*Muria Endah Sokowati

Abstract:

Ben Anderson stated that the media creates imagined communities using images and vernaculars that perpetuate stereotypes to the audience. It then relates them to one another. However, the use of social media today makes the imagined community concept paradoxical. People now tend to seek out social settings they prefer, and they cluster in communities of like-mindedness. Accordingly, a nation will grow more politically segregated, resulting in growing intolerance in political differences and
making national consensus impossible. Discussions on social media preceding the 2019 General Election in Indonesia demonstrate this segregation, particularly regarding anti-Pancasila (the classification of specific groups as being oppositional to Pancasila, the foundational ideology of the state). This research attempts to show how the conversation of anti-Pancasila in social media contributed to political polarisation on Twitter during the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Elections.

Keywords: Political segregation, social media, discourse, demonisation