Keyboard Action End up Political Party: Understanding the Intertwining Relations of Social Media Activism, Citizenship, and the Dynamics of Democracy in Indonesia

The networked citizen-centered perspectives generate opportunities for the democratic innovations through self-actualized networking and interaction. A qualitative case study from Indonesia is used to examine the dynamics of citizenship participation in political discourse through social media. The movement started from public advocacy by clicking the ‘like’ button of Facebook Group to support marginalized individual then the movement evolved into provincial social activism. The Facebook connectivity help the group to build a political party to further back up their main figure in the forecast Presidential candidacy. Archival analysis of Facebook members postings message revealed five categories of Facebook role in facilitating democracy: public defense, political support, presidential allegiance, creative manufacturing, and counter disturbia. Using Breese’s (2011) quadrant in public spheres continuum, the research illustrated that the movements evolve from ‘click’ action to ‘real’ action and develop from civic sphere to the political sphere. The research suggests that citizen participation in conversational politic sphere will face potential challenge in developing country context and security issue.