perceptions faster, primarily very influenced by the
environment. (Sucianingsih, 2018)
The above statement is reinforced by research
conducted by Damanik (2018) on “WhatsApp and
Beginner Voters in Medan City” that was held in the
North Sumatra Gubernatorial Election, concluded
that the political participation of beginner voters of
WhatsApp users had increased significantly. On the
other side, the understanding of democracy was co-
opted by the political cleavage, where their choices
were more dependent on the social situation, family
environment, relatives and peers, the influence of the
pulpit and the written symbols of religion and ethnic
groups. (Damanik., 2018)
Beginner voters who are millennials have the
habit of using social media as a reference to find
information. From the research conducted in 2018, it
was found that on average, young people have more
than one type of social media, and in each social
media, they have more than one account. Ownership
of social media accounts and anything that is done by
respondents when using social media has more or less
an impact on how they treat hoaxes and fake news
when they get information from friends or other
people. From this research, it was found that the most
widely used social media was Instagram (58.8%)
WhatsApp (24.4%), and Line (7.3%). When
respondents get a piece of information that they think
is interesting from social media the most (30.7%) do
not sort or analyze first, whether or not the news
needs to be spread. While those who read first and
then analyze it whether it needs to be spread or not
only 25.6%. These statistics mean that the possibility
of spreading the hoaxes and/or fake news becomes
increasingly viral. Especially with the response of the
audience who chose to directly spread the information
they got, without sorting and confirming whether the
info was correct or not. This situation shows how
hoaxes and fake news attacks are very easy to form
the negative public opinion, and when public opinion
has been formed, it is challenging to straighten it out.
(Setiowati, 2018)
The anxiety and ignorance of the beginner voters
in the election is what the political parties or
presidential candidates aim. A large number of
beginner voters can significantly increase vote
acquisition. One of the political efforts to gain the
beginner voters is by spreading the information
regarding the presidential candidates through social
media. One of the efforts carried out by the national
campaign team of each presidential candidate was by
making personal branding of the presidential
candidates they carried out. According to Asri (2018)
on “Anies Baswedan’s Re-branding in Beginner
Voters in Gubernatorial Election of DKI Jakarta in
2017”, they found that efforts to form candidate
personal branding are not only the good branding for
the candidate but also by creating bad branding for
the opposing candidates. This effort is usually carried
out using social media. (Asri, 2018)
Informing a good personal branding by
displeasing an opponent can be done in several ways,
among others are, first, unintentional reporting
mistakes, for example, news that stated that
Indonesia’s debt in the Jokowi era reached the highest
number. Secondly, false rumours do not originate
from a particular news article. For example, there was
news about Jokowi has an unreported overseas
account. Thirdly, conspiracy theories are difficult to
verify as true or false and typically originated by
people who believe them to be true. For example,
there was information regarding Jokowi as a member
of the Communist Party (PKI), and he is of Chinese
descent. Fourth, satire is unlikely to be misconstrued
as factual. For example, there was information
regarding Jokowi as Jokodok (Jokowi the Frog) and
his constituents as Cebong (tadpole). Fifth, false
statements were stated by politicians. For example,
Ratna Sarumpaet was persecuted. Lastly, reports are
slanted or misleading but not outright false (fake
news is “distortion,” not “filtering”). For example,
there was news about seven containers of ballots that
have been punched by candidate number 01. Some
information is incorrect and shaped by video. In the
video, a statement of prominent figures such the Pope
supports Donald Trump or in Indonesia about KH
Ahmad Dahlan who associates disasters that occur
with the quality of leaders who are not trustees, or in
the form of memes that spread through social media.
(Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017)
Social media plays an increasingly important role
in political communication campaign strategies by
disseminating information about policies that will be
carried out if won, support from respected community
leaders, or also support from supporters of a
candidate. The content of the message is, of course, a
message construct that is tailored to the personal
branding that they want to achieve for their
candidates. From research carried out in the 2016
election of EU leaders, national language and
message distribution by social media, volume and
communication content during the campaign, as well
as the factors that determine the adoption and use of
social media by candidates, are things that are
analyzed. Their findings show that the main
candidates and their debate on television have a big
influence on the volume and content of the
communication. Another finding is that the content