Religious Moderation Campaigns on Social Media: Trend, Content Strategies and Public Sentiment

Abstract

Mainstreaming religious moderation began to be launched by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia since 2019 in the era of Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin. This mainstreaming of religious moderation is not only through structural approaches and dissemination of thought, but also through campaigns on social media. Especially social media has become a field for discourse in this information era and social media has also become a platform that is widely accessed by Indonesians. This article aims to explain trends, content strategies and public sentiment about religious moderation campaigns on social media. The method used in this article is descriptive qualitative, by taking research data through #ModerasiBeragama on three social media platforms namely YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. The results of this study are: The trend of #ModerasiBeragama campaign has increased exponentially from 2018 to 2022. The content strategy used by using #ModerasiBeragama both for groups with pros and cons to get public engagement and sentiment. Public sentiment looks positive and neutral on YouTube and TikTok, but negative and neutral sentiment is more noticeable on Instagram.