May 2016 The ‘Realness’ Discourse of a Vol. 7 No. 2 Political Leader: A Komunikasi Berasa Perspective 310 BAMBANG SUKMA WIJAYA Department of Communication Science, Bakrie University, Jakarta, Indonesia. E-mail: bswijaya98@yahoo.com Received 20 January 2016 Revised 5 March 2016 Accepted 11 April 2016 DOI: 10.18196/ jgp.2016.0032 ABSTRACT This article examines the communication style of the former Governor of Jakarta and presidential candidate during the 2014 Indonesian election, Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), both as a discourse and communication model that affects trustworthiness and meaningfulness of the audiences toward the conveyed messages.This communication model is called Komunikasi Berasa [‘sensed- com-munication’ or ‘experientially-meaningful communication’], which synergises the delivery and verification of a message through audiences’ experience towards the meaning of the message. Using discursive and descriptive survey approaches, the author found out that Jokowi’s sensed-communication is not perceived solely on blusukan [impromptu visits], but also on the verbal messages of his political campaigns. Media texts display more sensed-rational and sensed- sensorial dis-course, whilst people see sensed-relevance and sensed-beneficial as the promi-nent factors in the sensed-message that Jokowi sent. The results of this research could be used as a reference in implementing a strategy to get audiences’ trust through Komunikasi Berasa or sensed-communication. Keywords: Komunikasi Berasa, the ‘realness’ discourse, media textual discourse, audience’s perceptual discourse, Jokowi INTRODUCTION Let us flashback briefly to the year 2013, the time be- fore the Indonesian legislative and presidential elections in 2014. Who deserved to be the poll and survey star at that time? For the Indonesian public, the answer was pre- dictable: Joko Widodo a.k.a Jokowi, Jakarta Governor who was also the presidential candidate of PDI-P (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia-Perjuangan [Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle])1. Jokowi was indeed phenomenal. Not only because almost all polls and surveys conducted by various survey agencies always put him at the top of the rank of who the public will choose, but also because his political career and his achievements leaped during his leadership in the government. Starting as a mayor of Solo, Central Java, which led him to be awarded as one of the world’s best mayor, then becoming gover-nor of Jakarta with various breakthroughs and achievements, to becoming a presidential candidate in a relatively short time, not many leaders and politicians had a life path as ‘dramatic’ as Jokowi. The coordinator of Sigma (Sinergi Masyarakat untuk Demokrasi [Community Synergy for Democracy]), Said Salahuddin, says that Jokowi has three key advantages over his opponents: his politeness and modesty; good working perfor- mance as mayor and governor; and, his good-heartedness in fac- ing his political opponents, by trying not to return the attacks, accusations, prejudice and slander that were addressed to him (Aziza, 2012). Meanwhile, Hanta Yuda, director Pol-Tracking In- stitute, says that Jokowi’s advantage lies in his originality to dem- onstrate an authentic political approach, which was different from other leaders, such as President Yudhoyono who was full of pub-lic image engineering (Sihaloho, 2013). Sobary (2014) stated: Jokowi is an open book. We can read what is written on the outside, the words, the actions, the gesture, the smile, assuredly the same as what is, related to his heart, his dreams, and aspirations. He does not hide harshness, or cunning (Sinar Harapan 23/4/2014). Jokowi’s openness and modesty are what captivated the pub-lic and made him a media darling, so his electability became high. The mainstream and non-mainstream media were flock-ing to cover and show his activities and actions and then review-ing them in a tone which was almost 100% positive. Even in the social media such as Facebook, people did not want to be be-hind the mainstream media in reviewing the figure of Jokowi. JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 311 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 312 His simplicity and modesty became the centres of attraction. However, expression and appreciation to Jokowi’s modesty and simplicity were not only in the form of visual endorsement in the social media, but also in the form of terms that reflect lower class’ terminologies, such as ndeso [typical villager look and figure - Javanese] (Kristanti, 2012; Tere, 2014), kerempeng [flesh-and-bone] but big brained (Sundari, 2014) or other ‘modest’ phrases like ‘humble’, ‘honest’, ‘sincere’ (Handito, 2014; Ara, 2014) and ‘local-product’ presidential candidate (Rosarians, 2014). With his modesty, ndeso look and Javanese style warmth, various psycho- war comments addressed to him were often answered by a frank ‘aku rapopo’ [I’m fine -Javanese] (F. Faqih, 2014) which was at that time a popular gimmick among Indonesian people. Attractiveness as well as the discourse about Jokowi was not solely related to his modesty and simplicity. Jokowi is also syn- onymous with his very popular iconic ‘plaid shirt’ (Teresia, 2014). His governance and bureaucracy working ethos emphasises on ‘serving-oriented’ (Aziza, 2013). And surely what is very phenom-enal is his sudden inspection habit to monitor the performance of subordinates and visitation to residents to see directly the real problems, which is famously known as blusukan (Wiwoho, 2013; Dewi, 2014) thus resulting to his being perceived as a populist leader (Susilawati, 2014). Jokowi is indeed down-to-earth. His language is lucid, with simple logic, not pretentious, making it easily understood by anyone, from the bottom to the top layer of society. His commu- nication style is polite, not attacking others, and he calmly man- ages various attacks that try to assault his character. He is not short tempered, and even tends to relax with easy jokes. No won- der, the research conducted by Tjipta Lesmana on 1 September to 25 October 2013 revealed that Jokowi was the presidential candidate who has the best communication with a score of 85, followed by Jusuf Kalla (JK) with a score of 81 and Prabowo with a score of 78 (Daryono, 2013). The research assessed 11 presi- dential candidates from six parameters of political communica- tion, i.e., context –how high or low a leader uses context, public appearance, delivered message, revealed nonverbal language, voice quality and sense of humour. Although these six parameters used in the research can be quite adequate to measure the achievement of communication style of public figures (read: political leaders), they still miss the most important variable that is urgently needed in Indonesia at this time, which is: how well the prospective leaders can build public trust through communication. This is because communi-cation has a triadic relation with commitment and trust (Zeffane et al., 2011). A communication that is able to build hope and a good first impression also gives positive influence in shaping public attitudes toward the presidential candidates (Holbrook et al., 2001). In fact, with reliable communications, the public will be led in determining their choice on a candidate (Harder and Krosnick, 2008). One way to build trust through communication is to trans- mit credible messages, which contains not only promise, but also realistic and prospective meaning along with proofs of effort to create real works, so that the public or the audience can feel the truthfulness of the message. The message becomes more real, alive, and ‘present’ in public life, because it is very meaningful. In other words, the message becomes very berasa [‘sensed’ or ‘expe-rientially-meaningful’]. The realness and meaningfulness of mes-sage is very important for political leaders because it is able to knit an emotional bond with the people they lead. Moreover, in a situation where politics tend to be seen as cynical and negative by most people, messages which are real and building mutual optimism through the sympathetic ways of political communica-tion are crucial. Thus, the people will change their view and see that not all political leaders were only able to leave empty rheto-ric without tangible evidence of the work that can be perceived by society. Jokowi’s communication style, presumably, is in tune with that way. Unlike most other figures who (seems to have become JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 313 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 314 the political communication ‘tradition’ of Indonesian leaders) use more the strategy of ‘imaging through words’, with more effort spent on selling out nicely constructed promises on the media stage, Jokowi prefers the ‘imaging through facts’ by going down directly to the field, mingling with the people, removing the bulkhead of the stage, running a ‘touch diplomacy’ (Kasali, 2013), and letting people feel the pulse of his sincerity to help resolve their problems. This style of communication inherent in Jokowi is part of the characteristics and distinctions of Komunikasi Berasa or sensed-communication. Komunikasi Berasa implies hu-mility, talking less but doing more, giving priority to work rather than empty rhetoric, and always strives to provide concrete evi-dence of the messages conveyed (Wijaya, 2011a). Of course, with-out the hassle of doing media construction, groomed behaviours, or ‘flirting’ with the media, Jokowi still became a media darling. All of his different gaits were always present in the media dis-course, as well as becoming public or audience perceptual dis-course. Therefore, this paper examines further exactly how the meanings of Jokowi and his experientially- meaningful or sensed messages became a discourse in the text of media and audience perception, such that it makes Jokowi more ‘real’ than other In-donesian leaders. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Every day we are bombarded with billions and even trillions of messages and meanings that flow from various sources and media. Are we able to capture and digest every meaning of the message delivered? Are all the messages ‘lodged’ in the head and heart? Do the messages produce a profound effect and cause trust? These are crucial questions in reviewing the strength of the messages that we say and how we say it. Lenderman (2006) exemplifies that in conventional advertis- ing and marketing, there are at least four thousand marketing messages present every day, which make consumers ‘immune’, even becoming brand atheists, because they no longer believe in JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 315 FIGURE 1. THE MODEL OF KOMUNIKASI BERASA (AN EXPERIENTIALLY-MEANINGFUL OR SENSED-COMMUNICATION) (ADAPTED FROM WIJAYA, 2011AB; 2013A) the brand. Although Lenderman pointed this out just in the realm of marketing communications, in fact meaningless and trust-less messages can be found in almost all communication phenomena, including the organizational communication be- tween superiors and subordinates (Willemyns et al, 2003), the interpersonal communication (Pearce, 1974), as well as the per-suasive communication (Arnold, 1988). No doubt, various strat-egies are pursued to gain trust, because trust is indeed the es-sence of persuasion. Failure of grabbing trust is an indicator of the failure of persuasion. Therefore, for credible messages to be meaningful and trustful, these must take form through Komunikasi Berasa or ‘sensed-communication’. Komunikasi Berasa or Sensed-communication2 is a communica- tion model that synergises message delivery and message confir- mation through the experience of the audience towards the mes- sage, so that it creates trustworthiness and meaningfulness (Wijaya, 2011ab; 2013a). Different from marketing strategy con- cept related to the experience-based economy (Pine II & Gilmore, 2011) or experience-based marketing (Schmitt, 1999; Smith & Wheeler, 2002; Lenderman, 2006; Smilansky, 2009), this sensed- communication model put more emphasis on the meaningfulness and trustworthiness as the effect of experience and deep impres- sion towards meaning and proof of a message, not just the expe- rience to a product. Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 316 A message in any form, both verbal and non-verbal, or a pro- gram form usually comes from an agenda, a motive or a certain strategy, which, in the context of persuasive communications, then the agenda, motive or strategy is also persuasive. From the source, the message is then encoded and delivered directly or through a particular medium, which is then decoded and re- ceived by receiver. In the process of delivering a message, besides doing encoding by adding meaning to the core message, the source also try to create experiences and certain impressions that are aligned with the encoded meaning. The experience and im- pression are a form of message verification, which is then per- ceived and sensed by the recipient in a decoding process. Consistency and synergy of the encoding-decoding process in defining the core meaning of message and production-consump- tion of experience is evidence that the message has become berasa [sensed]. Sensed-message then gives an impact or effect, as well as communication result in the form of trustworthiness and mean- ingfulness to the meaning of the delivered message. Trustworthi- ness and meaningfulness can create commitment (Zeffane et al., 2011) and encourage the audience to take action as per agenda, motive and source strategy, such as choosing candidates or rec- ommended products (Wijaya, 2011b). Besides that, trustworthi- ness and meaningfulness of the message can also encourage the audience to voluntarily share or advocate (Smith & Wheeler, 2002) the delivered message, from the source to other audiences, and, surely evokes love felt by audience for a long term. Important to highlight is that the more synergised or aligned and immediate the delivery and the confirmation of the mes-sage, the more it becomes sensed. Nonetheless, pending evidence does not mean a message is not sensed, because in certain com- munication situations, (technically) immediacy and simultane-ity in the message delivery and verification is not that easy to realise. Therefore, the sensed-communication model emphasises more on the synergy between the message and message verifica-tion, or the meaning and experience towards the message, its consistency, alignment, rather than its promptness and simulta-neity of the confirmation. In other words, the message should match between what is spoken and actions. Regarding time si-multaneity precision, its only effects are on the sensing value and trustworthiness effect, as well as its meaningfulness which obviously is “the faster the better “. Meanwhile, factors that indicate the level of a sensed-message can be examined from various dimensions (Wijaya, 2013a), namely: keberasaan indrawi [‘sensed-sensorial’], keberasaan emosional [‘sensed-emotional’], keberasaan rasional [‘sensed-ratio- nal’], keberasaan relevansional [‘sensed-relevance’], keberasaan benefisial [‘sensed-beneficial’], and keberasaan sosial [‘sensed-so- cial’]. Sensed-Sensorial. A message is more trustworthy when it is ac- companied by ‘physical’ proof that it can be reached through the real sensorial experience. Therefore, the message becomes more apparent as the evidence can be seen, heard, touched, kissed or tasted in accordance with the encoded meaning within the mes- sage. The evidence here may be direct or indirect through a par- ticular medium. Although evidence through media is prone to be manipulated, but the audience can filter it based on which one is reliable and not, to enjoy the meaning and message’s evi-dence through sensorial sensation. Thus, the indicators of a sensed- sensorial are the sensibility of a message and message evidence: how real a message and the evidence can be seen, viewed, heard, touched, smelled or tasted (depending on the message form), not to mention messages through the media. Sensed-Emotional. Through affective experience, audiences feel the delivered message is more real and proven true. Affective experience here means the response and positive evaluation from public feeling towards the message and delivered message’s evi- dence. There is a saying that the mouth can lie, eye can deceive, ear can deny, but the heart cannot. Therefore, conscience hon- esty that involves the deepest and most sensitive feelings is an important factor in the sensed-communication. Sensitivity in defin- JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 317 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 318 ing the meaning of message and experiencing the real evidence is needed for the energy of empathy’s ‘imagination’ to work maxi- mally. Thus, sensed-communication can be examined from several important indicators, such as: how strong public or audience’s feeling positively related to the message and delivered message proof; how positive audience’s feeling in appreciating the mes- sage proof’s facts; how honest the audience’s heart is in speaking acknowledgment of the meaning and message evidence; how empathetic and sensitive audience’s feeling is in putting them- selves as communicators to feel the sincerity, honesty and even implicit lies in the message and message evidence; and, how deep the public or audience’s trust and confidence is towards a given meaning and message evidence. Sensed-Rational. The truth in a message will become more sensed when the meaning makes sense. In other words, what is pre-sented and proven will be better when the audience’s cognition can receive it well. In this case, a message or grafted meaning within a communicative action should be able to appreciate and consider audience’s logic into account, because the audience is not passive (Alasuutari, 1999; Hall, 2006; Schiappa, 2008) and not inanimate objects that do not have the mind to evaluate whether a message can be trusted or not. Thus, it is important to maximise the cognitive experience of the audience toward the delivered message so that it will be more sensed and produces high trustworthiness effects. The indicators of sensed rational are: how logical or reasonable a message and delivered message evi-dence is, the headmost hints of the message’s evidence, and how realistic a promise or a claim in a message and its predictive cau-sality of truth is. Sensed-Relevance. A message, however factual the meaning is and however real the evidence is, would be less sensed by the audience if the message is not relevant to the interests and con- ditions of the audience. Therefore, the meaning and message evidence must be in accordance with audiences’ need, problem, want, expectations, and even dreams so that the message is more sensed for the audience to accept. Message and the proof also must be relevant with the socio-cultural and psychological back- ground of audiences. Consequently, the sensed-relevance indica-tor can be examined from: how much it is aligned with the needs, desires, hopes, dreams and obsession of the audiences; and, how much the source understand the background, condition and problems that are faced by the audience (reflected in the content and message evidence), both personally and collectively. Sensed-Beneficial. Humans tend to pursue profit or benefits to define their happiness (Scott, 2014). Not surprisingly, in Uses and Gratification theory, audiences tend to look for and respond to media content that is favourable to them (McQuail,2010). Although communication is not a panacea, it is often consid- ered as the solution to many problems (Mulyana, 2007). Conse- quently, in sensed-communication, messages whose meaning and evidence is less or not beneficial, or does not provide any solu- tions, will become less sensed by the audience as well, although sensorial, affective and cognitive experience have successfully given concrete evidence. Matters which are sensed beneficially include intangible benefits such as serenity, clarity, certainty of the future, happiness, and so on. Conclusively then, the indica- tors of sensed-beneficial include direct or indirect benefits of the message and the evidence of the delivered message, tangible and intangible benefits, how a message provides solution, and how message evidence responds to the problem of audiences. Sensed-Social. When the message evidence is felt and experi- enced by other audiences, then the feeling of the sensed-message becomes much stronger. Defining the meaning and having expe- rience in the decoding process are no longer exclusively possessed by an individual, but becomes inclusive and collective. In fact, the same meaning and experience between people in one com- munity or public audience is not just making the message be- come more sensed, but also more credible. Thus, it can be said that the indicators of sensed-social are: how inclusive the message and message evidence is felt by public or a community, social JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 319 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 320 environment and society in general; how often the message and the message evidence is present in social media and be the sub- ject of public discourse; and, how much is the desire caused by the message and message evidence, thus triggering voluntary message dissemination and message evidence among audiences. RESEARCH METHOD This is a combination of textual and audience research. In addition to meeting the research objectives, this is also because a study of media text only has representation problems (Karatani, 2003) related to the dominant reading on encoding/ decoding process (Hall, 2006). Even the media often displays wrong repre- sentation because media only presents what text means (Schiappa, 2008). In addition, the meaning more or less affects the reader such that the public discourse becomes alienated and represen- tative ‘truth’ becomes neglected. Therefore, instead of just focus- ing on what representation (media text) did to the audience, Schiappa stresses that it is important to know as well what the audience do or think related to discourse subject representation. Thus, combining the media discourse and public discourse (through audience’s perception) makes the explored main issue become more comprehensive and can prevent or minimise the media-public discourse which alienate each other, which poten- tially castrate the representative ‘truth’. To know how sensed and ‘real’ is Jokowi’s message and mean- ing in the text, then the approach used is a discursive approach by analysing knowledge in the text that represents the discourse subject. Foucault (2002) says there is no meaning outside the discourse, and discourse always forms knowledge. Discourse, according to Foucault, never simply consists of one statement, one text, one action or one source, which means that the dis- course is not a single meaning. Therefore, the author collects and analyses a wide variety of media texts related to the discourse subject, that contains episteme (which according to Foucault is the state of knowledge at a time, present in a variety of text) and discursive formations, which for Foucault is an object, style or same pattern, with a particular strategy in which various discur- sive events refer to(Cousins & Hussain, 1984). In this research, the discursive formations construct knowledge with episteme of Jokowi’s sensed-message. A total of 35 articles from various media and online sources that are relevant and significant were col- lected and analyzed with reference to the subjects of the Komunikasi Berasa or Sensed-communication dimensions. Meanwhile, to ‘read’ the public statistical perception discourse, the author conducted a descriptive survey of 100 respondents in Jakarta in March-April 2014 (before the open presidential elec- tion campaign), using purposive sampling method. Respondent criteria were determined according to the research purpose, namely Jokowi supporters or people who were clearly concerned about the figure and gait of the former Jakarta governor. The dimensions of sensed-communication that were examined include the sensed-sensorial, sensed-emotional, sensed-rational, sensed-relevance, sensed-beneficial and sensed-social. The survey method used in the audience-based research associated to textual criticism of media or popular culture was in tune with what is called as a corrective analysis (Goodnight, 1987) in ”modes of argument” (p. 62). Accord- ing to Goodnight, argument in corrective analysis tries to ‘match’ the text and public by asking and questioning the public or audi- ence response. FINDINGS Various knowledge which is relevant to the discourse subject of sensed-communication, came out in various media oulets. For example, in the news of Tribun (2/5/2014) entitled KSPSI: Yang Lain Masih Janji, Jokowi Sudah Beri Bukti, [KSPI: Others Still Prom- ise, Jokowi Gives Evidence], highlighted the statement of the president of KSPSI (Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indo- nesia [Confederation of All Indonesian Workers Union]), Andi Gani Nena Wea, who said that Jokowi already proved that he is in favour of and will fight for society, especially labour, which JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 321 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 322 can be seen from Program Jakarta Sehat [Jakarta Health Pro-gram] (known as KJS) and Program Jakarta Pintar [Jakarta Smart Program] (known as KJP) (Malau, 2014). Here, the statements that imply discourse episteme are “evidence of standing on labour’s side” and “can be seen with KJS and KJP programs”, which form discursive formation regarding sensed-beneficial, sensorial and sensed-relevance. The word “standing on” refers to relevance meaning, while the word “can be seen” indicates sensorial meaning and KJS-KJP program is beneficial evidence for workers as one of Jokowi’s audience segment communication. Using news strat-egy, knowledge was built by Tribun as a media institution and Andi Gani as speaker representing KSPI (labour). Similarly, Jokowi states that KJS-KJP is a concrete evidence of the fulfilment of his promise (Safutra, 2013). Another institution, BPBD (Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah [Regional Disaster Management Agency]) of Jakarta, declared that flood points decreased from 75 to 35 during the leadership era of Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo (Sihaloho, 2014). This discourse that emerged through Beritasatu (14/1/ 2014) media coverage was strengthened by another speaker, Ari Junaedi, a political observer from the University of Indonesia, who counteracted the counter-discourse of Jokowi’s political opponents by revealing that the data and facts on the field should be seen as seriousness and consistency from Jokowi-Ahok [the nickname of the vice governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama] in fighting for (the benefit of) citizens of Indonesia’s capital. Sensed-rational, which has a prospective nature is con- structed by the statement “should be seen as seriousness and consistency” and statistical knowledge “decreased from 75 to 35 flood points”. Similarly, the sensed-rational was also built by the Ministry of Public Works Agency through Tempo (19/6/2013) which claimed that 40% of the river, macro and micro channel, as well as conduit in Jakarta have been dredged, until the sev-enth month of the leadership of Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo (Pertiwi, 2013). In the context of the presidential election, Jokowi’s sensed-ra- tional appeared in Suara Pembaruan (14/5/2014) which originally comes from Antara news agency. Jokowi argued that Indonesia as a maritime nation should have a”sea highway” in which large vessels can use to transport a wide variety of commodities from one island to another (Antaranews, 2014a). Regarding the con- cept of mental revolution, Jokowi said that it can build people with good mental attitude and working culture so it can create nation’s productivity. With that, nation’s competitiveness would increase, because it is useless to have such enormous resources without any productivity and competitiveness (Antaranews, 2014b). In this second discourse, the message has not yet been proven, but it built a logic that has a potential to result to a sensed- message. Unlike in the Jakarta Governor candidacy, Jokowi and Ahok as partners built a sensed-rational by showing evidence of their seriousness in running the draft programs, such as KJS, KJP and row houses design. Meanwhile, efforts to bring the sensed-sensorial and sensed-emo- tional were done by Jokowi on Labour Day or May Day. As Suara (1/5/2014) reported, when the other candidate, Prabowo, chose to have sympathy by hysteria for Labour Day celebration in the stadium Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Jakarta, crammed with tens of thousands of workers from KSPI (Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia [Union Confederation of Indonesian Workers]), Jokowi sought sympathy in a more gentle approach by visiting ill workers (Laisila, 2014). ”Fellow workers choose to concert party- ing, when sick brothers (labour) exist. Not only one or two, but many,” Jokowi said after visiting two workers in a rented labour house at Rorotan region, Cilincing, North Jakarta (Laisila & Santosa, 2014). Contrasting ‘hysteria’ and ‘concert partying’ facts with ‘ill labours’ is a publicity strategy which created discursive formation regarding sensed-emotional. As for the facts “come” and “visit”, it was a text strategy that created sensed-sensorial by the audience, in this case the visited ill workers. However, the statements in media text were not only creating JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 323 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 324 a discursive formation about Jokowi’s sensed message. Some texts were counter-opinion, as shown by Republika. In addition to the opinion of Yayat Supriatna, a city planning observer who said Jakarta Governor Jokowi has not yet provided evidence to solve the capital’s problem (Sasongko, 2014), Republika (17/4/2014) also presented a political communication expert from Paramadina University, Hendrio Satrio, who highlighted that the communi-cation style of Jokowi, which is visiting people, shaking hands while being photographed, were no longer the current trend, and that the communication should focus on a vision- mission statement delivery (M. Faqih, 2014). According to Foucault, meaning and representative knowl- edge are produced through interplay discourse between the pres- ence and the absence (Hall et al., 2013). Hence, it is interesting to question, such as: why did Republika often show counter-opinion to Jokowi’s sensed-message? ‘Who’ is Republika? ‘Who’ are Hendrio and Yayat? What ‘messages’ were they sending behind the texts? It is as important as the question: why (based on author’s obser- vation) did Tribun and Tempo actively point out the positive dis- course related to the episteme of Jokowi’s sensed-message? ‘Who’ are Tribun and Tempo? Regardless of various possible answers that can be considered to represent absence, both pro as well as counter- discourse apparatus has shaped the knowledge of Jokowi’s sensed- message, although with distinct discursive formation. Meanwhile, responding to the counter-opinion on Jokowi, Jumhur Hidayat, the declarator originator of ARM (Aliansi Rakyat Merdeka [Independence People Alliance]) argued not to compare Jokowi with the expected ‘ideal’, but with the previous track record to see the upcoming ‘trend’. If something was im- proved, it means he succeeded, and if something got worse, it means he failed (Beritasatu, 2014). Jumhur then elaborated on Jokowi’s ‘working reference’ to reflect the ‘trend’: the KJS-KJP success, relocation of people living in illegal houses along the river banks to row-houses or simple flats, revitalisation of dam, and improvement of an on-going mass rapid transportation project . Retrospect on the track record, then what Jokowi pro- vides as solutions will become more realistic. About the concept of mental revolution, Jokowi said that mental revolution is urgently needed to address Indonesia’s prob-lems and challenges in the international arena later on, because no matter how rich a country is, when the human resources is unprepared, it would be a serious social disaster (Manafe, 2014). Similar to this is the idea of ‘sea toll’ or ‘maritime highway’ to address the economic gap between islands, considering that In-donesia is a maritime country (Antaranews, 2014a). Moreover, energy and food are things that should be strengthened (Daulay, 2014). Although all of these are not tangible yet, but the message (read: vision-mission) of Jokowi can be assumed as a sensed-com- munication: reasonably makes sense, people believe it would be materialised (due to track record capability), felt ‘close’ because these were relevant for the audience, and felt important because it is beneficial and fits with what society needs. This feeling refers to Jokowi’s previous success (although in a smaller scope, the city and province) in developing human resources quality (through KJS-KJP programs) and improving physical infrastruc-ture. In addition, Jokowi also uses blusukan as a medium of his vision- mission delivery in which the issue presented depends on the location (Fajar, 2014), which shows Jokowi’s effort to make the message become more sensed based on context or location. However, was Jokowi’s sensed-communication message in the media discourse really felt by the audience? Does what the text means and what texts (representations) ‘do’ to people (audience) equal to what people ‘do’ with text (representation) (Schiappa, 2008)? To get an overview about what Jakartans perceived of Jokowi’s sensed-communication, the author randomly distributed 100 sheets of questionnaire, but only 98 answer sheets were considered valid and processed, while the remaining two sheets were found dam-aged and incomplete. JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 325 Vol. 7 No. 2 TABLE 1. DEMOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS May 2016 326 Note: *Percentage of the data is the result of rounding up or down TABLE 2. SUMMARY OF DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS Note: *SD (Strongly Disagree), D (Disagree), N (Neutral/ Do not Know), A (Agree), SA (Strongly Agree), **Percentage of the data is the result of rounding up or down, ***Scale 1 (SD) to 5 (SA). The details of survey statements for each dimension are described in appendix Table A1. The survey revealed that the majority of respondents were students/college students with relatively young age, while the proportion of respondents by sex is relatively balanced between men and women with a tendency that women has a bigger num- ber. Meanwhile, 37% of the respondents liked Jokowi because of his nature or character which is prominent (simpler, humble, sincere, low profile, and calm in facing problems). Megawati (as chairwoman of PDI-P) admits the reason she chose Jokowi to be the presidential candidate of PDI-P was because the former mayor of Solo is the typical hard-worker who works sincerely to develop, having a simple personality and sincere behaviour (Bakoel, 2014). Massive media coverage (7%) apparently is not a significant rea-son for respondents to like Jokowi, although, obviously, the me-dia image has a contribution in shaping public’s perceptions about Jokowi. The public perception related to the factors that indicate Jokowi’s programs are sensed by the audience, can be seen in the table 2. From the data above, it appears that the highest value that indicates Jokowi’s sensed-communication from the audience per- spective is sensed-relevance, 4.93 of the highest score of 5.00 while the lowest value was sensed-sensorial appealing with a score of 4.18. This suggests that the issues raised in Jokowi’s political commu-nication messages are very relevant to the needs, desires, hopes and dreams of his audiences, in this case are Jakartans, who are the respondents in this research. The slogan “New Jakarta” that was brought up during his campaign for the governor election was very insightful, because it touched Jakartans who seemed weary of years of Jakarta’s problems without almost any changes. Digging deeper on the issues of health and free education, flood management through dam revitalisation, decent houses for the poor, as well as public transportation solutions to overcome con-gestion are really in line with the needs and expectations of Jakartans. Nevertheless, not all respondents has yet experienced Jokowi’s program directly, so that the sensed-sensorial score is relatively low. This is understandable because the realisation of the current programs such as KJS, KJP, row houses and cheap flats for evicted residents is prioritised for the poor. Mostly students/ college stu- dents and employees, who are relatively non-targets of the pro- gram, the respondents of course felt less ‘touching’ by the pro- grams on their lives. Realisations of the program are likely only have been watched or heard through the media or people’s talks, based on Ryan’s recognition (20 y.o.), a student in a private uni- JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 327 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 328 versity in Jakarta, one of the respondents: “I have never been to Pluit Dam, Marunda, Ria Rio ... all I just read the news and watch it on television” (Interview, April 6, 2014). The effect would be different if respondents experienced or enjoyed directly. Meanwhile, regarding Jokowi’s sensed-communication, not ev- erybody agreed on the same level to the statements in the ques- tionnaire. Data shows that only sensed-relevance and sensed-benefi- cial have the highest percentage of approval. The percentage of ignorance (neutral) of the respondents is relatively high in sensed- sensorial and sensed-rational dimensions. In fact, sensed-sensorial has 2% of disapproval which indicates consistency of responses to the questionnaire. As explained above, it makes sense since re- spondents have never seen or directly witnessed hard evidence of Jokowi’s program at all, considering that respondents were mostly students/ college students and middle-up class employ-ees, while the realisation of Jokowi’s current programs put higher priority to ‘touch’ the lower class (Aziza, 2013; Kasali, 2013; Safutra, 2013; Pertiwi, 2013; Beritasatu, 2014; Laisila, 2014). Another interesting finding of this research is that while tex- tual analysis shows sensed-rational and sensed-sensorial are quite prominent, audience analysis shows sensed-rational has lower value (4.38) compared to sensed-emotional (4.52), and sensed-sensorial scores are the lowest. There are two possibilities causing these differences. First, audience’s perceptual discourse refers to the text and the discursive practices that are different from the analysed media texts in this research, as stated by Foucault (Hall et al., 2013) that discourse does not consist of single text or just from one source. Second, the public’s ‘emotional bonding’ is just too strong related to their fondness of Jokowi’s character, as shown in table 1. The strength of ‘emotional bonding’ then ig- nores the ‘logics’ of sensed-communication which was already built in the text. In other words, audiences already like Jokowi, without needing any logical proof. They emotionally sensed Jokowi’s message much more than rational. DISCUSSION In practice, sensed-communication tends to show low-profile and ‘down-to-earth’ or ‘humble’ communication style. This is because in the sensed-communication, ‘energy of words’, which plays in the defined meaning area is shared with ‘energy of facts’ which tends to play in the realm of experience, so that the messages (both verbal and nonverbal) are not monopolizing the communication field. There is evidence that controls the message content and meaning through the experience created by the source and per- ceived by message receiver. Although previous studies show that the stage of the presi- dential election contestants or legislators tends to be a high-pro- file communication due to massive campaign that tends to make getting voters easier (Pasek, 2011) as well as to invite media pub- lications (Kahn, 1991), but in reality, low-profile communication style picked by Jokowi can also grab media attention, on the rela- tively same track with another presidential candidate, Prabowo. This is proven by the popularity and electability level of Jokowi reflected in the results of survey agencies’ polls (and strength-ened by the real presidential election of 2014 in which 53.15% of voters voted for Jokowi). The profile of communication style can also be seen from the gestures. If we examine more the gestures of these two presiden- tial candidates in the media when they made a speech or talked to the press, it appears that Prabowo’s face always looks up, symbolising his high profile, while Jokowi’s face tends to look down. Not only that, the index finger of Prabowo (who comes from a military background and business conglomerate family) is often pointing up: showing his bossy leadership style; likes to give order (read: commanding); and, is (could be) an authoritar-ian. While Jokowi (who comes from a civil background and middle- class entrepreneur family), with hands like giving direc-tion, signalled his leadership style that tends to be managerial, caring, and loves to give direction, instead of simply command-ing without willingness to know the real problems. JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 329 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 330 Of course, with Prabowo’s style that tends to be high-profile, the audience will become more easily drawn to define the mes- sage meaning with dominant ‘energy of words’ and forget the sensed-message which is more driven by ‘energy of facts’. Thus, message trustworthiness and meaningfulness as mandated by sensed-communication would be difficult to achieve. Because of less sensed, then the audience is less believing. Even if they believe, it is short-term and deceptive, so that at any time it can diminish when the audience’s experience and impression find that the facts are different from what is delivered. This phenomenon is mostly experienced by Indonesian lead-ers. In Sinar Harapan (23/4/2014), Sobary said: “... all politicians in Jakarta, the established ones, groomed with upscale style that is not in line with people’s style in general. Jokowi shows the opposite; he represents the common people’s face and it makes him idolised”. A survey conducted by Founding Father House on 11 April to 14 May 2014 in 34 provinces also showed that majority of respondents like the type of humble leaders, which means that blusukan, preferred ala Jokowi style, is more favourable for the people at the moment (Aisha, 2014). McRae (2013) acknowledged that Jokowi’s strengths are “his skills as a communicator and his strong journalistic appeal, which would negate the media re-sources of some of his rivals” (p. 297). Not surprisingly, Jokowi had high electability and became a media darling. Because Jokowi is different (from other Indonesian leaders, mostly, at this time), and the ‘difference’, of course, has high news value and market value. Meanwhile, as a low-profile leader, Jokowi is actually not alone or unique. In other parts of the world, we know the charm of humility of Jose Mujica, president of Uruguay. Since elected in 2009, Mujica donated 90 percent of his salary to charity, and instead of staying in a magnificent palace, he and his wife opted to live in his ramshackle farm (Lim, 2015). However, unlike Jokowi’s background from a poor family and small business prac- titioner who struggled to survive for success, Mujica is known as a guerrilla fighter in the 1960s and ’70s, shot multiple times, and spent 14 harsh years in isolated jail imprisonment. Because of that background, the style of Jokowi tends to prefer the ‘hard work’ rather than ‘hard talk’ to convey political messages. If Mujica focuses on revamping the country that is newly freed from the shackles of a repressive military regime, then Jokowi is inclined at revamping the country that is burdened with corrup- tion. Not surprisingly, the humanitarian messages which reject inequality and excessive materialism dominate Mujica’s commu- nications. In fact, as a former fighter under a repressive regime, Mujica is sometimes considered to be still carrying his past. “In addition to doing little to alleviate inequality in concrete ways, he’s also always saying he’s a fighter, he’s a fighter,” said Mauricio Rabuffetti, a Uruguayan journalist, as reported by Fairbanks (2015). “So his failure here is something that’s very hard to un- derstand —and hard to forgive.” This is in contrast to Jokowi who often tried to make peace with the past through a discourse of reconciliation while focusing on the completion of develop-ment issues, especially the territorial disparities. Jokowi is also compared to Nelson Mandela, South African president (1994-1999), known as an anti-apartheid revolution-ary. Although both have a low-profile figure, but each has their own style and focus, due to the different conditions and prob-lems in their respective countries. Zelda la Grange, Mandela’s personal assistant recognized that “Mandela’s ‘exceptionalism’ was because he inspired people to forgive, to reconcile, to be selfless and tolerant and to maintain dignity no matter what the circumstances” (Williams, 2013). As an anti-apartheid fighter, Mandela certainly learned a lot from the conditions when his country was under the rule of the apartheid regime so that the values of humanity and universal spirituality tend to color his leadership. Meanwhile, Jokowi is in a different situation, in which Indonesia is not encumbered with a frontal disaster of a racial issue as powerful as in South Africa. The major disaster in Indo- JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 331 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 332 nesia is corruption, which led to underdevelopment of the na-tion, both physically and mentally. Corruption in Indonesia has been endemic to all fields from the politics, law, economics to communication (Wijaya, 2013b). Politicians mostly just give empty promises in political communication without evidence and real work, opening the area of corruption in almost every corner of life of the state administration. Thus, Jokowi with his communi-cation style that is more berasa (‘sensed’ or ‘experientially-mean-ingful’), which prioritizes works rather than words, gives a fresh breeze in the world of political communication in Indonesia. CONCLUSION Jokowi’s sensed-communication style is revealed from the mean-ing and knowledge that are intertwined in the media texts. A more prominent rational message is sensed, known from knowl-edge in a narrative that indicates the ‘hard work’ of texts to cre-ate logical meaning in order to get audience’s trust. Likewise with sensed-sensorial that exists within coded messages with (implicit) proofs to make the audiences not ignore the real result achieved by Jokowi. However, the audience’s perceptual discourse showed some- what different results. From survey results, it appears that sensed- emotional factor was more prominent than rational, and sensed- sensorial occupy the lowest score. This means, ‘what the text means’ and ‘what texts (want to) ‘do’ to audience’ apparently is not in line with the ‘what audiences ‘do’ with text (media discourse)’. Audiences see sensed-relevance factor and Jokowi’s beneficial message in media texts even ‘speak’ more to them. In other words, what Jokowi offered through messages in media texts so far has been very relevant and useful to the audience. Jokowi’s messages are also quite ‘in-line’ with the audience’s heart, proven by the high value of sensed-emotional, and makes sense enough to cause sensed-rational. However, real evidence and the results of his work are less directly perceived and experienced by the audiences, so the sensed-sensorial is relatively low. Audiences also found less (in amount) other audiences who participate to acknowledge and validate Jokowi’s messages, so it is not strong enough to form sensed-social. Therefore, Jokowi must have other discursive sensory- forma-tion strategies to prove what he said is ‘really real’. For example, it can be done with more exposure of his real works, as it is, without any media manipulation, and build a relevant context to the message content to strengthen the effects of the sensed-sensorial. Jokowi should choose to deliver his message in a place or context that is in line with the message’s core meaning. In addition, to improve sensed-social in his messages, Jokowi should also display more honest testimony of people who have experi-enced or felt the direct evidence of the truthfulness of his mes-sage, allowing the media to expose wider the communities of people who have felt the tangible results of his work, and strengthen the role of social media and buzzer to create the word-of-mouth effects about the evidence of the message as well as his real works. IMPLICATION In the situation where most of Indonesian leaders prefer to be ‘noisy’ with rhetoric without showing the result of real work, or, in other words, NATO (no-action-talk-only), Komunikasi Berasa or sensed-communication can be a suitable model applied by lead-ers to gain the trust of the people. Jokowi has proven it. With the spirit of ‘energy of facts’ rather than ‘energy of words’, Jokowi shows that he is more work-oriented than a lot of talk with no results. Moreover, the reluctance of previous Indonesian leaders to be present in the midst of society makes them less sensed, not ‘real’, even as they are seemingly less concerned about their people. Not so with Jokowi. His habit of doing blusukan, besides making his existence more sensed, is also to feel directly the prob-lems faced by the community. And apparently, this sensed-commu-nication way is favoured by the people of Indonesia at this time, JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 333 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 334 because it provides a fresh perspective on Indonesia’s democracy that has long ignored the existence and the important role of people in the daily management of the state, instead of simply scooping up their votes during the elections and then they are ‘forgotten’. Among all these, undeniably is the important role of infor- mation technology, which gave birth to social media, in making sensed-communication increasingly relevant. Social media stimu-late the political and social system to become more transparent and horizontal, as the public space opens wider, likewise the ac-tive participation of the society develops. Consequently the sense of caring, as well as criticisms of the community, is channelled. With this condition, the communication that rely solely on the ‘imaging through words’, ‘empty’ discourses, or manipulation of facts (that commonly happens in authoritarian and corrupted countries) would not be influential anymore, because people can immediately verify all of the messages, even spread them out through social media, making the message’s credibility eroded, and the public trust lost. Sensed-communication, which contains a powerful ‘energy of facts’, which synergises the meaning and the proof of a message, which produces a meaningful experience, makes not only what is said but also who says to be very ‘real’. This is what happened for Jokowi. This research, in addition to discussing the discourse of Komunikasi Berasa or sensed-communication in the political con-text so that it can enrich the political communication theories, also contributes in answering doubts about mixed method of textual analysis and audience analysis, as well as combining criti-cal- constructivist (with reflective reasoning) and positivist (with objective reasoning) paradigms. Therefore, this research is ex- pected to inspire other researchers not to be trapped in the es- sentialism of methodological paradigm, and creatively develop new strategies in research to answer the substantial questions, as well as presenting the diversity and richness of truth. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the anonymous referees on the earlier version of this paper. ENDNOTES 1 This research was conducted before the presidential election, and now Jokowi is Indonesia’s 7th president. 2 Author still uses simplified term of ‘sensed-communication’ to translate komunikasi berasa because there are no words in English that express the exact same meaning. So to get a closer idea of the meaning of the word, then probably the translation of berasa is ‘sensed’. Less simple term is ‘experientially-meaningful communication’. It becomes even more difficult to translate the dimensions of ‘sensed-communication’ which refers to ‘having the feeling of the message’. So the word ‘having the feeling of the message’ may be interpreted (though not entirely accurate) and simplified as ‘sensed-message’. Thus, based on berasa definition by the author, Merriam-Webster definitions of ‘sensed’ are the closest as explained by the next sentences: 1. a mean- ing conveyed or intended; 2. the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs; 3. conscious awareness or rationality; 4. consensus; 5. capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind as a basis for action or response REFERENCES Alasuutari, P. (1999). Introduction: Three Phases of Reception Studies. In P. Alasuutari (ed), Rethinking the Media Audience: the New Agenda. (pp. 1-21). London: Sage Aisha (2014, May 15). Survei: Rakyat Masih Rindu Presiden Blusukan [Survey: People Still Miss the Blusukan President]. Retrieved from http://pemilu.tempo.co/read/news/2014/ 05/15/269578007/Survei-Rakyat-Masih-Rindu-Presiden-Blusukan Antaranews (2014a, May 14). Jokowi: Indonesia Harus Punya ‘Tol Laut’ [Jokowi: Indone- sia Must Have ‘Sea Toll’]. 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International Journal of Business and Management, 6 (6), 77-87. doi: 10.5539/ijbm.v6n6p77 JOURNAL OF GOVERNMENT & POLITICS 339 Vol. 7 No. 2 May 2016 APPENDIX TABLE A1. DESCRIPTIONS OF RESPONDENT STATEMENTS 340 Note: the original statements in Bahasa Indonesia when it was distributed to the respondents