Konvergensi Simbolik Komunitas Pageant Lovers Indonesia di Instagram

Perkembangan dunia beauty pageant di Indonesia tidak terlepas dari peran pecinta kontes kecantikan yang dikenal dengan sebutan pageant lovers. Media sosial Instagram menjadi salah satu kanal bagi komunitas pageant lovers untuk berinteraksi dan berkomunikasi, melalui akun portal pageant. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui konvergensi simbolik komunitas pageant lovers Indonesia di Instagram berdasarkan teori konvergensi simbolik. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah observasi terhadap caption dan kolom komentar pada unggahan akun portal pageant, serta wawancara dengan tiga narasumber dari tiga akun portal pageant berbeda. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa konvergensi simbolik komunitas pageant lovers muncul secara spontan dari anggotanya, dan digunakan secara luas melalui Instagram. Beberapa bentuk konvergensi simbolik yang muncul adalah mbak brownies, turun gunung, dan negara topi bundar. Dari penelitian ini, dapat disimpulkan bahwa konvergensi simbolik yang terjadi dalam komunitas pageant lovers Indonesia di Instagram sesuai dengan teori konvergensi simbolik yang ada, yakni melalui proses tema fantasi, rantai fantasi, tipe fantasi, dan visi retoris. The development of beauty pageants in Indonesia cannot be separated from the role of beauty pageant contest lovers known as pageant lovers. Instagram has become one of the channels for the pageant lovers community to interact and communicate through pageant portal accounts. This study aims to understand the symbolic convergence of the Indonesian pageant lovers community on Instagram based on symbolic convergence theory. The research method used is the observation of captions and comments on pageant portal accounts and interviews with three sources from three different pageant portal accounts on Instagram. The results showed that the symbolic convergence of the pageant lovers community emerged spontaneously from its members and was widely used through Instagram. Several forms of symbolic convergence that occurred were “mbak brownies”, “turun gunung, and “negara topi bundar”. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the symbolic convergence that occurs in the Indonesian pageant lovers community on Instagram is following the existing symbolic convergence theory through the process of fantasy themes, fantasy chains, fantasy types, and rhetorical visions.

Symbolic Convergence or Divergence? Making Sense of (the Rhetorical) Senses of a University-Wide Organizational Change

This research investigates the extent to which organizational change initiatives may lead to divergent patterns of sensemaking among organizational members. Drawing on the symbolic convergence theory, we performed an in-depth fantasy theme analysis of organization members’ rhetoric around an organizational change at a private university. Our analysis uncovers six fantasy themes and two corresponding fantasy types, which lead to no rhetorical vision. The lack of cognitive convergence between change initiators and change recipients suggests the inherent incompatibility between managerial and employee fantasies around organizational change, barring the exceptions of dual-responsibility change recipients (e.g., faculty members who also assume administrative responsibilities), who tend to adopt the change initiator rhetoric. Overall, this study informs our extant knowledge of change sensemaking with novel theoretical and methodological insights and bears implications for organizational change researchers and practitioners alike.

Hashtag Construction as Product of Symbolic Convergence: Berger and Luckmann’s Approach

Social media refers to technology in which organizations and individuals interact with their audiences. Organizations and individuals interact through messages that each can produce. On the Twitter platform, conversation occurs through its special characteristic, namely the hashtag symbol. This interaction is interestingly analyzed through Berger and Luckmann's view that interpersonal social interaction is a social construction of reality. A view through this objective, symbolic, and subjective reality can then be a way for public relations to overcome the initial stage of a crisis. This research aimed to explore symbolic convergence process on Twitter hashtags in the construction of the reality of Berger and Luckmann as a mechanism for crisis communication management. This research used a constructivist paradigm with a netnographic method. The interactions observed at #BUMNdukungUMKM on August 16, 2020, were then analyzed with the Berger and Luckmann social constructionist approach. The results of this research are able to answer the research objectives where symbolic convergence is a process in social construction of reality. Hashtags are dynamic processes that can lead to social discourses. Hashtag construction is product of symbolic convergence on social media as a mechanism for crisis management.

Symbolic Convergence and Community Based Tourism

Based on Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data in 2018, Indonesian tourism villages have reached 1,734. It indicates that rural communities are significantly involved in the development, especially in the tourism sector. Tourism development based on the community is known as community-based tourism (CBT). During this tourism 4.0 era, CBT is required to use Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT). Previous research suggests that e-CBT is the precise form of involving CBT in the digitalization of the promotion, marketing, information exchange, and management aspects. There is a fantasy illustrating that e-CBT is a form of sustainability in confronting tourism 4.0. The focus of this research is CBT in rural areas or village communities that synergize tourism village management using ICT. The research method used is qualitative with a single case study approach. The theory used is the symbolic convergence theory to explain the dramatizing messages that occur in e-CBT. The results show that e-CBT used imaginative language in the form of wordplays so as to bring awareness to maintain local wisdom. Moreover, it was found that the role of social media started to be considered by the village community besides as a means of information exchange.

Mamah Muda Morphogenesis in Indonesia

There has been changes in the young housewives’ activities, as currently, they not only carry out domestic activities in the house, but also go outside of the house. Activities, such as taking children to school, become part of domestic roles, then meeting other young modern mothers and forming group. This group then raises the “mahmud (mamah muda)” or young moms term. Changes in traditional reproductive roles in the domestic sector are interesting to be analyzed using the Morphogenesis Theory by Margaret Archer. This theory acknowledges that there is an asymmetrical relationship between external structures that are relatively autonomous with internal cultures, and at the same time, there is a reciprocal relationship between the two. The cultural case of this young mothers groups could be used as an example of this Morphogenesis theory. Constructivist paradigm study using this kind of phenomenological approach was able to explain how the process of morphogenesis change occurred, by conducting in-depth, open-ended interviews to ten mothers in their 30s whose children are in kindergarten/elementary school. This study was able to answer the research purpose, which was young moms, is the reality of changes in structure-culture and culture-structure, produced through the causality of both groups through communication of symbolic convergence that is the exchange of information (material) into symbols (non-material).