Political Branding, Public Sphere/Space and the Corruption of Communications

摘要

In the 2014 Indonesia's presidential election, the frenetic of imaging communications and persuasion fulfilled the public space and sphere, involving not only the election campaign team of each candidates but also public participations at large. Using discursive approach with Habermasian's public sphere as an analytical tool, this paper examines how political branding, the corruption of communications and the discourse of public sphere/space intersect producing what we call the communication fog. We identified some forms of communication corruption in political branding in the public sphere/space during the 2014 presidential election, including the data manipulations, twistingand distortion of meaning, black campaign and media bias. We conclude that the higher the degree of corruption of communications in the public sphere/space, the lower the degree of democracy which marks the end of the political public sphere in a country.