“Dream Now, Travel Tomorrow”: Communicating the Nation Branding of Indonesia through Tourism-Based Social Media

Abstract

This study examines the use of tourism-based social media to communicate the idea of nation branding. By using Indonesia as a case study, this research aims to provide research contexts of demographic, historical, and contemporary challenges of social media and nation branding. The research project aims to answer three important objectives. Those are to investigate the pattern of tourism-based social media, the narratives behind the pattern, and the implications to the concept of nation brand of Indonesia. This study adopts a typology of photographic representations by using photos, videos, captions, and hashtags from tourism-based social media. The findings demonstrate the complexity and nuances of Indonesia’s nation branding from the narrative of a dreamy place through visual imageries and written texts, the discursive portrayals of people, place, and politics, and the trajectories of the past. This study implies that Indonesia’s brand is portrayed using tranquil and rural imageries, the exoticism of local identity, the symbols of authority in tourism, and the historical nuances of the nation. This concludes that the nation branding discourse and practices of Indonesia become a part of the dynamic struggle and negotiation of nation identity, culture, and governance, which define and redefine the collective and individual meanings of the country.