Digital Policy Feedback on Maritime Governance: Sentiment and Emotion Analysis of Indonesian Social Media Discourse

Herman Lawelai; Anwar Sadat; Abdan Syakur; Yayang Hadiaksa; Yeyen Rahmadani

doi:10.26740/jsm.v10n2.p386-404

Authors

Herman Lawelai Muhammadiyah University of Buton, Baubau
Anwar Sadat Muhammadiyah University of Buton, Baubau
Abdan Syakur Muhammadiyah University of Buton, Baubau
Yayang Hadiaksa Muhammadiyah University of Buton, Baubau
Yeyen Rahmadani Muhammadiyah University of Buton, Baubau

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26740/jsm.v10n2.p386-404

Keywords:

Digital Policy Feedback, Maritime Policy, Sentiment Analysis, Social Media, Digital Governance

Abstract

Social media increasingly serves as an informal channel through which citizens react to public policy, yet it remains unclear what such reactions reveal about Indonesia's maritime policy. This study analyses how maritime policy discourse is expressed on Twitter and what it implies for digital policy feedback and participatory governance. Drawing on the concepts of policy feedback and digital governance, we conducted an exploratory computational analysis of 19,996 posts collected with Drone Emprit Academic (DEA) between 1 January and 31 July 2022. We combined temporal trends, DEA sentiment and emotion classification, geographic distribution, and thematic coding for the 15 most-retweeted posts. Discourse was strongly event-driven: two days accounted for about one quarter of all posts. Sentiment was predominantly negative (84%), yet emotions were dominated by anticipation and surprise rather than anger, and the most retweeted posts concerned commodity prices, cross-border incidents, and political symbolism rather than maritime policy instruments. Therefore, a negative tone should not be equated with opposition to the policy. We argue that social media listening can complement formal participation only if a policy-relevant stance is separated from general tone, and we outline measures for communication, participation, and monitoring in maritime governance

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