Journal of Critical Reviews

ISSN- 2394-5125 Vol 7, Issue 8, 2020

POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Dewi K. Soedarsono1, Bahtiar Mohamad2, Muslim Diekola Akanmu3, Idola Perdini Putri4
5Khoirunnisa

1Facultyof Communication and Business, Telkom University, Bandung, Indonesia

2Advanced Communication Research Unit (ACRU), Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia
Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected]

Received: 18.05.2020 Revised: 15.06.2020 Accepted: 04.07.2020

Abstract
In general, digital media but specifically social media are distinctive feature for political strategies in contemporary election campaigns.
Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the attitude of the follower on the content of message in the context of popular micro-blogging
site called Twitter. This paper focuses on leader’s twitter content and the follower attitude of Bandung Mayor in Indonesia. The leader’s
Twitter content is developed through the perception of political communication messages that will attract more followers to the
achievement and quality of the leader. This research tests the relationship between leaders’ twitter content that consist of news sharing,
context of message, quality of communication and daily activities updates with the attitude of the followers. More tests were carried out
to examine the most significant predictor of the follower’s attitude on the content component of twitter. The findings reveal that the
three components in leaders’ twitter content are positively significant with the follower attitude. B y analysing the strategies of political
leaders behind the use of social media, this article contributes to the on-going research of political influence on social media.

Keywords--- Social Media; Twitter; Attitude of Followers; News Sharing; Leader

© 2020 by Advance Scientific Research. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.08.257

INTRODUCTION Therefore, to examine how politician, political party or

In political communication, digital media is not a new government make use of social media will be interesting; and to
phenomenon. The internet has gradually developed and know which strategy is explored for these media plat form. The
communication channels with time have evolved. Two decades objective of this study is to examine the effect of leader’s twitter
ago, there were websites of different parties with only one way content on the attitudes of his/her followers.
to disseminate political messages. During election campaigns,
new tools for sharing information and interactive dialogue were LITERATURE REVIEW
offered by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (Fox & Ramos, 2012; Twitter
Murthy, 2011). According to Lattimore (2010), social media is an umbrella
which covers all media that uses technology in creating open
Social media comprise a critical exchange of political collaboration, interaction and participation where the users have
mobilization and socialization. Additionally, social media have the opportunities to share experiences, ideas and opinions in the
been shown to be effective in influencing political actions and form of visual material or words.The key to social media is the
attitudes of individuals such like in the case of the anti- presence of a collaborative, credible, atmosphere of information
government protest in Iran, Occupy Wall Street and Gezi Park sharing among the audience. Therefore, social media such as
protests (Gokce, Hatopoglu, Gokturk, Luetgert & Saygin, 2014). twitter depends on its audience in constructing the same
Furthermore, Twitter is one of the social media platform uses by meaning by using technology as a tool.
the politician to discuss political issues, government policies, and
the community activities. For instance, the politician uses Twitter Twitter has been integrated by politicians as a paramount tool to
to disseminate information, accommodate aspirations, and also strategize communication and intensely apply the strategies
interact with the wider community. during campaigns of election(Lopez-Meri, Marcos-Garcia &
Casero-Ripolles, 2017). It is well-acknowledged during a political
Twitter has become an important channel for the political campaign that the image or personality of the candidate has
communication activities. Political communication is the taken precedence over job issue or qualification in the evaluation
relationship concerning citizens, politics and the interaction of the politicians by the public (Lee, 2013).
mode that join these groups to one another (Abu Bakar,
Mohamad, Halim, Subramaniam, & Choo, 2018). The Twitter as a platform is distinctive due to its collaborative
relationships are built based on logos, ethos, modes of nature, story-changing and story-evolving environment which
persuasion and pathos. In this political communication with the leads to a more interactive agenda setting for the candidate and
followers, media can be used to create and exchange opinions the followers. Gokce, Hatipoglu, Gokturk, Luetgert & Saygin
and ideas between related entities, political institutions, public (2014) disclosed that twitter is good for a well-formed story with
officials and citizens. It contains dialogue during political a verified sources on a very quick notice which is quite difficult
dispensation in international, national, state and local political conventional media platforms such as newspaper and TV
systems and how information can be leverage to achieve political channel.
goals.
Twitter is focused on due to its unique character and user-
friendly interface to explore electoral context. The only challenge

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

is the possibility of contributing to public discourse in such a been successful (Casero-Ripolles, Feenstra & Torney, 2016).
condensed form but its efficiency and appropriateness are Political candidates are provided the opportunity to
strategic tools for political candidates and parties in their autonomously determine their own communicative strategy on
attempt to mobilize support and target voters. Gasser and the digital landscape and then relay their narratives and
Gerlach (2012) reported that tweets and re-tweets in many discourse both of which are basic components of political actions
countries are already distinctive features of political discourse (Casero-Ripolles, Sintes-Olivella & Franch, 2017).
and are followed intensively by lobbyists, politicians and
journalists. However, there is need for further attention on the From today’s rapid sharing of messages on social media
perception of the strategic role of twitter in communication of a platforms like in the case of Twitter, researchers from various
political candidate (Grusell & Nord, 2012). discipline have examined the sites and the challenges it poses
generally in a society, civic engagement, political participation,
Furthermore, twitter is considered to be the third largest social psychological well-being and interpersonal relationships (Caers
networking site (Barnett, 2011; Boland, 2013). The micro- et al., 2013; Wilson, Gosling & Graham, 2012; Zhang & Leung,
blogging platforms only allow users to read and post messages 2015).
(called tweets) of 140 characters or less. Users can “follow” or
subscribe to the twitter feeds of other users, re-tweet (or share Furthermore, Mitchell and Page (2014) stated that twitter
posts) and get followers of their own (Boland, 2013). Twitter for recently hasturned out to be an active part of online distribution
instance, can be used as a means of disseminating information to and consumption of news. Twitter as a platform simplifies and
all people both known and unknown without necessarily hoping facilitates news sharing due to its easy-to-use tools and
to get a reply or response from readers. convenient tools for posting content – for individuals,
organization and politicians. This can be done for average user of
Twitter has become a popular medium for channelling twitter using the “share” buttons provided on the news sites
information and it is being used widely by individuals, “retweet” from the follower to improve their visibility, reputation
organizations and politicians due to its widespread adoption. and initiative that have been executed. The news sharing done by
However, managing and maintaining social networks effectively leaders comprises distribution of a special kind of content
can be used as a political communication tools to gain a supports instead of describing a general social media activity that involves
from the peoples in the case of politician. political activities, opinions, reflection on national issues or a
discourse on someone’s feeling (Bakar, Halim, Mustaffa &
Makice(2009) has concluded to five main functions of twitter:1) Mohamad, 2016).
Daily Chatter Discussing regarding daily activities and routines;
2) Chat with the "@" for twitter others account, specific talk to Therefore, news sharing is defined as the practices of providing
others, on a user basis; 3) Share information or messages with for a specific set of people an access to news contents through
other users; 4) Report the news; 5) Report the developments of social media platform by recommending or posting it. Generally,
certain issues to other users. news sharing on twitter is an activity that is recognized by
researchers from varieties of discipline like any other social
While, Solis, (2011) suggests 4C with a community approach, media. In most cases, studies from computer or information
namely: science focus on how the processed news sharing can be applied
 Content is the content of an ideal message to attract the to predict or model information cascades, adoption rates, social
public's interest in forming a community. scientist focus and popularity on the effect of sharing news
 Context means to understand the characteristics of the individually (psychology), purpose of engaging in news sharing
audience in order to convey the appropriate message. (communication study) or its effect on political participations.
 Connectivity is designing experiences that support
interaction. Context of Message
 Continuity is providing continuous, valuable and consistent New opportunities and challenges have been posed by the
interaction with the audience. conventional media such as the text messages found on
From the past literature, leader’s twitter content can be divided Twitter(Elsner et al., 2009). One of those challenges is that user’s
to 4 major elements i.e. News Sharing; Context of Message, message is always short; for that reason, users are capable to
Quality of Communication, and daily Activities Updates as assemble the required context over the course of conversations.
discussed in the following sections: The implication of this is that reassembling of individual
messages into complete conversation makes it easier for any task
News Sharing that would have been performed on conversational media(Shen
According to Gainous and Wagner (2014), political actors are et al., 2006). Another way to think of this is to see it as clustering
allowed through the social media to autonomously produce and problem; thus, the message can be partitioned into set of disjoint
share messages to people directly (Adamu, Mohamad & Rahman, clusters where each cluster stands for a conversation on a topic
2016). Thus, their own issues can be created and framed. In this among a set of participants. This formation raised the question
manner, new spaces and new opportunities politicalwill be on how a similarity measure should be designed. The techniques
provided for political communication and spaces that the party are basically and solely on lexical overlaps since the messages
candidate exploits (Aalberg et al., 2017). Digital platform are always too brief to be meaningful. A single message may not
broadens the sharing potential by politicians as they can deliver much about the topic without considering what has been
influence media agenda and achieve significant social effect previously mentioned and how it was been said.
through creation and distribution of message through Facebook,
Twitter or YouTube (Mazzoleni, 2014). Bandung Mayor is an Recently, many methods have been introduced to detect
example of this as the politician has managed to access conversational threads in dynamic text stream (Wang et al.,
mainstream media with its discourse and proposal through an 2008). Although both lexical and non-lexical information are
innovative dynamic of two-way street mediatisation of politics used such as name and time mentions in the message for this
(Casero-Ripolles, Feenstra & Tormey, 2016). task, the social and temporal contexts have been ignored which
provide valuable hints for the message interpretation. To certain
Enli (2017) added that twitterhas agenda-setting influence with degree, the contexts of the message is exploited through
powerful platform for participating and sharing of public agenda correlation clustering employed in a two-step way but the
especially for the agents that recently arrive at or to the margins performance is limited largely by the classifier used in the first
of a political system. The use of news sharing in that sense has

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

step which message similarity is computed without social and exposure and ideological congenial content leading to an
temporal context of each message being considered. environment of “echo chamber” that could promote political
polarization and social extremism (Adamic & Glance, 2005;
The style of political communication can be broken down into Iyengar & Haln, 2009). However, the existing views are
two aspects: the content and the form. These are the two aspects reinforced to the extent that an individual tens to trust more on
that interact and influence effect to the point that style leads to quality communication than the quality of the information
content while content generates style (Moffitt & Tormey, 2014; (Bracciale & Martella, 2017). Perception of political
Wodak, 2015). A political communication style is therefore communication may be over flogged for partisan or other
proposed based on what is being said and how it is being said. reasons by the same token (Van Boven, Judd & Sherman, 2012;
The context of the message is considered as the way political Westfall, Van Boven, Chambers & Judd, 2015).
actors present their political performances with an awareness of
how the two aspects i.e. content and form are integrated into Daily Activities Updates
communication style. Twitter status is the activity where brief text updates are
broadcast by users about things happening in their daily work or
Quality of Communication life activities such as what they are experiencing, reading or
Users are allowed on social media to broadcast their social thinking (Kleinberg, 1999). Twitter can be explored to achieve
networks to other users (Donath & Boyd, 2004). In that manner, variety of social objectives and is now gaining popularity option
users can make evaluations and impressions about perceived for online social networking especially for politicians. On
communication characteristics of a source by examining the Twitter.com, politician updates daily life events of their
social network of the source such as attractiveness, competence constituents, communities; share opinions, information and news
and credibility. Additionally, evaluation of message quality and and seek expertise and knowledge with interested observers in
sources becomes increasingly important for audiences because public tweets (Kleinberg, 1999; Girvan & Newman, 2001). In
users of social media create their own contents. Many factors order to achieve a level of cyberspace presence, people seem to
related to the medium in a social media network are used to form use micro-blogging being “out there” and to have another layer of
such evaluation and perception (Flanagin & Medders, 2010; connection with the followers and the world (Kleinberg, 1999).
Spence, Lachlan, Spates & Lin, 2013). The increase in popular use for micro-blogging for lightweight
communication in the world of social computing makes it easy
Several past studies have investigated communication quality as for political leadersto have informal communication with their
related to Twitter. According to Zhao and Rosson (2009), source constituencies.
credibility is one of the most significant criteria used to
determine the merit or quality of tweeted news. In addition, Daily information or communication via twitter promotes feeling
users are reported to form evaluation and perception of a of liking other virtual persons. It leads to virtual feeling of
credibility of a target in accordance with hints provided on proximity, although it may not increase the physical proximity
Twitter (Westerman, Spence & Van Der Heide, 2012). Also, the with others who are not in daily life or work activities contacts
perception of credibility is influenced by the speed of updating; (Liben-Nowell, Novak, Kumar, Raghavan & Tomkins, 2005).
Westerman, Spence and Van Der Heide (2014) posited that fast Keeping up with the followers increases the possibilities of
update leads to increased credibility and perception and sharing political updates and activities and may raise the chances
relationship between information seeking and update speed is of discovering the same attitudes and experience (such as similar
mediated by cognitive elaboration. reactions to present events and places both have visited).

In another vein, the relationship between indicators of twitters Twitter as a social medium is used daily by politician as a tool of
and credibility is investigated by Edwards, Spence, Gentile, election campaign;the party or party leaders would have
Edwards and Edwards (2013). The study showed that the introduced as a new form of communication channel with
perception of the user’s credibility is impacted by system- considerable interactive possibilities (Grusell & Nord, 2012).
generated cue of Twitter users’ Klout score (the total effect on Meanwhile, it is good to know whether this tool is truly used in
the social network). Also, Morris, Counts, Roseway, Hoff and an interactive or daily manner of communication with voters or
Schwarz (2012) found that perception of tweet credibility of a just as an additional channel for one-way political message. The
twitter user and author’s credibility is affected by heuristic cues Table 1 presents the categories used to study the issues of the
such as links that lead to credible sites, number of retweets, political updates on twitter:
reputation, user name, topical expertise, number of followers, Table 1: Categories of political tweets by Casero-Ripolles, Sintes-
other tweets with similar information. Ha and Ahn (2011) on Olivella and Franch (2017)
quality of information show that the self-efficacy, the argument
quality, source credibility perception of a user and the Table 1. Categories of political tweets by Casero-Ripolles, Sintes-
information usefulness have influence on the intention to Olivella and Franch (2017)
retweet a message. However, these studies underscore the Subject Descriptions
perception that Twitter is a primary source of information for Economy Tweet on subjects like self-
many users and it is explored in different circumstances. Yet, employment, public spending, taxes,
there are less or few studies on how the identity of the Twitter salaries, jobs, contracts, crisis,
sources can affect the perception of communication quality unemployment, deficit, debt and
(Mohamad, Ismail & Bidin, 2017). entrepreneurship
Social Policy Tweet on subjects like equality or
Similarly, Barbera, Jost, Nagler, Tucker & Bonneau (2015) stated gender-based violence, childbirth,
that the variety and quantity of political information has been education, pensions, the welfare state,
expanded due to the spread of internet usage where the citizen childbirth, social justice, housing,
have access and unprecedented opportunities are created for health and immigration.
communicating with peers about present trending events. Sport and Tweet on subjects related to culture
Several studies on the relationship between group diversity and Culture and industry such as social media,
decision-making quality have often been taken to posit that mainstream media, literature, cinema
transformations in technology should contribute to a pluralistic and sport
and robust form of public debate (Hong & Page, 2004; Mutz,
2006). Great access to information may result to selective

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Science, Tweet on subjects related network comprises stereotyped beliefs that individuals have about
Technology and infrastructure such as fibre optic, wifi something (opinion), especially when it comes to controversial
Environment or ADSL, and R+D, flora, climate issues.
change, fauna protection and pollution.  The affective component is a feeling that involves emotional
Infrastructure Tweet on subjects related to transport aspects. This emotional part is usually rooted deeply as a
services such as road infrastructure, component of attitude and it is the most enduring part of
airports and railways. influences that changes the attitude of a person. The affective
Corruption Tweet on subjects regarding componentis equated with the feeling someone has towards
corruption in politics something regarding daily activities and routines.
Democratic Tweet on subjects on democratic  The conative component is the tendency of certain aspects of
regeneration issues that needs to be removed or behavior in accordance with the attitudes held by someone. This
renewed such as ending of privileges aspect contains tendencies to react or act to something in a
and establishments of the political certain manner.
elites, changes in electoral law
Political strategy Tweet on subjects related to attempt to Generally, people tend to cluster around a certain political view
form a particular type of government on Twitter as supports of any political party is more likely to
possibly now or in the future tweet to other supporters of the same party than to supporters
Electoral and Tweet related to action of voting are in from different party. In an attempt to avoid conflict, there is low
voting results this category such as assessment, interaction among supporters from different parties which
information, surveys, questionnaires indicate avoidance of open confrontation on Twitter (Gruzd,
and analysis of electoral results. 2012). Notably, one can assume that the messages posted by
State Territorial Tweets in this category are related to other party supporters are seen since all of the people are using
Model independence of Catalonia and the same political hashtag in their tweets in order to indicate that
nationalism. It includes territorial they are talking about election.
organization of the Spanish state.
Terrorism Tweets on terrorism and all its forms Research Framework
Personal Tweets related to personal life of The twitter message is always in correlation with the follower’s
subjects political representative. attitudes. The above literature review demonstrates the
Campaign Tweets related to organization of significance of leader’s twitter content to determine and
organization events such as political events, influence the follower’s attitude. A leader who posts a good
meetings, rallies and campaigns. content on twitter gets a competitive advantage and followers
Association with Tweets related to news or information with good attitude (Mohamad, Nguyen, Melewar & Gambetti,
the Media on personality of a politician on the 2018). This is because the attitude of the follower is reflected
mainstream. from the content of twitter of the leader.
Foreign affairs Tweets related to European union or
other parts of the world
Political Tweets that uplifts the contribution of
Harangue a party and exhorts sympathizers to
join the party to earn victory. It can be
referred to as campaign slogans.
No subject Tweets with no defined subject or
tweets that only express
acknowledgement, courtesy etc.
Others Tweets that cannot be placed in any of
the above-mentioned categories

Component of leader’s twitter content involves daily activities

updates. Posts or updates are succinctly made by explaining
one’s present status by using only 140 characters. There are
topics ranging from current events to news stories, daily life and
other trending interests. There are features on twitter that allow
users to share their current daily activities. Either within a social
network or public, easy sharing of status is facilitated by twitter
tools.

Follower’s Attitude
According to Eagle and Chaiken (1993), attitude can be
positioned as a result of evaluations of attitude objects that are Figure 1. A conceptual model of political leaders' and followers'
expressed into cognitive, affective (emotional) and behavioral attidues on twitter
processes. This shows that the outline of an attitude consists of
cognitive components (ideas that are generally related to the In this study, the following hypotheses are proposed:
conversation and behavior (tends to affect responses) and Hypothesis 1: Leaders’ news sharing content has significant effect
emotions (causing consistent responses).Hwang (2013) found on attitudes of the followers.
that credible followers produces positive responses and Hypothesis 2: Leaders’ context of message has significant effect on
encourages favourable attitudes towards a politician and intent attitudes of the followers.
to support a party. Therefore, the three mutually supporting Hypothesis 3: Leader’s Quality of Communication has significant
components of attitude according to Azwar (2011) are: effect on attitudes of the followers.
Hypothesis 4: Leader’s daily activity update has significant effect
 The cognitive component that represents what is believed by on attitudes of the followers.
an individual owner of the attitude; cognitive component

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

METHODOLOGY Table 2. Correlations, descriptive statistics and reliabilities of

The sections present the data collection procedures, responses the variables
and variable measurements. This study involves twitter follower Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5
of the leader in Indonesia. 1. News 3.8 0.4 (.1)
Sharing 9 7
Research Setting 2. Context of 3.3 0.45 .682 (.1)
Ridwan Kamil, the Governor for province of West Java has used Message 8 *
Twitter as one of his interactions with the community in 3. Quality of 3.4 0.5 .672 .615 (.1)
Bandung. Through his Twitter account, @ridwankamil, is actively Communicati 6 3 * *
interacting with the society of Bandung City and the province of on
West Java. The Twitter is also used to accommodate the 4. Daily 3.1 0.5 .542 .443 .456 (.1)
aspirations of the citizens of West Java. His twitter account has activities 9 6 * * *
7.4 million followers, and ranked in the top ten politicians in updates
Indonesia. 5. Follower 3.3 0.4 .818 .694 .598 .527 (.1
attitudes 3 5 * * * * )
The twitter account of @ridwankamil makes it easy for people to *Significance at 0.05 and 0.01
express their aspirations related to problems that occur in West
Java. Communities in the city of Bandung who have twitter RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
started actively following @ridwankamil. Twitter counter Multiple regression is used to analyse the data by testing for the
research results show that there have been a growing number of relationship between leader’s twitter content and follower’s
followers. This development certainly raises a lot of attitudes and attitude regarding the score of the respondents. The choice of
responses from his twitter followersabout his daily activities. multiple regression technique is as a result of its ability to allow
researcher in social science to deal with human behaviour
Respondents complexity (Cohen, Cohen, West & Aiken, 2003).
Respondents in this study are the twitter account followers of the
Mayor of Bandung, Ridwan Kamil. The packets of survey were According to Greene (2003), the general knowledge concerning
directly sent to follower of @ridwankamil twitter. The sample multiple regression is that a relationship between two or more
n=387 (99.2%). The reason for selecting this sample is because independent variables with a dependent variable can be tested.
all the respondents are prospective voters of a Bandung This technique of multiple regression can be used to determine
constituency and their opinions are important to evaluate the the independent variable with the most direct impact on the
politician performance. Approximately, females account for dependent variable like in the case of leader’s twitter content and
46.8% (n = 181), while males account for 53.5% (n = 206). This follower’s attitudes.
distribution of sample indicates the norms of the followers of
Ridwan Kamil twitter in Indonesia. Results
From the hypothesis that proposed that there is a relationship
Measurement Instrument between leader’s twitter content and follower’s attitude among
The instrument used to assess leader’s twitter content includes twitter user respondents, a positive relationship is predicted.
15 items. Total number of four components of twitter content From the result analysis using simple regression, there is a
which are news sharing, context of message, quality of positive and significant relationship between leader’s twitter
communication and daily activities update are represented by content and attitude (r = 0.679, p < 0.005). The below Table 3
the items. presents the results of the relationship between the leader’s
twitter content and the follower’s attitude. The findings show
The scale of the measurement of follower attitudes in this study that there is a direct relationship between twitter content and
was developed by Beatty, Kahle and Homer (1988), Loken and the respondents’ attitude. The result indicates that twitter
John (1993) and Oliver (1997). The instrument consists of core content has high correlation with follower’s attitude.
dimensions such as perceived cognitive, affective and conative.
To measure follower attitude, this study adopts 10 items and 5 Table 3. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) between Leaders’
point likert scale is used to measure each item. Twitter Contentand Follower’s Attitude
Follower Attitude .679*
A pre-test was conducted among the respondents prior to the
actual study. The purpose of the pre-test is to examine the
dependability, trustworthiness and stability of the measured Note: N = 387; P < 0.05
adopted by the study as there are few researches on leader’s
twitter content and follower attitude. The pre-test revealed that As the first test shows positive and significant relationship
Cronbach’s alpha for news sharing is 0.83, context of message is between twitter content and follower attitude, the next tests are
0.85, quality of information is 0.86, daily activities updates is carried out to know whether the leader’s twitter content as a
0.89 and follower’s attitude has 0.83 as a value. dimension can influence follower attitude (Hypotheses 1, 2, 3
and 4).
Data are tested for entry/coding errors before testing the
hypotheses. Also, tests for normality are conducted for every It is predicted that the news sharing content has a positive effect
single survey item and the construct that are created by on follower attitude. This study also proposed that the context of
computing individual items. message, quality of communication and daily activities updates
have positive effect on the attitude of the followers. To test the
The normality tests comprise the visual inspection of histogram, propositions of this study, multiple regression is used.
skewness and kurtosis measures. While the kurtosis measures
are below 1, most of the items appear within normality. The Attitude is regressed against the four leader’s twitter content
measure of skewness is around zero; the result shows a normal- dimensions in each regression, i.e. news sharing, context of
shaped histogram. The descriptive statistics of the leader’s message, quality of communication and daily activities updates.
twitter content dimensions and follower attitudes are presented The Table 4 presents the multiple correlation and regression
in Table 2. weights.

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Table 4. Summary of Multiple Regression Analyses for Leader’s relationships and interactions with his followers. Therefore,
Twitter Content and Follower Attitudes when the leader announced something to his followers, many of
Predictor B SEB  t p his followers were moved and wanted to follow the rules that the
Variable he had proclaimed.
News Sharing 0.572 .042 .601 13.726 .000*
Context of 0.242 .040 .241 6.101 .000* This finding shows an important aspect of leader’s twitter
Message content and follower attitude in Indonesia. For political
Quality of 0.003 .033 .003 0.083 .934 communication in Indonesia, three components of leader’s
Communication twitter content (news sharing, context of message and daily
Daily activities 0.076 .027 .093 2.810 .005* activities updates) play important roles to determine the
updates follower’s attitude. There are some interesting implications from
R squared = .710 the results of this study. First, the result indicates that the
Adjusted R squared= .707 follower looks at all aspect of twitter content except the quality
Overall Model F = 233.916* of communication. This is supported by the past literature on
Degree of Freedom = 382 twitter content which is one of elements for followers to follow
*p < 0.05 the leader’s Twitter. Therefore, the leader should concentrate
more on the twitter content in order to ensure that the follower
attitude is in line with the expectation of the leader.

Second, the findings are resourceful for political communication

among the politicians .For politician who intends to position
himself as a great leader, these findings show that the good
twitter content must be taken into consideration. Also, it is one of
the priorities to enhance the image of a leader to acquire
favourable follower attitudes. If the results are generalizable,
maximizing the twitter content (news sharing, context of
message, and daily activities updates) should have a positive
effect on the follower attitude towards a leader.

The findings suggest that leader’s twitter content of Indonesian

politician both in relationship and instrumental communication
influences the follower attitude. The explanation for leader’s
twitter content can be widely employed as a strategic and
effective tool to positiona politician as a great leader.
Figure 2. An empirical model of political leaders' and followers'
attitudes on twitter CONCLUSION
Several authors have confirmed that twitter has become a
In the Table 4, the overall pattern of the results shows a potential political communication tool for its suitability for social
significant relationship between leader’s twitter content and media especially for a political candidate (Van Kessel & Castelein,
follower’s attitudes. Results shows that, the three twitter content 2016). As this study focuses on one politician only, it is safe to
are significant predictors to follower’s attitudes F(4, 382) = say it only represents a limited test on the leader’s twitter
233.91, p < 0.05 and R2 =.710.These result outcomes support the content and follower attitude. However, from this study, it can be
past studies and the current hypothesis that leaders’ twitter concluded that twitter does affect attitude. Then, the external
content has a significant relationship with follower’s attitude. validity of the replicated results of the study is further assessed
with other Indonesian politician. Future research for example
The main objective is to examine the leader’s twitter content that can test if there is similar effect when considering other
influence follower attitude. As early mentioned, this study politician or leaders in Indonesia or other countries. It is noted
predicted news sharing, context of message and daily activities that there is chance for common method biases to exist in this
updates to have positive and significant relationship with study as the study derived information from one source i.e. the
follower attitude. twitter follower.

Table 4 indicates that for news sharing t(387) = 13.726, p < .05, Summarily, the study aimed to identify leader’s twitter content
context of message t(387) = 6.101, p < .05, and daily activities (news sharing, context of message, and daily activities update
updatest(387) = 2.810, p < 0.05 all have significant relationship and quality of communication) in respect to follower’s behavior.
with attitude with almost 71% variance in follower’s attitude. This research is of the first type that would focus on specific
However, the test reveals that quality of communication t(387) = twitter content among the politicians in Indonesia. The findings
0.080, p > .05 is not a significant predictor of follower’s attitude. of this study suggest that politicians in Indonesia should consider
developing quality content for twitter account. The presence of
Discussion Twitter as a social medium has added a means of disseminating
As presented in Table 4, news sharing, context of message and information, public opinion, the dynamics of conversation and
daily activities updates show a significant relationship with the discussion, and even has changed the attitude of the community.
attitude of follower. The study shows that the twitter content of Twitter account @ridwankamil is proven to be used as a tool to
the leader has significant impact on the follower’s attitude. establish closer relations with the community. Similarly, Twitter
However, the quality of communication has no significant @ridwankamil can change the attitude of its followers in terms of
relationship with the follower’s attitude. cognition, affection, and conation. For future research multiple
sources can be considered for data collection as only one source
The advantage of Twitter as a medium for spreading information is considered in this study. For instance, data can be obtained
is its personal nature so that followers feel closer to the leader. from other social media platforms such as Instagram or
The language used by leader on his Twitter account is also Facebook.
relaxed and it appears that leader wants to establish good

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 POLITICAL LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS’ ATTITUDES: TWITTER AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

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