Audience Reception of Instagram Content @narasinewsroom as a Trigger for the Resistance Movement to the Draft Regional Head Election Bill (RUU Pilkada)

Abstract

The draft of the latest Regional Head Election Bill (RUU Pilkada) has sparked widespread controversy among the public. The provision regarding the minimum age threshold for regional head candidates, which is perceived to benefit certain parties, is expected to be approved by the Legislative Body of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI). This controversy has emerged on social media, notably through the Instagram account @narasinewsroom, which has actively published content related to the bill. The account has posted various materials that have triggered a wave of resistance against the bill, beginning from the initial debates to the street protests that followed. These posts have generated a wide range of public responses, particularly among the account's followers. The diversity of comments reflects a range of audience receptions. This study aims to analyze how the audience receives and interprets the content of the @narasinewsroom Instagram account in the context of the resistance movement against the Regional Head Election Bill.Using a qualitative approach, the study is further enriched with virtual ethnography to explore online interactions in depth. The research focuses specifically on the interactions occurring within the content presented by @narasinewsroom, analyzed through Stuart Hall’s Audience Reception Theory, which categorizes audience responses into three positions: dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional. The findings show that the comments reflect diverse interpretations, many of which indicate resistance to the bill. The comments are spread across the three positions: initially, responses aligned with the dominant position, then gradually shifted toward the negotiated position, and eventually, as the resistance movement gained momentum, a growing number of comments were found in the oppositional position.