Social media has taken on a unique role in Indonesia's social, economic, religious, and political life. The country boasts one of the highest numbers of Facebook subscribers globally, while Jakarta has been dubbed the ‘Twitter capital’ and is arguably the current Instagram capital of the world. Social media platforms are transforming Indonesia in ways that remain poorly understood. They are reshaping social relations, disrupting and creating new business opportunities, fostering new religious forms and communications, transforming activism, and serving as laboratories for new representations and interpretations of social and political identities.

At the same time, growing evidence suggests that social media is being used to inhibit and undermine democratic processes, as interest groups and so-called ‘buzzers’ manipulate public opinion and influence elections.

Purpose 

The workshop, ‘Social Media in Indonesia: Trends and Challenges,’ held at KITLV in Leiden on 5-6 October 2023, aimed to bring together researchers at the forefront of these developments. It sought to critically examine the significant and growing influence of social media on Indonesian society, economy, and politics. The workshop explored how social media is transforming Indonesia and its broader impact on the international and global scale.

The workshop addressed key questions:

• How is social media affecting Indonesia's democracy?
• How are citizenship and activism shaped by social media?
• What is the interplay between social media and religious or social engagements, practices, and identities?
• In what ways are Indonesians' livelihoods being reorganized by social media marketplaces?
• How does social media reinforce or reshape the rural-urban divide?
• What methods and approaches are best suited to study these phenomena?

External collaborations 

• Ward Berenschot (KITLV)
• Johan Lindquist (Stockholm Center for Global Asia, Stockholm University)
• David Kloos (KITLV)