Clothing Power As A Political Symbol And Netray Monitoring About Ganjar Pranowo's Black And White Line Correspondence

Ganjar Pranowo in black and white, vertkal, in a consolidation event across supporting political parties at the Tangkas Sports Hall, Pakansari, Bogor Regency, West Java, Saturday, July 22, 2023. (Between/M Risyal Hidayat)

JAKARTA The vertical black and white striped shirt has officially become the official appearance of Ganjar Pranowo's team in the 2024 presidential candidate contestation campaign. The benchmark is said to have come from President Jokowi's proposal.

When running for the governor of DKI Jakarta and the President of the Republic of Indonesia for the first period, Jokowi wore a red black plaid. Meanwhile, when contesting for the President of the Republic of Indonesia during his second term of office, Jokowi carried white and black. The white color with black subordinates is still worn by Jokowi and the ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet in every official event at this time.

This campaign suit immediately received a public response. According to Netray Media Monitoring monitoring monitoring monitoring in a week, 20-26 July 2023, through the keywords of marijuana, black and white lines, and white black shirt invite various responses.

During the week it was found that at least 14,198 Twitter tweets containing these keywords had been uploaded. Not only tweets, but the topic of black and white lines has also been widely discussed by netizens via reply, retweets, and favorites which reached 3 million interactions. This conversation reached 74.9 million Indonesian-language Twitter accounts.

Indeed, not all uploads on social media are in the form of positive reactions. Not a few uploads have shown negative responses to the pattern of the black and white line. Furthermore, this topic has also expanded to a number of derivative topics. It was a reaction from the actions of a number of people who used the black and white line as a work.

Musician who was a member of the legislature, Anang Hermansyah, for example. After moving political parties from the National Mandate Party (PAN) to the PDI-P this year, Anang made Ganjar Pranowo's campaign song entitled "Hitam Putih Garis Garis".

In addition to monitoring Twitter social media, Netray Media Monitoring also monitors news in online media. From monitoring for a week, July 20-26, there were 290 news articles that used the keywords Ganjar and black and white. The news of a number was released by 60 online media portals in Indonesia.

Most of the news with the keywords Ganjar and black and white is in the political realm, with a total of 255 articles. Topics of electoral effects, support from politicians, to potential violations of election rules are examples of politically charged news that address the topic of Ganjar Pranowo's white black line shirt.

The rest are entertainment and sports news, which of course are still related to Ganjar's safari as a presidential candidate in 2024 from PDIP. Entertainment is certainly related to Anang's creation again, and the appearance of Once Mekel singer in the political arena by becoming a PDIP candidate. Meanwhile, sports reported the Persib Bandung legend soccer match with sub-district teams, related to the Ganjar safari in West Java.

The news about the black and white striped clothes and Ganjar Pranowo had jumped at the beginning, and eventually faded on July 26. Of the 255 reports, 179 were positive and the rest were negative. The media tried to capture the meaning behind choosing clothes motifs and the reason Ganjar returned to using the campaign brand that President Jokowi had used.

When he heard the word 'fesyen', the public mostly associated it with fashion demonstrations, fashion trends, or industry. But actually clothing is related to many aspects of human life, including politics. Various types and styles of clothing can be a powerful means of political communication.

The closest example is of course the pattern of the black and white boxes that Jokowi used in the DKI Jakarta Pilkada and the 2014 General Election. Also the white color used by the 7th President of Indonesia during the 2019 presidential election campaign, is still used as an unofficial 'official use'.

In an article entitled Transformation of Dress and National Subject Formation of the Indonesian Commoners in the Colonial Period written by Luthfi Adam for Arryman Fellowship on June 19, 2021, it was stated that the distinction of clothing for political purposes had been carried out since the Dutch colonial period. Dutch Colonizers prohibit natives from wearing barbaric clothing, and must wear traditional clothing.

In the modern era, the grouping of political ideologies can be demonstrated by means of clothes. Conservators will usually dress in a conventional style, while progressive flows will show themselves by dressing more radically.

The first black and Asian vice president, Kamala Harris, also wore clothes as a means of political communication. During the campaign as Vice President Joe Biden until the couple's victory, Harris always wore sneakers and white pants. That is a symbol of the flexibility and re-born of the Democratic pair in the politics of Uncle Sam's country.

Then at the inauguration, Harris wore a purple coat that symbolized the splendor. Both white and purple, both of them are correlated with support for the electoral rights of women in the United States.

The purple color is also a symbol that the red color as a representation of the Republican Party and the blue color for the Democratic Party has merged. Quoted from Teen Vogue, Harris used the services of three young black fashion designers, Christopher John Rogers, Kerby-Jean Raymond and Sergio Hudson to design the fashion style.

Appearances are often deceptive and are not correlated at all with the quality of the leader candidate, but the public's sub-awareness as an object plays a very important role here. The strength of clothing is an advantage for a politician.

Clothing in diverting constituents from political messages has become the fashion style of a leader candidate and the vision contained in the dress. Clothing can convey both good and bad messages for the life of the nation and state.