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Students’ Perspective towards Social Media Buzzer

Rio Pandapotan H1, Achmad Yudi Wahyudi2
yohanesrio1919@gmail.com1, achmad.yudi@teknokrat.ac.id2
Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia
Abstract
As Indonesian is facing a political year in 2019, there are social media accounts rising up
to support their politicians in every way possible; bad or good. These social media
accounts are called buzzers. This article is trying to find out students’ perspective on the
related phenomenon. In order to obtain a comprehensive output, the author conducts
interviews on several participants as representative. The representatives are taken from
English Literature Study batch 2017. There are 6 participants in total with 3 men and 3
women. The method to choose the participants are based on 3 criteria: (1) Active in social
media, (2) Bright in academic life, (3) Active in organization and such. In the result of
interview, major students have negative perspective towards social media buzzer. However,
there is a tendency of ignorance for students who are not active in social media. Based on
that case, these students need to be literate and update about the current issue in society
since they will be part of society after their graduation.
Keywords: buzzer, perspective, social media, students

Introduction
Social media is a world-wide platform, website, or applications which are used to
share both offline and online activities in order to create a wide community. The
development of online social media platform has taken a quite interest from people to
different kind of information either online or offline activities. The output of the said action
is a massive usage of various social media in Indonesia since 2007. Started by Bloggers in
1998, Friendster in 2002, Facebook in 2003, and Twitter in 2006, the use of social media
keep booming until the next 10 years (Juliadi, 2017). By the year of 2016, from 132
million of internet users in Indonesia, the most used social media are Facebook (54%),
Instagram (15%), Youtube (11%), Google+ (6%) and Twitter (5,5%%) (APJII, 2016). The
user numbers are increasing by the time. In 2018, internet users in Indonesia are increasing
to 171 million of population (APJII, 2018). This increasing number of users shows that the
trend of using social media has become more critical in the context of sharing information
widely. In worst possibility, it is possible to create a massive and constructed
misinformation through the activity of sharing post.
Indonesia is facing the year of politic in 2019. Indonesian would have elections for
both The House of Representatives and President. Due to these events, the use of social
media as a sharing information platform becomes more critical and important in that year.
By having an active social media accounts, people are able to be manipulated by
misinformation in social media. In order to manipulate a new opinion on people, it is
probable to witness various postings on political actions or movements on social media.
Moreover, it is also probable that those actions are done by cyber troops (Bradshaw &
Howard, 2019). For instance, there is a system of ‘trending topic’ in twitter. Tweets are
shared by adding a certain hastag in the tweet. This concept can be used as a tool to spread

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misinformation, because there will be only opinion towards a certain issue. The
manipulation is able to be done by hiring a large group of people to start this issue.
Those cyber troops are likely to be seen as a huge supporter for a politician. A
research was conducted early 2019 in result that cyber troops all around the world are
likely to get paid by a certain political party. They are paid to build society’s attitude
(Bradshaw & Howard, 2019). The payments are about 1 – 50 billion. In Indonesian
context, they are called as Buzzer. Buzzers are those social media accounts in which their
characterizations are constructed well and their posts are shared by others just to be
consumed. They try to manage their popularity at their best (Juliadi, 2017). This technique
of maintaining persona has the same concept as micro-celebrity on Twitter (Marwick &
Boyd, 2011). In Facebook, there are several fanspage that are indicated as buzzers.
According to Facebook Official, fanspage is a page used for connecting with customers or
fans that have likely the same interest. Those indicated fanspages are Humor Politik,
Katakita, and Seword.
Perspective is a though in wise and reasonable way. Social media can be used as a
massive tool to shape a perception towards a political issue. In order to obtain data as valid
as possible, the research is conducted in Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia and the
participants are selected from English Literature students. The author tries to investigate
the students’ perspetive and opinion on these social media phenomenon called buzzer.

Method
This study is conducted to explore the students’ perspective towards social media
buzzer in Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. This study follows qualitative descriptive
approach to discover how the students see the phenomenon of social media buzzer. The
research site is carried out in Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. This site is chosen as the
researcher is affiliated to the university. The participants are selected from English
Literature study program batch 2017 as it is easier for the author to reach the participants.
An interview protocol is developed in order to cover all information needed
(Milagros, 2016). The kind of given questions will cover participants’: 1) basic
understanding about the issue, 2) experience towards the issue, 3) opinions towards the
issue, 4) feeling towards the issue, and 5) knowledge to the most up-to-date case related to
the issue.
In collecting the data, the author approaches the participants. Students who are
selected by the author will be asked to do a face to face interview. The interview will be in
a context of informal sharing information. Informal interview is chosen in order to make
the participants feel easy. The interview is conducted in random place/area/spot such as
classroom, canteen, dormitory, and park. The said locations cannot be selected as the
author tries to reach the participants on the spot. The first location where the author first
approaches the participants will be selected. All interview results are recorded by the
author. Each interview will be no longer than 10 minutes.

Results
The interview process is done in Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. The author spent
two days in order to obtain the data. The first day, the author interviews all of the women
participants. The author will use an initial name to mention all of the participants. In the
first day, the author interview RM, SK, and AR. The interviewing sessions are done on
different places. In the second day, the author interviews all of the man participants. They
are JJ, MA, and SN.

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Based on the interviews with the students, it reveals that they have the same
understanding on the purpose of social media. They use social media focusing on
communication with other people. The current trend shown from students on social media
makes a relevance connection between actively sharing information and current issue
about buzzer. There is a probability of each student to witness, have different perspective,
and opinion of buzzer activities on social media. However, there is a tendency of student
who is lack understanding of buzzer to be ignorance. The lack understanding of buzzer is
shown by not knowing about what the buzzer is and not having any update about the
related issue.
The author splits the answers from the interviewee into men’s comment and women’s
comment.

Extract...(1)
“Social media is a media that we use to have an interaction in internet. From the
time I wake up in the morning, afternoon until I get to sleep. The most used are Instagram,
facebook, and whatsapp. I access whatsapp every day, almost everytime.”
This comment comes from SN. It could be concluded that the need of interaction is
needed and internet has a vital role since he accesses his accounts all day.
“I think, it is a place for us to share our idea and many more. I am not really that
active in social media. For a day I access my account about 2 or 3 times, and for total time
I spend is about 1 hour. The most active social media is WhatsApp, I rarely open twitter
and facebook.”
However, a little bit difference comes from AR. She says that the use of social media
is to share idea.

Extract…(2)
“As far as I know, buzzer is a terminology for people who share some partly-true
news to create a misinformation (in society).”
“I do not really know about what a buzzer is.”
The first comment comes from MA. He has a mostly-true understanding about what
a buzzer is. In contrast with AR, she has no understanding on the issue.

Extract…(3)
”I have that experience, but it is not from my friend list but from a certain group. So
at that time, there is a booming issue and that issue is likely hard to know whether it is
true or not. It is kind of hard to understand what happen to the issue.”
“Yes, I have this experience in Facebook. It is mostly on political year. In positive
context, they only support a politician, but it also appears that there is a negative context in
which people are mocking each other’s politician.”
Both woman and man participants agree that buzzers are mostly active if there is a
big political event.

Extract…(4)
“It depends. If it is positive content then it is not different with the ordinary political
promotion, but if it has negative content like mocking other’s politician or misleading
information, creating a conflict, or even hoax, I think it is not good.”
“In my opinion, the buzzer can be positive, can be negative. If those buzzers are
being paid to spread the fact then positive effect will come but in the other side they also
can pay buzzer to spread hoax which lead to the negative impact.”

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From these comments, both parties share the same thoughts. The outputs of buzzer
activities are based on what they do. The tendency of using false news will lead to negative
output, while if it is about sharing fact and fact only, it will have a positive output.

Extract…(5)
“I have a concern, because if we talk about politics, we will end up in a chaotic
situation. Even, there are family members who could start a fight because they have
different political view, and it really happens in society.”
“I think I would feel anxious because this job is very risky. Okay, if the news that
they spread is true then it is okay, but if it is just false or partly true news it will be
dangerous because you can be arrested due to this action.”
Both of the comments give their concerns in different context. The first comment
says that the concern of talking about politics is the after-effect to the consumer, while the
second comment is more concerning about the buzzers themselves.

Extract…(6)
“The last buzzer issue I witness was from TvOne in Indonesia Lawyer Club. The
buzzer topic is brought up.”
“Not really, because I do not really know about this issue”

Discussion
The participants are students. They are chosen based on their activity in campus and
social media. There are 3 background criteria in choosing the participants. Those criteria
are: (1) Active in social media, (2) Bright in academic life, (3) Active in organization and
such. The author expects different perspective from each participant. In result, most of the
students have negative view on buzzer (1) Negative Perspective, (2) Concerns, and (3)
Risky Job. However, there is also a tendency of the students to be ignorant about the issue.
The author finds out that there are uninformed students about buzzer. The tendency can be
caused by the lack of using common type of social media platform such as Facebook and
Twitter. One of the participants gives a comment of not knowing about what a buzzer is
and not updating the related issue recently.
The same study was conducted in 2018 (Suyanto, Prasetyo, Isbandono, Zaind ,
Purba, & Gamaputra, 2018 ). One of the results in discussion reveals that most of students
do not agree with fake or false news. There is also a tendency of not knowing the issue if
the participants are not active in social media. However, most of the students have negative
view on, in this case is buzzer, sharing misleading or even hoax information.

Conclusion
Commonly, students in Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia have negative perspective
towards social media buzzer. The negative perspectives are about how they concern about
this issue. The concerns are the after-effect of social media buzzer activities. The major
students still have an update information and awareness about social media buzzer.
However, the tendency of ignorance can be seen from students who are not actively using
social media. There is a need to literate these students about the current booming issue in
society since they will be part of it. The quality of students in updating information will
increase their knowledge and critical thinking.

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References
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