Religious Populism in Mainstream Media between Indonesia and India

The introduction to the special issue develops a framework for understanding religious populism in hybrid media environments, emphasizing its role as a mode of meaning-making that intertwines political and religious logics. Moving beyond conventional approaches that frame religious populism as either the politicization of religion or the sacralization of politics, we highlight its capacity to shape collective identities through transcendencies—the drive to move beyond immediate experience and construct systems of significance. We argue that religious populism extends beyond institutional structures, functioning as a culturally embedded process that reinterprets and reclaims meaning-making in contemporary society. Within hybrid media environments, where digital and traditional platforms intersect, these dynamics are intensified through algorithmic visibility, direct engagement, and the erosion of institutional religious gatekeeping. By situating religious populism within broader media and cultural transformations, this introduction underscores its influence in contemporary political and religious landscapes.

After the Kanjuruhan Stadium tragedy—riots after League 1 match between Arema FC and Persebayafootball teams at Kanjuruhan Stadium, Malang, East Javahappened,multiple information of citizen journalism appeared on social media. This article aims to determine the accountability and influence of citizen journalism on the reporting of mainstream media dealing with the Kanjuruhan Stadium tragedy on the period between October 1 to 11, 2022. The method applied in this research is a case study with a qualitative approach. Data are collected using observation and documentation techniques from online mainstream media—which is news article—or even offline one—that is character generic in news broadcasts of television station. Meanwhile, data related to citizen journalism dealing with the tragedy are gained from social media. In conclusion, it is proven that information from citizen journalism contributes a major influence to the direction and headlines of mainstream mass media, even though not all of the information is reliable. Initially, mainstream mass media reports such as detik.com, kompas.com, tvOne, Metro TV and Kompas TV tended to blame Arema FC supporters a.k.a Aremania. The focus of the mainstream mass media reporting was Aremania’s anarchic action regarding their favourite team—Arema FC—lost the match against Persebaya. Based on the point of view of the report, the shooting of lachrymatory gas was considered normal due to the out of control chaos happened. Anyhow, not until a day, did the perspective of mainstream mass media reports reverse. It happened due to the emergence of citizen journalism as Twitter tweets, voice recordings, videos and photos on social media. Mainstream mass media then wrapped the reports of Kanjuruhan Stadium tragedy as horrors experienced by Aremaniain the tragedy. The authorities were blamed on these reports. They were figured as abusive party because they fired lachrymatory gas hastily to the supporters.

It has been argued that the media ownership is an influential factor determining the content production and performance of the media. However, knowledge about the characteristics of the media ownership and its impacts on the coverage of general election by the media has been less researched. Judging by such developments, this work raises the following question: how did the oligarchic ownership of the Indonesian news television channels determine the ways in which they covered two candidates who ran for president in 2014? By selecting TV One and Metro TV as a case study, this work extracts reports on the ways in which these news TV channels have produced news content related to the 2014 general election using qualitative and thematic content analyses. The findings are as follows: In the 2014 Indonesian presidential election, both TV One and Metro TV failed to comply with the ideal journalistic principles of covering both sides, objective and balanced reporting, as required by the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission, while broadcasting news about the two presidential candidates. Instead, the television stations preferred to broadcast the polarized news coverage of the presidential candidates. TV One appeared to show more support for the Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa presidential candidate pair, while Metro TV favoured the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla presidential candidate pair. This suggests that oligarchic media ownership strongly influenced the content production and performance of these news TV channels. They were used by oligarchs who have the media company to convey their personal political agendas in the hope that it will influence, or even set, the public’s agenda.

The sustained rise of religious populism across the globe has influenced Indonesian political situation. In Indonesia, the last ten years have witnessed the increasingly widespread emergence of religious populism. Populists express strong moral judgments in decrying corruption, moral decadence and corrupted elite in power. They define society in Manichean terms as divided into a good ‘us’ and an evil ‘them’. In defining both of these categories, they put forward the important role of religious identities in order to classify who fits into the category of ‘us’ and who belongs to ‘them’. Hannah Arendt offers sharp analyses allowing to uncover religious populism mechanism. Her main analysis was based on the pathology of tribal nationalism. The result of her analysis helps us to explore the similarities of tribal nationalism pathology and religious populism phenomena. The use of comparative and critical approaches helps to conclude that the pathology of tribal nationalism gives lessons on how such a movement cannot accept differences and tends to be totalitarian. Such a comparison opens new perspectives on helping to examine the phenomena of propaganda, slandering, intimidation, mass mobilization, persecution, violence, and formations of paramilitary forces as instruments for totalitary movements used by religious populism. Such phenomena are loaded with manipulations and lies which have fragmented social groups and weakened political culture so that ideological consensus is impossible. Ordinary citizens, even the intellectual, are not able to oppose well-organized lies and manipulations. The danger is that such religious populism maneuvres risk jeopardizing the foundation of the Indonesian nation, which is formulated under the motto “unity in diversity”.

This research investigates Indonesian broadcast television news media's independence in the 2024 Presidential Election, focusing specifically on iNews TV and Metro TV. The study is driven by the media's critical role in shaping public opinion and the integrity of democratic processes, particularly during electoral periods. Through qualitative comparative case study with interview and literature review as data collection methods, this research examines how these two prominent news outlets maintain neutrality and impartiality in their reporting on election-related issues. The findings reveal significant differences in the editorial approaches of iNews and Metro TV, which appear to be influenced by their respective ownership structures and political affiliations. iNews, linked to media conglomerates close to specific political figures, shows a distinct bias in framing news stories, favouring certain candidates. Conversely, with its political affiliations, Metro TV exhibits a different pattern of bias, though equally impactful on audience perceptions. This study underscores the challenges faced by Indonesian media in maintaining editorial independence in a highly polarized political environment. It also highlights the implications of biased media coverage for public trust in the media and the overall democratic process. The research contributes to the broader discourse on media independence in Indonesia, calling for stronger regulatory frameworks to ensure that broadcast media serve the public interest with fairness and impartiality, particularly during critical electoral events. Keywords: Media independence, Metro TV, iNews TV, Indonesian television, Presidential Election 2024.

This study investigates Generation Z's trust in mainstream and social media in Indonesia and Lebanon. Using a descriptive research design and survey method, data were collected from 114 respondents through Google Forms in April 2022, including students from Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampel (UINSA) Surabaya and participants from @iCademy in Lebanon. The research explores the critical role of mainstream media in modern information dissemination and social media as a powerful communication tool. The results indicate that while social media is widely used, mainstream media maintains credibility due to its verified information. The findings emphasize the importance of reliable information sources for Generation Z, especially in predominantly Muslim contexts where ethical standards and factual accuracy are crucial. These findings suggest that media organizations must uphold high journalistic standards to retain the trust of young audiences.

The purpose of this study is to look at the phenomenon of religious populism in the context of identity politics and how it impacts the approach to Islamic preaching in the digital era. Where there is a shift in Islamic preaching from a traditional approach to a more interactive and social media-based approach. This research was conducted using a descriptive qualitative approach through literature study. The results of the study show that religious populism increases social polarization and influences the content and style of preaching communication, which is more exclusive and emotional. In addition, the findings show that preachers (Dai) respond to this phenomenon in various ways, such as supporting populist narratives and preaching in a moderate manner to reduce social conflict. The new findings of this study lie in the strategic analysis of Islamic preaching in responding to religious populism from 2015 to 2024. By integrating the views of modern Muslim scholars on political communication, digital discourse, and da'wah theory. Previous studies have not discussed this approach comprehensively, especially those focusing on the dynamics of social media and religious identity. Therefore, it is hoped that this research will provide theoretical and practical assistance in building a da'wah strategy that is appropriate to the socio-political challenges in the digital era.

A Relational Approach to the Digital Self: Plus-Sized Bloggers and the Double-Edged Sword of Market-Compromised Identity

This study is intended to critically elaborate Catholic Theology on Religious Populism, primarilly as articulated in the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti (On fraternity and social friendship), and its relevance to critically investigate politics of Religious Poapulism in Indonesia. Since the politics of Populism is corraleted with the politic of religious identity, this research then addresses the correlation of those two political phenomena. We utilize literer study as a method in exploring this study. After doing a biblical critical analysis, which in the Christian Theology considered as the biblical theology; we then investigate the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which gives an extentive account on Populism. Catholic theology, we are convinced, gives important contributions to the project of religious moderation and offers critical thoughts on religious populism: Religious Populism could endanger the democratic foundations, such as the recognizion of plurality, neglecting the richts of the marginalized and minority, and induces the crisis of humanity itself.

Much has been written about the working conditions, experiences of injustice and exploitation, and the formation of the working class in the construction sector in China. However, we know very little about the role of media in the process of gaining/denying voice and visibility. Combining critiques of media forms and media practices with ethnographic insights, and in juxtaposition to the two dominant, or hegemonic, media forms – reality TV shows and media events – which embody, respectively, the market and the Party-state’s efforts to exploit the ‘media logic’, the article considers the success and failure of rural migrant construction workers’ media tactics in their struggles to claim wages owed to them. This article is concerned with the politics of voice, and explores how the processes of mediation and mediatization engaged in by all parties – the Party-state, the market, workers and the media – amplify or constrain voice.

In the middle of the growing use of mass media in Indonesia, with the presence of internet and social media, but television is still the most popular media compared to other mass media. Metro TV is one of the television stations that is concerned with the quality of their program. This research talks about audience responses to President's Corner Program on Metro TV. The aim of research is to analyze the response of the audience to President's Corner using 3 dimensions of response, which are cognitive, affective and behavioral. This research use S-O-R theory as the main theory, and other supporting theory such as responses theory, the theory of mass communications effect, television and television program. The methodology used is descriptive quantitative using questioners distributed to 70 respondents with a total population of 229 residents of residents of Maharaja RW 14, Depok. The Scale used is the Likert scale. From the results of this research, it can be concluded that the response of the audience to President's Corner program is good, with cognitive average value at 4,17, affective 3,82, and behavior at 3,42.Keywords:Response, audience, television's program, quantitative, descriptive

Mediatization of politics refers to the meta-process by which political institutions are highly dependent and influenced by the usage of media in political processes. In the early 2000s, research was heavily pioneered by scholars from Western World. For the past decade, scholars from the Southeast Asian region have explored and used the concept in understanding the relationship between media and political institutions in their respective countries. However, there is no cohesive systematic review on research that has been done on how mediatization of politics is being constructed in Southeast Asian context. This is crucial to determine mediatization of politics claims as the new paradigm of media studies holds true in the context of Asian political systems. Therefore, the present article conducted a systematic literature review on mediatization of politics in the Asian region. This study integrated different research designs and the review was based on PRISMA 2020 (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta Analysis 2020). From 45 articles initially screened, 9 articles were chosen for the final systematic review. Four themes emerged from the systematic review, namely a) democratization, b) disinformation, c) religious populism and d) nationalism. The results showed that in most SEA countries, political actors are embracing the high dependency of media, whether it is the mainstream media or the digital media. Along with the mediatization, comes positive and negative consequences that are different according to the history of the countries. Future scholars should focus on expanding and building the systematic review in different regions. Keywords: Systematic review, mediatization of politics, Southeast Asia, democratization, political institutions.

1. Political and Media Systems in Central and Eastern Europe1 1.1. Media Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe 1.2. Conditions for Media Freedom 1.3. Theories of Media Capture 1.4. Party Colonisation of the Media 1.5. Party Colonisation and Media Freedom 1.6. Further Specifications 1.7. Normative Implications 1.8. Methodological Notes 2. Hungary 2.1. The Political and Media Landscapes 2.2. Media Policy under the Horn Government 2.3. Media Policy under the Second Orban Government 2.4. The Horn Government vs. the Second Orban Government 3. Bulgaria 3.1. The Political and Media Landscapes 3.2. Media Policy under the Kostov Government 3.3. Media Policy under the Simeon Government 3.4. The Kostov vs. the Simeon Governments 4. Poland 4.1. The Political and Media Landscapes 4.2. The Media Policy of the Miller - Belka Governments 4.3. The Media Policy of the Marcinkiewicz - Kaczynski Governments 4.4. The Miller - Belka vs. the Marcinkiewicz - Kaczynski Governments 5. Romania 5.1. The Political and Media Landscapes 5.2. Media Policy under the Nastase Government 5.3. Media Policy under the Tariceanu Government 5.4. The Nastase vs. the Tariceanu Governments 6. Slovenia 6.1. The Political and Media Landscapes 6.2. Media Policy under the Second Drnovsek Government 6.3. Media Policy under the first Jansa Government 6.4. The Second Drnovsek vs. the First Jansa Government 7. Summary and Conclusions: Veto Points in the System Appendices Table 1. Freedom House press freedom indexes and ranking Table 2. List of interviewees Table 3. Composition of governments studied Table 4. Selected party systems indicators References Index of names and places

Political communication cannot be separated from the role of the mass media in conveying messages to target audiences in particular and the public in general. Especially now that politics is present everywhere thanks to media networks that have real-time broadcasting capabilities. In political communication, political figures are often or packaged in political advertisements or various styles of political communication that must follow the liberalization of the media system which is more capital-oriented (money oriented) through political campaigns. From here arises media relations with political parties and actors and some others also influence the role of owners of media capital who are also politicians or leaders of political parties as seen on Metro TV. The results of this study show that the relationship between the media and politics is found in the news on the Prospective Candidates for the 2024 Presidential Election in the news on Metro TV. Thanks to media networks that have real-time broadcasting capabilities, new media have sprung up, both in the form of dare media (on-line) and social media, both of which are inseparable from being used as political communication channels to shape imagery, both positive and negative, from political actors. As a result, the social media arena is often used as a buzzer for news that is the mainstream of the media so that it can strengthen the formation of public opinion. This study also found a correlation between political communication conveyed through mainstream media and social media. This can be seen from a number of issues that are used in political communication as an effort to image the Presidential Candidate through conversations on social media in which many buzzers and loyalists from political actors are mobilized

His research centers on mass media political economy; addressing the production, distribution, and consumption of media content. He takes particular interest in exploring the social structure/struggle embedded in media production and interpreted in media consumption. His goal is to use research to influence the development of policy to enhance opportunities for media production and distribution by marginalized cultures.