sosial TikTok: TikTok sebagai media edukasi dan aktivisme. Share: Social Work Journal, 10(2), 199–208. https://doi.org/10.24198/share.v10i2.31443
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How Many Interviews Are Enough?: An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability. Sage Journals, 18(1). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
Halupka, M. (2014). Clicktivism: A systematic heuristic. Policy & Internet, 6(2), 115–132. https://doi.org/10.1002/1944-2866.POI355
Hansen, S. B. (1978). Political participation: How and why do people get involved in politics? 2nd edition. By Lester W. Milbrath and M. L. Goel. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1977. Pp. xi + 223. $4.95, paper.). American Political Science Review, 72(4), 1482–1484. https://doi.org/10.2307/1954644
Kristofferson, K., White, K., & Peloza, J. (2013). The nature of slacktivism: How the social observability of an initial act of token support affects subsequent prosocial action. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(6), 1149–1166. https://doi.org/10.1086/674137
Lim, M. (2013). Many clicks but little sticks: Social media activism in Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(4), 636–657. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2013.769386
Literat, I., & Kligler-Vilenchik, N. (2019). Youth collective political expression on social media: The role of affordances and memetic dimensions for voicing political views. New Media & Society, 21(9), 1988–2009. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819837571
Mardianti, D. L., & Ernis, D. (2025). Makna Brave Pink Hero Green yang viral di media sosial. Tempo. https://www.tempo.co/politik/makna-brave-pink-hero-green-yang-viral-di-media-sosial-2066471
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (3rd ed.). Sage.
Morozov, E. (2009). The brave new world of slacktivism. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/05/19/the-brave-new-world-of-slacktivism/
Morozov, E. (2011). The net delusion: The dark side of Internet freedom. PublicAffairs.
Noy, C. (2008). Sampling knowledge: The hermeneutics of snowball sampling in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11(4), 327–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570701401305
Nugroho, B. H. (2025). Digital activism and youth participation in Indonesia: A qualitative study of social media’s role in contemporary social movements. Priviet Social Sciences Journal, 5(10), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.55942/pssj.v5i10.603
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (4 ed.). SAGE Publications.
Penney, J. (2014). Social media and symbolic action: Exploring participation in the Facebook Red Equal Sign profile picture campaign. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(1), 52–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12092
Rotman, D., Vieweg, S., Yardi, S., Chi, E., Preece, J., Shneiderman, B., Pirolli, P., & Glaisyer, T. (2011). From slacktivism to activism. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 819–822. https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979543
Saud, M., Ida, R., Mashud, M., Yousaf, F. N., & Ashfaq, A. (2023). Cultural dynamics of digital space: Democracy, civic engagement and youth participation in virtual spheres. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 97, 101904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2023.101904
Schumann, S., & Klein, O. (2015). Substitute or stepping stone? Assessing the impact of low-threshold online collective actions on offline participation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(3), 308–322. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2084
Theocharis, Y. (2015). The conceptualization of digitally networked participation. Social Media + Society, 1(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115610140
van Deth, J. W. (2014). A conceptual map of political participation. Acta Politica, 49(3), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2014.6
Verba, S., Nie, N. H., & Kim, J. (1978). Participation and political equality: A seven-nation comparison. Cambridge University Press.
Wahyuningroem, S. L., Sirait, R., Uljanatunnisa, U., & Heryadi, D. (2024). Youth political participation and digital movement in Indonesia: The case of #ReformasiDikorupsi and #TolakOmnibusLaw. F1000Research, 12, 543. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.122669.3
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Patricia Arstuti P.P
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
