This project aims to develop a digital media literacy program to overcome affective polarization in Indonesia. In the past decade, the political situation in Indonesia has been characterized by heightened affective polarization, strong feelings of hatred against political opponents, and favouritism for those who share similar political views. This situation had negative impacts on interpersonal relationships and democratic systems. Reports have linked the emergence of affective polarization in Indonesia with political buzzers on social media, who carry out political campaigns by distributing misinformation that contains derogatory information on political figures. We proposed enhancing the digital resilience of social media users would reduce the animosity among political partisans.
The project starts by identifying possible factors that contribute to increasing or decreasing affective polarization in the social media environment in Indonesia. The output of the starting projects is further considered in designing the digital media literacy and intergroup-contact program.
