FOLLOWER PERCEPTION ANALYSIS OF A TWITTER STATEMENT FROM A FORMER PRESIDENT (CASE STUDY: TWITTER STATEMENT OF SBY)

Abstract

In this era of globalization the internet has become an important part in this life. Social media is a medium to interact with each other without being limited with space and time (Saumi, 2012). Indonesia is the 3rd ranked twitter users in the world and 2nd ranked facebook users in the world. Twitter is the simplest social media of all social media platforms that exist today. The simplicity of twitter is reflected in the limits of use of 140 characters for each Tweet. Twitter users in Indonesia are not only among young people, students or employees, even government officials and politicians using Twitter, one of them is the 6th Indonesian President, Mr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). One occasion he wrote the twitter status via @SBYudhoyono which was " Ya Allah, Tuhan YME. Negara kok jadi begini. Juru fitnah & penyebar "hoax" berkuasa & merajalela. Kapan rakyat & yg lemah menang? *SBY*". Most readers interpret that SBY wrote about his concern about Indonesia‟s situation while President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) on duty. According to SBY, people who are having power in Indonesia are the ones  who always spread lies and tend to defeat others. SBY‟s tweets make a lot of controversion in the community, therefore researchers want to know the perception of students against SBY‟s tweets. The expected benefits of this research can be a reference for public relations practitioners to define strategies in social media, especially in politics. The methodology in this research is quantitative descriptive with a positivist approach. The result of this research is based on 3 samples of  SBY‟s tweets that indicates defensive nature. Defensive is categorized as a negative because of the behavior or expression of attitudes that arise when a person perceives a threat. This behavior is generally based on the motive to look win, can avoid negative perceptions of society.  
 
Keywords: Social Media, Twitter, Perception