IS4 Webinar: Social Media, Politics, and Schismatic Algorithms in Indonesia

Join Associate Professor Merlyna Lim (Carleton University), in conversation with Ms Irene Poetranto (Citizen Lab/University of Toronto) to explore the complex and contradictory relationships between social media and politics – on 28 October 2021 at 09.00 PM WIB. Held by the University of Sydney, the conversation will be moderated by Dr David Kloos (KITLV).

All over the world, including Indonesia, social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and devices such as smartphones have increasingly played an instrumental role in facilitating and mobilizing collective actions and activism. The same technologies have also simultaneously been utilised by states and public authorities for their own benefits, including to control public opinions and repress dissents.

Moving away from assessing the presumed (un)democratic potentials of social media, Merlyna Lim explores complex and contradictory relationships between social media and politics and offers an in-depth understanding of how state and society relations, power, and politics are contested and exercised on, with, and through social media. Drawing on empirical snapshots from the country, Merlyna specifically analyzes how social media platforms, and their algorithms, were utilised and appropriated by activists and ordinary people on grassroots level, both in the pursuit of counter-hegemonic project as well as in support of the status quo.

About the IS4 Series:

Sponsored by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC), the Cornell Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), this virtual seminar series brings together social science experts from across the globe to discuss pressing issues facing Indonesia. In addition to providing in-depth scholarly analysis of social issues in Indonesia, this series will foster new opportunities for networking between those working in Indonesia and around the world.