Indonesian Presidential Election: Can Bloggers be Bought?

Indonesia Votes

I was intrigued by an article written by Iman Brotoseno, an active blogger and chairman of the Pesta Blogger 2009, about bloggers who are willing to blog about one of the presidential candidate with some certain amount of fee.  Come to think of it, the internet is an effective way to pass information.  It should also be a good media for presidential campaign.   Lots of journalist post news, information and current happenings through blogs.  So, no surprises if the blogger communities are of interest to the presidential candidates or parties.

Iman, in his polite Javanese way, did not judge anybody who wants to dig the opportunity during the election season.  Iman, himself, was invited by Jusuf Kalla to look at his campaign (flying with his private jet) to Nusa Tenggara.  No need to be a genius to figure out what Kalla’s success team wants:  good posting about him on Iman’s blog to obtain votes.  Iman, as one of the leading bloggers in Indonesia and the chairman of Pesta Blogger (the annual bloggers gathering), did not promise anything (as he wrote in his blog).

If the parties or the success team for the presidents think that they will get vote from the bloggers, they have to think twice.  Yes, blogs are medias, like newspaper or radio.  But there are hundreds of bloggers out there who blogs for fun, unlike journalist who write news for their living.  Bloggers usually have their own profession; students, doctors, lawyer, secretary, accountant, it is a very wide spectrum of community.  Therefore, one cannot say that they have the bloggers vote, bloggers as one community, like saying that they have the, lets say, Nahdatul Ulama’s vote.  Or back in Suharto’s era, civil servant’s votes.  But bloggers votes?  It is like saying you have the votes from all Indonesian people.  If the success teams think that they can get the bloggers community to vote for them, they must know nothing about blogging.

There must be bloggers that can be bought to write only nice things about one particular candidate (such as there journalists that will twist some facts for some amount of incentives).   In which, they just have a different sort of values compared to others (or me).  Just like those poor people that will campaign for Golkar today for Rp. 30,000,- and PAN tomorrow for Rp. 30,000,-.  Opportunity does not come twice, right?  But even if one managed to “buy” the top ten Indonesian bloggers, I still doubt that these top ten bloggers will attract other bloggers to follow what they wrote.  What will happen is, his or her blog will be full of questions from the reader and create a good (or bad) discussion forum, sort of a pro-kontra type discussion.

But like other things, once you pick your side, you will lose your popularity.  And once one knows that you are being paid to write, people will know that you can be bought.  Then who will believe your posts?

I sometimes think that bloggers could be a mixture of a journalist, writer,  and thinker.  A good blog should be informative, not necessarily easy to read but interesting and tickles your mind.   We are aloud to express our thoughts and ideas in our blogs (without sacrificing ethics, that is).  So if that can be bought, there are no more free thinkers.

There must be thousands of blogs out there and hundreds of personal blogs like My Busy Brain.  There are also thousands of bloggers out there who blogs during their spare time, not as a job.  So, if those candidates think that they will get the ‘Indonesian Bloggers Community’ votes, question : which community?  Those candidates should probably use their money for advertisement than paying top bloggers to fly using their private jets, following their campaign schedules, hoping that they will write only good things in their blogs.