POLITICAL BRANDING PRABOWO - GIBRAN DALAM PEMILU PRESIDEN 2024: ANALISA INTERAKSIONISME SIMBOLIK DI MEDIA SOSIAL INSTAGRAM DAN TWITTER

Abstract

In October 2023, the KPU has named the final candidates, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as the presidential and vice presidential candidates for the 2024 presidential election. The pair numbered 2 is characterized as the oldest presidential and youngest vice-presidential pair, a presidential candidate from a military background and chairman of the Gerindra Party and a vice-presidential candidate from a PDIP politician background and Mayor of Surakarta since 2020. Interestingly, various controversies accompanied the process of determining the candidate pair, which involved the dynamic institutions of political parties, the Constitutional Court and the Presidency. Departing from that, it then becomes important to analyze how the construction of Prabowo - Gibran's political image formation amidst various controversies. Through the study of political branding, this article dissects the mechanism of building the image of Prabowo - Gibran through a symbolic interactionism approach on social media. This approach refers to the management of political image construction through identity, symbols and narratives that want to be conveyed to the public. The research method uses content analysis on social media instagram @relawanpride, which is the official channel of this candidate's digital campaign and twitter @Gibran_tweet which is Gibran's communication channel in responding to various issues and political policies. The results this research showed that Prabowo - Gibran's political branding manifestation is packaged through interactions that use symbols and distinctive identities ranging from the choice of light blue costume color, the use of the term 'gemoy', the operationalization of artificial intelligent technology in their photos, to Gibran's communication style in responding to political issues that gave birth to new phrases. The main target in this political branding is the younger generation with the spirit of openness, cheerfulness and the power of optimism to continue the previous government. In general, the public then captured and interpreted these symbols through various attitudes, both support and criticism, which were captured in the escalation of surveys during the campaign period.

Keywords: Political Branding, Symbolic Interaction-ism, Instagram, Twitter, Presidential Election of 2024