Leading up to the 2019 presidential election in Indonesia, campaigns have emerged through social media, particularly Twitter, using various hashtags, such as #2019GantiPresiden (2019 Change President) and #TetapJokowi (Always Jokowi). This paper tries to understand the presidential candidates’ power map in forming opinions and influencing voter behavior by analyzing Twitter from August 6, 2018 to September 15, 2018, just before the beginning of the official campaign period, by searching for the keyword “pemilihan presiden RI Tahun 2019” (RI presidential election in 2019). According to our NodeXL’s analysis, there were 1,650 active Twitter users talking about the 2019 presidential election. The 1,650 Twitter users have formed a communication network of 46,750 relationships formed from messages in the form of tweets, comments, and retweets. Our analysis found that those mentioning “pilihan presiden 2019” form large communication networks around four clusters: one for each of the two candidates (Jokowi and Prabowo) and two for opinion leaders who are undecided about the election (Gus Mus and Mas Piyu). GusMus is a religious leader, as an official of the PBNU Rais Syuriah (an Islamic organization) and has a large following both on and off Twitter. “MasPiyu” is an unidentified Twitter user; he only has a large following on Twitter, but does not have support offline.

https://doi.org/10.15206/ajpor.2018.6.1.31

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