New Wave of Political Communication

It has been 10 years of reformation era since 1998 where Soeharto resigned his position as the President of Indonesia. In Soeharto regime, we had a non-democratic political system that affected the political communication system in Indonesia. At that time the citizens were really districted to criticize the government performance. Instead of their role as the watchdog of government, the media was used as a tool of government to inform its policy that may only benefit the government.

Nowadays, the political communicator whether they are journalist, opinion leader, or any political party now can freely communicate about their opinions and ideas or even criticize the current government performance. The democracy process in Indonesia is getting better where people now has more attention about the political issue and participates into political communication.

This situation is also supported with the advancement of information and communication technology that enable people to share their ideas and opinions about the current political situation. The information is democratized, many information about the political actor in government or any issue about politic can be found in Internet. The information is spread in blog, web portal, forum, social networking, mailing list and influence the perception of public that may lead into next political activities.