Buzzer Works on Human-Machine Agency Role in Securing Indonesia's Voters Precinct

Henry Sianipar, Mediana Handayani, Ressa Uli Patrissia

2021

Abstract

This paper investigates political polarization observed on Twitter during the 2019 Indonesia presidential election to illuminate a complex and organized human-machine interaction driven by the personalized algorithm and its impact in securing designated voters. In this research, the theory of Interactive Media Effects (TIME) leverages to verify that personalized algorithm provides a myriad opportunity for buzzers to commercially politicize using the bot as machine agency in targeting undecided and swing voters for a Trending Topic Operation. An autonomous application NodeXL and Twitter API successfully acquired 328.474 tweets as the source for social network analysis. Snowball technique in obtaining data interviews from 6 field experts served as triangulation along with related literature support. A study on the 2019 Indonesia Presidential election revealed that buzzer activity played a significant role in securing votes by deceiving the Twitter algorithm. The human agency has proven more impactful than machine agency in creating trending topics. Findings also show that bot use was still widespread among 2019 Indonesia presidential candidacies. These findings redefine the electoral voter's sphere in Indonesia as the new promising precinct emerged and raise further concerns of the possibility of instigating a specific behavior through manipulating one's political preference.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Sianipar H., Handayani M. and Uli Patrissia R. (2021). Buzzer Works on Human-Machine Agency Role in Securing Indonesia's Voters Precinct . In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Applied Economics and Social Science - Volume 1: ICAESS, ISBN 978-989-758-605-7, pages 352-359. DOI: 10.5220/0010921600003255

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaess21,
author={Henry Sianipar and Mediana Handayani and Ressa Uli Patrissia},
title={Buzzer Works on Human-Machine Agency Role in Securing Indonesia's Voters Precinct },
booktitle={Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Applied Economics and Social Science - Volume 1: ICAESS,},
year={2021},
pages={352-359},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010921600003255},
isbn={978-989-758-605-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Applied Economics and Social Science - Volume 1: ICAESS,
TI - Buzzer Works on Human-Machine Agency Role in Securing Indonesia's Voters Precinct
SN - 978-989-758-605-7
AU - Sianipar H.
AU - Handayani M.
AU - Uli Patrissia R.
PY - 2021
SP - 352
EP - 359
DO - 10.5220/0010921600003255