Netray Monitoring: Polemic Of Netizens' Riots About Racial Issues And The Presence Of Ganjar Pranowo In The Final MasterChef Indonesiaa

JAKARTA - Belinda Christina was finally lined up as the winner of the 11th season of the MasterChef Indonesia (MCI) cooking competition. The episode of determining the MCI title last weekend became the talk of netizens.

The MCI jury's decision to determine Belinda as the champion defeated Rizkisyah Putra Singarimbun or who is familiarly called Kiki and Ganjar Pranowo's presence in the final was the cause.

The majority of netizens gave negative sentiment to Belinda's victory. A number of racist comments were pointed out to the event broadcast on the private TV station.

But apparently it wasn't the only moment that attracted public attention in the last episode of MasterChef Indonesia. In the process of handing over the prize, Ganjar Pranowo appeared as the person who did it. This is a big question mark of viewers, because there is no clear explanation of the reason why Ganjar was chosen to be the person who handed over the prize.

Warganet also agreed to accuse this as a form of hidden campaign Ganjar who will fight in the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres). This accusation is quite reasonable, because RCTI is a private television network owned by Hary Tanoesoedibjo who is also the General Chair of Perindo, one of the parties carrying the Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD pair.

Netray Media Monitoring conducts monitoring on social media X and YouTube following the boisterous chat of netizens in cyberspace. Monitoring was carried out to see which topics attracted public attention, to what is the focus of netizens' conversations when discussing MasterChef Indonesia.

The keywords ofmasterchefdanmcidi X and masterchef Indonesia on the YouTube channel throughout the period 25-28 November 2023 became the reference. As a result, 17.2 thousand uploads from 7.3 thousand accounts discussed this topic on X. The discussion of topics that were so massive managed to reap reactions from netizens as many as 319.9 million impressions and were able to reach more than 75.9 million accounts.

The day after the first day of the grand final, the intensity of netizens' uploads began to get busy and only reached its peak on November 27 when 12.8 thousand uploads appeared to talk about this cooking competition.

However, most of the conversations related to the topic have negative tones. Even the name MCI was also preserved to MCC, the approach of MasterChef Chidonesia. MCI judging is accused of often benefiting ethnic Chinese descendants, even though the participant's cooking is not good and is considered not to master cooking techniques.

The word Chindo is the second most widely used word in netizen uploads. Chindo is the language of the slang result of the inclusion and the merger of the words China and Indonesia. However, the term has a negative connotation, usually used to call Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent. That's why the term Chindo for someone finally stores stereotypical and racist nuances.

Even though they only finished as runners-up, Kiki became the most frequently discussed figure. This can be seen in the ranks of popular vocabulary, and the word 'kiki' is the most prominent than other words. Netizens think Kiki is more worthy of being the champion than Belinda.

In addition, said Ganjar, it is also included in the things that are often discussed by netizens. This is because the presidential candidate number 3 is present to hand over prizes to the winners. Netizens are wondering if Ganjar's urgency will appear in the cooking competition event.

Using the keywordmasterchef &indonesia on the YouTube channel for the same period, Netray found 68 videos discussing MCI events.

Unlike X, Belinda's name is the one that is most often uploaded on YouTube channels, apart from the word MasterChef Indonesia. However, there are similarities regarding the discussion of netizens on X and YouTube, namely Ganjar's name, which colored the ranks of popular YouTube words, although not as massive as on the channel that used to be called Twiitter.

This is not the first time Ganjar Pranowo's appearance on TV has caused a polemic. Last September, the former Governor of Central Java also shocked the public because suddenly he appeared on a Maghrib call to prayer on the same TV station. At that time, Ganjar drew a lot of criticism because he was considered to be doing identity politics.

Quoting Kompas, identity politics according to hala Mason and Nicholas T Davis is the participation of individuals in politics on behalf of certain social groups.

Meanwhile, Kauffman explained that identity politics is related to direct involvement with a group and institution. The goal is to obtain recognition and legitimacy.

Political expert from Al-Azhar University Indonesia, Andriadi Achmad said identity politics is when a person uses ethnicity, religion or race for politics. He gave an example of the identity politics used by Anies Baswedan during the 2017 DKI Jakarta Pilkada. At that time, religious issues became the subject of a campaign or fried group to bring down other groups.

The Coordinator of the Voter Education Network for the People (JPPR), Nurlia Dian Paramita, assessed that Ganjar Pranowo had potential for identity politics because previously he had never been familiar with situations that were attached to religious symbols. But Ganjar suddenly showed himself identical to Muslims through a video broadcast by the Maghrib call to prayer.

On the other hand, political observer Hendri Satrio said identity politics is the easiest political marketing. For this reason, Hendri predicts that during the campaign there will be many candidates for Presidential Candidates and Vice Presidential Candidates who "sell" their Islamic or Javanese Islam by using certain symbols.