Political Communication and Economy: Grassroots Community Perspectives

摘要

The economy issue usually emerges as a vital topic in the political communication to gather interest from the society, especially the grassroots community. This article argues that political communication and economy are related to each other. The aim of this research is to analyze the political communication understanding of grassroots community and the correlation between political communication and economy provided by politicians from the perspective of the grassroots community. The method utilized in this research is system dynamics method to see the system behavior related to the political communication and economy. Primary data was collected from the respondents, which are also a part of the unit sample of this research. The result reveals that grassroots community understands political communication as a message to improve social life. The economic message is one of the most critical factors for the grassroots community to understand the meaning of political communication. The trust of community becomes the important key in increasing the efficiency of political promises realization. Then, political promises realization may influence the election participation level and economy growth in Indonesia, especially related to the unemployment rate and poverty level as indicators of social welfare.