Are They Populist Parties? Mapping Parties’ Facebook Populist Communication Strategies in the 2024 Indonesian Election

Political parties across the ideological spectrum strategically adopt populist rhetoric as their campaign communication strategy on various social media platforms. Two research gaps remain, however. First, despite accumulating research, populism is under-discussed in the Indonesian context, and there is insufficient information on how Indonesian parties employ populist rhetoric during campaign periods. Second, while the left-right ideological division helps to explain populism in Europe, it is unclear whether key features of Indonesian politics, religion and complex inter-party cooperation and competition, shape a distinctive form of Indonesian populism. This analysis examines how political parties running in the 2024 national election adopt populist communication frameworks on their Facebook profiles and identifies populist communication patterns among Indonesian parties. While small and newly established parties show higher populist tendencies, people-centric rhetoric is prevalent across parties’ Facebook communication. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) indicates largely identical communicative patterns among Indonesian parties.