Criterion Symbolization and Political Endorsement in Jokowi’s Speech at the United Nusantara Movement Meeting

Abstract

Joko Widodo, the 7th President of the Republic of Indonesia, who served two terms (2014–2019 and 2019–2024), is considered a leader who is able to overcome problems and to successfully bring about changes, both in the political context and in the context of governance and development. Joko Widodo, or Jokowi for short, is considered a visionary president and is a hard worker. The vision and leadership characteristics shown by Jokowi are significantly able to break the rigidity of bureaucracy at various levels, streamline public service patterns, and implement development programs throughout Indonesia. The question is, when Jokowi’s leadership period ends in October 2024, who will “continue” Jokowi’s leadership from 2024–2029? On some occasions, the political communication narrative delivered by Jokowi symbolically gave multiple interpretations depending on to whom his political endorsement was directed at. This study aims to analyze Jokowi’s speech at the United Nusantara Movement Meeting on November 26, 2022, at Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Stadium, which is full of symbolic meaning. This research uses a qualitative approach with Roland Barthes’ semiotic analysis to uncover the meaning of political endorsement symbolization behind Jokowi’s speech, which emphasizes myths; the unit of analysis is Jokowi’s speech recording released on the Kompas TV YouTube channel. The results showed that Jokowi built discourse and that the next president is a leader who has characteristics like himself: serving the people, creating justice, continuing change, and continuing the development that Jokowi has done.