Actor Network and Cohort Cultures in the Business of Political Buzzer

During the 2014 presidential election, commercial buzzers began to disseminate information and persuasion in the Indonesian political arena. The role of these buzzers was crucial, given differences cohort cultures between political actors and the young voters. This study aims to (1) describe the work process of a buzzer, based on The Actor Network Theory by Michael Callon and Bruno Latour; and (2) describe their role in the inter-cohort cultures of the employer and the young voters. The research is a case study descriptive qualitative research. Data was collected through interview with political buzzers, the employer, and observation of the buzzer’s Twitter account in 2018. This study concludes that the focal actor recruits, supplies information and pay the commercial buzzers, while the buzzers provide network, flowing information and persuasion to their cohort. The translation phase is in the moment of problematization occurs when focal actors send short messages offering the opportunity to be a commercial political buzzer, to the moment of mobilization when the buzzers created 15 accounts with different pseudoidentities. This research also found that commercial political buzzers functions as the inter-cohort culture bridge, between the X cohort political actors and the millennial cohort voters.