PUAN MAHARANI'S PERSONAL BRANDING IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

The power of social media is currently widely used by political actors to build an image in society. Like Puan Maharani, a female politician who heads the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI) who uses social media as a communication tool for her branding. This study aims to find out how a female politician creates an image of her political personality through messages on her social media. The analysis used in this study is based on Hubert Rampersad's eleven Authentic Personal Branding Techniques and Stuart Hall's Representational Theory. The method used in this study is a qualitative method of textual analysis of Puan Maharani's social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). The results of this study indicate that through her social media, Puan Maharani tries to show a positive image as a female politician who has a comprehensive role as a leader who cares and acts in the context of contemporary politics, ideological, cultural, and female-specific political issues. The characteristic of Puan Maharani’s social media has the same general idea about her political activities expressed by verbal symbols, iconic photographs, and audiovisual or video. The characteristic feature of the three accounts used is that there is no interaction forum provided by social media designers as political communicators who receive feedback from their political audiences.