Yogyakarta, 12th August 2020—Forum Olahraga Fisipol (FOF) collaborated with Keluarga Mahasiswa Sosiologi (KMS) organized a discussion about Soccer and the Formation of Social Identity on Mass Media. On this opportunity, the event was moderated by Akbar Rizki Madani and brought three speakers, they are Estu Santoso as an editor of Sepakbola Nasional, Dr Hempri Suyatna as a lecturer of Social Development and Welfare of Fisipol UGM, and Tonggos Darurat as a representative of PSS Sleman’s suporter. This Discussion was started online through Google Meet platform and was held at 15.30 WIB.Soccer sport has been the most popular sport from the last decades. Not only because of the match, but also because the fans or usually called supporters may color soccer popular phenomenon. In this term, soccer has been one of new identities that is attached to soccer lovers. According to Hempri Suyatna, the supporter phenomenon of creating a new self identity is caused by the existence of labelling and stigmatization perspective. “Labelling perspective after that may create the supporters’ identity. This identity may appear in public, usually comes with creativity. But on this one, the media has a role in constructing the reality that exists and after that push this supporters’ identity to be recognized” said Hempri as he closed his answer for the first question.
Furthermore, continuing the question from the last speaker, Estu Santoso gave an opinion that basically the soccer itself can be seen from various kinds of perspective. Estu also said that there are two mass media that built the character of Indonesia’s soccer supporters, such as Jawapos and Tabloid Bola. These different reviews were usually related with the topic of discussion held by each media. Jawapos is a local media that really understands Indonesian taste. But Tabloid Bola knows more about international soccer.
This evening discussion also talked about the shift of mass media from printed to online and its effect on soccer supporters. Responding to this question, Tonggos stated that the majority of online news always talk about supporters anarchism. “In 2008 when I really supported PSS, there were 2,000 news articles about PSS and mostly were about the supporter fight. This condition encouraged us to build our own news canal, and there are also podcasts and websites that were managed by news at that time”. The existence of social media not only ignites rivalry that is negative, but also presents a positive context rivalry like creativity competition.
“The soccer supporters are always pushed to become something that can raise brotherhood and raise nationalism. Supporters can be sown into a strategic arena that erases the wall between ideology, ethnic and class. Because of this thing, supporters are like the imagined communities of Benedict Anderson”. This sentence said by Hempri as the epilog and as a closing statement to end the discussion at 17.30 WIB.