Anggi Aprilia, Feri Firdaus

Critical Discourse Analysis of Teun A. Van Dijk's model on @gerindra's TikTok Content in Gaining Gen Z Votes for Prabowo Subianto in the 2024 Election

Introduction

Critical discourse analysis of teun a. Van dijk's model on @gerindra's tiktok content in gaining gen z votes for prabowo subianto in the 2024 election. Critical Discourse Analysis of @gerindra's TikTok content for Prabowo Subianto's 2024 election campaign. Discover how "serious yet relaxed" communication attracts Gen Z votes.

Abstract

This study aims to outline a critical discourse analysis of ten TikTok contents from @gerindra related to Prabowo Subianto in their efforts to capture Gen Z votes. The high usage of TikTok among Gen Z and its significant role in the 2024 elections, with voting proportions reaching 23%, has substantial implications. This research analyzes the interconnection of discourse and the role of TikTok in the effort to attract Gen Z votes. The study employs Teun A. Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis model, which includes text structure, social cognition, and social context. Data is collected through interviews and categorized based on the research subjects' statements. The subjects reported that in the 2024 elections, Gerindra must adapt to social media trends, particularly TikTok, in order to gain Gen Z support for Prabowo Subianto. This adaptation involves using a "serious yet relaxed" political communication style in their brief, light, and straightforward content. The study finds that Gerindra creates such content to present Prabowo as more humanistic, contrasting with his previously known strict and rigid image.

Review

This study proposes a timely and highly relevant critical discourse analysis of political communication on TikTok, specifically focusing on @gerindra's efforts to engage Gen Z voters for Prabowo Subianto in the 2024 Indonesian election. The choice of TikTok as a platform and Gen Z as a demographic is particularly salient given their significant role and presence in contemporary political landscapes. Utilizing Teun A. Van Dijk's model, encompassing text structure, social cognition, and social context, provides a robust theoretical framework for dissecting the intricate relationship between discourse and political strategy. The abstract effectively highlights the practical implications of adapting communication styles to a "serious yet relaxed" approach to present Prabowo in a more humanistic light, an interesting finding that speaks to the evolving nature of political campaigning. While the chosen theoretical framework is strong, the abstract presents some ambiguity regarding the methodological execution. The study aims to analyze "ten TikTok contents" using Van Dijk's model, which primarily involves deep textual analysis. However, the abstract then states, "Data is collected through interviews and categorized based on the research subjects' statements." This raises questions about how the interview data directly integrates with or informs the critical discourse analysis of the *TikTok content itself*, particularly concerning the "text structure" component. It is unclear whether the interviews serve as the primary data for the CDA, or if they are used to interpret the social cognition and social context aspects *after* the TikTok content has been analyzed textually. Greater clarity on the interplay between the direct analysis of the digital content and the insights gleaned from interviews would significantly strengthen the study's methodological coherence and demonstrate how Van Dijk's multi-layered model is applied holistically. Despite these methodological questions, the study's potential contribution to understanding digital political communication, especially in the context of emerging voter demographics and platforms like TikTok, is considerable. The finding regarding the strategic shift to a "serious yet relaxed" political communication style to humanize a candidate with a previously rigid image offers valuable insights for political strategists and communication scholars alike. Future iterations of this work would benefit from explicitly detailing the analytical process – how specific textual features from the ten TikTok videos were linked to social cognition and context through Van Dijk's model, and how the interview data either confirmed, elaborated on, or challenged these textual interpretations. Overall, this research tackles an important and underexplored area, offering a compelling starting point for further investigation into the evolving dynamics of digital political discourse.

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