Yogyakarta, 29 October 2019—After the members of the new cabinet were announced by the president on Wednesday (23/10), the new cabinet remains a popular topic for discussion on the internet.
Hence, the Center for Digital Society (CfDS) held a press conference regarding the popularity of the ministers in the new cabinet. This press conference was held on the BC Building of Fisipol. Paska Darmawan and Vidiskiu Fortino Kurniawan, researchers from CfDS, presented their research results to the public.
Paska Darmawan, Vidiskiu Fortino, Treviliana Eka and Nadia Elaesiana were the members of this research team. The team conducted a social media analysis on Instagram and Twitter. Google Trends was also used to help this research project. The researchers did web scraping to extract the necessary data from Twitter and Instagram, as well as using Google Trends for popular keywords.
This research compared the data that was taken from Google Trends before the announcement of the members of the new cabinet (21 May – 20 October 2019 and after the announcement (21 – 26 October 2019). Meanwhile, the data that was sourced from Twitter and Instagram were not limited to this timespan.
Currently, there are 15 ministers that use Twitter and Instagram. The 5 ministers that have the largest number of followers are Prabowo Subianto, Mahfud MD, Wishnutama, Tjahjo Kumolo and Erick Thohir. Meanwhile, Mahfud MD, Prabowo Subianto, Budi Karya, Wishnutama and Erick Thohir have the highest amount of engagement in Twitter.
Furthermore, the 5 ministers that have the highest number of followers on Instagram are Prabowo Subianto, Sri Mulyani, Wishnutama, Erick Thohir and Mahfud MD. 5 Ministers with the highest amount of engagement on Instagram are Prabowo Subianto, Wishnutama, Sri Mulyani, Erick Thohir and Retno Marsudi.
Meanwhile on Google Trends, the 5 most searched ministers before the announcement of the new cabinet were Prabowo Subianto, Yasonna Laoly, Mahfud MD, Tito Karnavian and Wishnutama. After the announcement, the list featured Nadiem Makarim, Edhy Prabowo, Fachrul Razi, Wishnutama and Erick Thohir.
From the aforementioned data, several conclusions can be taken. First, there was a decrease in the number of female ministers in the new cabinet compared to the previous one, from 24% to 15.2%. Second, the average age of the new cabinet is slightly younger (58.03) compared to the previous cabinet (58.9).
Third, this cabinet is dominated by ministers who are aged between 61 and 70. Fourth, Mahfud MD is the most active minister in Twitter, while Prabowo Subianto is the most popular minister on social media. Fourth, Prabowo Subianto was the most searched minister on Google before the announcement of the members of the new cabinet, while Nadiem Makarim is the most searched minister on Google after the announcement of the new cabinet was released.