School of journalism & communication

ASSESSMENT COVERSHEET
NAME: Maharani Anindita Wijaya
STUDENT NUMBER: 43654811
COURSE CODE: COMU 3222
COURSE NAME: Mass Media, Spin, & Public Opinion
ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: Assessment 1
LECTURER: Eric Louw
TUTOR: Elena Block
DATE DUE: 27 April 2015

SIGNATURE:

Maharani Anindita Wijaya

DATE: 26 April 2015

Introduction

Indonesian Presidential election 2014 was run with many controversies. As a democratic
country, the election were based on the peoples choice. There were two candidates which the
first one is Jokowi and Jusuf Kalla, and the second one is Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajassa.
This election process was categorized as one of the most tense presidential election process since
1998. This paper going to focus on one of the president candidates, Prabowo Subianto, to analyse
communication strategy used in his political campaign. Political campaign always known have
relation with spinning. Though it is part of communication strategy, most of the time spin defined
as something bad. Grattan defined spin as highly professional selling of the political message that
involves maximum management and manipulation of the media. The practices done by spin
doctors or in formal names called as communication or media advisers considered as successful
if they could change public opinion and control the flow of information. They also the one who
manage the politicians impression. In Prabowo case, the spin was gone both successful and
unsuccessful.

Prabowo Subiantos Background

Prabowo are known as a strong and decisive leaders. His name always recall the 1998
Indonesian reformation tragedy where kidnapping and human rights abuses was coordinate by
himself. However, the truth of this story have never been solved clearly until now thus it aroused
different interpretation and assumptions. Most of Indonesians cannot separate Prabowo and the
98s case, especially the society who lives in that era and knowing the mistakes he has done.
Prabowo Subianto Djodohadikusomo was a retired Lieutenant General until he has been
dismissed from Kostrad command in 1998. Afterwards, he went to Jordan for self-imposed exile.
He has background as international graduates and the family roots of Javanese palace. He also
have a long list of military background which has been started since he was 16 years old. While
his grandfather is one of the national heroes for Indonesian struggles.

In 2008, he founded Gerindra party as a platform to reach his goals to develop Indonesia. This
party joined the legislative election in 2009, and he also partner with Megawati from PDIP party
as vice president candidates. However, they fail to won the election. It did not break Prabowos
spirit and he nominated as president candidate in 2014.

Prabowos successful spin

His campaign for presidential election 2014 was managed strategically. The involvement
from media, political elite, businessman and others was the key of his successful communication
strategy. His vision is to encourage Indonesians that we can stand on our own two feet. He
emphasize the message that foreign are stealing our country. In Makassar 17 June, he said We
should up to be hospitable because we did not realise our wealth is stolen and they said we are
stupid and our leaders can be bought. To convey his admiration for the former prime ministers
for Malaysia and Singapore, he said that he was influenced by Dr Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew
that we are not third-class humans, yet can be modern and compete.
He also emphasize the nationalist value by relating on his background as he said that he
was taught that his family always served the country, served the people, and served the society.
Through his vision he successfully grasp public attention to support him due to his competitor
(Jokowi & Kalla) were part of former president Megawati Soekarnoeputri party (PDI-P) where
during her regime, many Indonesias assets or property were sold to international investors.
Prabowo used oratorical style and posed as democrat, although most people see him as
dictator, the same as former Indonesias president Suharto. During Suharto regime, Indonesia
was well-developed. Therefore the key message of Prabowo campaign has the same style with
Suharto as a strong leader. This was reflect on some speech where he used old spelling, similar
to Suharto. Besides that, Gerindra TV Ads show the picture waving rice in the rice fields, the same
as Suhartos photo. In Indonesia, waving rice is a symbol of well-being. Moreover, he focused on
using the words of rakyat (refer to the mass, lower people) rather than masyarakat (public).
This choice of word was a strategy to arouse the support from people who feel poor and have no
dignity, refers to Gobel technique of mass communication, where the basis mass is lazy, therefore

passive mass need to be led by an active leader. It was followed with his agenda program of
ekonomi kerakyatan (economic populist) to support rakyats interest by applied populist
economic principles with his hidden message that the mass is passive and the leader should have
hierarchical relationship. In Prabowos tactics, his images was describe as a strong leader, and
come from a prestigious background who would give a promising future for Indonesia. It was
reflected on his campaign speech in Gelora Bung Karno stadium with 80.000 capacity, came with
helicopter and riding 2 billion Rupiah - Portuguese house which 1000 times compare to one
person standard labor fees in Indonesia 2 million Rupiah per month. He successful ly grasp
support not only from high class society in Indonesia from artist to political elites, but also the
low class society.
Another tactic used by Prabowo was by involving in the movie industry. The message was
to increase Indonesian nationalism through recall the history of the independence struggle which
correlated with his family background. His grandfather is patriarch and uncle is the national
heroes, while his Djodohadikusomo family Javanese kingdom descent. The movies was produced
by his brother Hashim Djodohadikusomo as the producer, Connor Allyn (son of Rob Allyn) as
director, and Rob Allyn (as the writers), who later on revealed as Prabowos consultant. Rob Allyn
is a great spin doctors who was well known with his successful work for George Bush campaign
to be Texas Governor and United States president, and also consultant for Vincente Fox,
candidates for Mexico president. The first movie they created was Merah Putih (Red and
White), released in 2009 before presidential election where he also joined the election as vice
president candidates. Followed with Darah Garuda (Blood of Eagle) which released in 2010 and
Hati Merdeka (Hearts of Freedom) in 2011. The last movie Java Heat was released in 2013.
This was a tactic to build reputation of Prabowo and Gerindra party by engage with and use
history as a legitimizing tool. Besides that, it was used to emphasize Prabowo key messages,
visions, and build his image which correlated with his background.
Prabowos team successfully create tensity in presidential election through black
campaign and frightened towards Prabowos character. Black campaign was occurred to mislead
information and change public opinion towards the opponent. A local media Obor Rakyat
wrote that Jokowi is a Christian and from Chinese descent. When asked for clarifications,

Prabowo just have not say a word. It was a character assassination for the opponents because
both issues are very sensitive in Indonesia which most society are Muslim and considered a real
native to lead the country. Besides that, PDIP (Jokowis party) was accused have correlation with
PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), the party who ruin Indonesia in last decade. Prabowo team
use this situation by mentioning that he his anti-PKI and tolerant on pluralism (Chinese and
Christian). Because most of his family are Christian, but Prabowo himself are a Muslim. It affected
Jokowis image where most low-education people think that this news was true. On the other
hand, the public were scared of Prabowos autocrat character who has no respect for the will of
people and would not stop to win power even though he has to lie or cheat to win the presidency.
He said in an interview with BBC that losing is not an option. Therefore it aroused public opinion
towards the future of Indonesia if Jokowi win, it might bring war. While if Prabowo win, there will
be no democracy in Indonesia. It was reflected on his interview with ANU academic Ross Tapsell
in June 2014 that he want to change the regulations for presidential elections back to 1945
constitution to return elections to the political executive. He mentioned that todays voting
system are too expensive and impact on corruption.
They also applied demagoguery technique by spinning the quick counting process.
Prabowo said that he was a victim of survey institutions to reach attention from mass. National
Survey Institution published the result of quick count while the voting process has not finished
yet. Two days before the voting day, they mention Prabowo won 9% from the opponent. The
quick count process made confusion in public because the media were in the partism journalism
stage. Prabowo was supported by Multumedia Nusantara Group owned by Hary Tanoesoedibjo
(Indonesian politician) media group, RCTI, MNC, and Global TV and also Visia Media Asia media
group (TV One and ANTV) owned Aburizal Bakrie (Indonesian politician). While Jokowi is only
supported by Surya Paloh (Indonesian politician) media group (Metro TV). Media which
supported Prabowo, won him 48% to 43%, while in most trustworthy survey institutions shown
the opponent won 5% compare to Prabowo. Moreover, the media also reported TV One who
won Prabowo was attacked by Jokowi supporters with Molotov bomb. This spin impacted on
delaying the vote-count process while Prabowo has planned other tactics to spin the
administration error and manipulation in the vote count results, and also wait for the final results

from General Elections Commission (Komisi Pemilihan Umum, re: KPU) for further compare with
the issues to Constitutional Court.

Spin turned to failure

Despite his successful tactics to influence public opinions, there were some
communication strategy which come to failure. His tactic by creating a movie Prabowo Sang
Patriot which released in February 2014 could not change the public perception towards his
1998s conflict. The movie was purposed to show the power of Prabowo lineage which traced
from Javanese minor aristocracy and straighten the historical record that Prabowo is not the
suspect of 1998 case. The key message was Prabowo are anti-colonial, independence warrior,
and an economic thinker. Hashim Djodjoadikusumo (Prabowo brothers and movie producer)
denied that this movie was part of the campaign. In contrast, most people considered this movie
as a flop.
Besides that, he also shown the notion of polysemy where some of his character were
keep changing. As mentioned in the previous part that he want to change the presidential
election system back to 1945 constitution, contrast with one of his interview where he suddenly
refer to Westminster system (prime ministers depend on having a majority in their unruly party
rooms), to shift Indonesian system to parliamentary which he never mentioned before and never
show any sympathy to this system. In addition, the message that he always emphasize against
the international involvement in Indonesia development was contradict when he meets
international investors and diplomats where he said international capital is crucial for Indonesia
development. This reflected he did not have concrete plan and contradict with his political goal,
centralized presidential system. Furthermore, he failed to manage his persona and impression of
his supportiveness in election process. In an interview with BBC, he shows his character as not a
humble person. He said If there any news who won me, it means I was cheat. I always said to
my supporters to keep calm and our competitor is our brothers, they are not enemy, but my
opponent never said the same thing.

About a month before the election, the rumors Prabowo hired Rob Allyn as his consultant
was massively spread out in media. In March, Fadli Zon DPP Gerindra denied and said that they
did not need foreign consultant. The one who well-understand the field is us. Thus they affirm
they did not use foreign consultant. In the interview with The Financial Times, June 2014, Rob
Allyn admit that he worked for Prabowo team. It was followed with his article Every vote must
be counted, every voice must be heared where he mentioned that his consultancy group have
engaged in no smears and no vote machinations. He wrote that Indonesia did not applied a true
democracy. In a true democracy every vote must be counted, every ballot must be recorded and
every voice must be heard based on his monitoring that quick counts only represent less than
half of 1% of voters where 2.000 voting places out of 480.000+ across the vast archipelago of the
worlds third-largest democracy.
The quick count controversy also turned out to failure. In the elections day, Prabowo was
angry towards the TV stations who did not won him because only four pollster won him, while
eight survey institutes won Jokowi. KPU declared Jokowi had received 53.15 % of the votes, and
Prabowo Hatta received 46.85%. But, he insisted the data provided by PKS which won him was
correct. On the other hand, Mahfud MD (Constitutional court) declared that PKS never provide
any data. Moreover, Indonesian Research Centre found out, the data (Prabowo 48% and Jokowi
43%) provided by Hari Tanoesoedipdjos media group was collected by combining the previous
survey data from the reference of political parties. In results, during the elections day, Poltracking
which contracted with TV One on 9 July, broke the contract due to TV One also aired other quickcount institutions which the credibility was questioned.
Both candidates declared their winning thus it created confusion in public. After pretending for
days that Prabowo has won the election, public finally realized the well-paid survey institute was
nonsensical. Prabowos campaign manager reported the surprise of many observers that 27
hackers from China and South Korea were involved to manipulated four million votes that had
not been cast. Afterwards, it proven that the hackers had been arrested for entirely different
offenses that had no relations with this elections. His team changed the strategy by attacking
KPU with massive and systematic election fraud. On 25 July, he filed a claim to the constitutional
court by 95 lawyers of his teams submitted the calculation of election results which Prabowo and

Hatta received 50.25%. The court who announced their decision by 22 August of this case cannot
be appealed by Prabowos claim.
Before the final announcement, on 25 July, he declared he resign in the election process because
there were irregularities in 52.000 poll stations. However, his partner, Hatta Rajasa, did not
signed the declaration. Prabowo spokesperson, Tantowi Yahya said that Prabowo had not
withdrawn from the election process but only from the vote-counting process. In results, the
quick count spin which had successfully manipulate the public previously, come to an end where
public realize it was a game of Prabowo team to persuade re-hold the election process.

Conclusion

Prabowo campaign in Indonesian presidential election 2014 shown how spin doctors have
the power to control the media and staging the performances in delivering the messages to the
public. His succeed in getting media attention was reflected on the shift of positive public opinion
towards Prabowo. It was supported by the developments in communication technology where
spin doctors can position and re-position politicians quickly without any cognition that it was
staged strategically. On the other hand, Prabowo campaign also turned out to unsuccessful spin
because some of the successful spin were later found out was a political theater stage. Moreover,
it came to worst when his spin doctors was revealed and step down from the presidential
election.

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