Tweeting for Religion: How Indonesian Islamic Fundamentalist Organizations Use Twitter

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how Islamic fundamentalists groups in Indonesia use Twitter to communicate with their stakeholders to achieve organizational goals. Based on previous work, three main functions of the use of social media by organizations were examined: spreading information, building and maintaining communities, and mobilizing for action. Based on an analysis of 2000 coded tweets from 20 Islamic fundamentalist accounts in Indonesia, the results showed that using Twitter for spreading information is by far the most frequently used function for Islamic fundamentalist groups in Indonesia, followed by community building and mobilizing for action. Our analysis of the effect of the different uses of Twitter shows that in terms of reach (i.e. retweets), there is an advantage in using Twitter to spread information compared to calling for action in terms of retweeting and – to a lesser extent – to building a community.

During the last decennium, companies, governmental organizations, NGOs, and social movement organizations have increasingly used social media to promote their services, products, and policies, to protect and harness their reputation, and to draw attention to their opinions regarding societal issues. Religious organizations are no exception and increasingly use social media to engage with their congregations (Sircar & Rowley, 2019). For example, in the U.S., evangelical leaders use Twitter to inspire their followers (Burge & Williams, 2019), City Harvest Church, one of the largest Catholic organizations in Asia, uses Twitter to call for religious activities by its members (Cheong, 2018), and Hikari No Wa, a new religious group in Japan, even incorporates social media in their rituals (Campbell, 2012).

Social media provide means for religious organizations to build a sense of togetherness, express a collective identity, share information, or discuss religious issues such as interpreting holy texts. Also, they enable communication with (potential) members of a wide range of religious groups, varying from congregations to violent extremist groups such as ISIS, which actively uses social media for propaganda purposes and to recruit new members (Gates & Podder, 2015). An analysis of ISIS tweets showed that characteristic recruitment messages of ISIS include elements to emphasize feelings of brotherhood, adventure, and being part of a community in which its members will be valued and respected (Thompson, 2017).

In this paper, we focus on the use of social media by fundamentalist Islamic groups in Indonesia, the country with the largest number of Muslims worldwide. Ever since the downfall of President Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed the rise of various Islamic movements. Under Suharto’s regime, religious fundamentalist groups had very limited opportunities to be active in society. When Indonesian laws for media and political parties were liberalized, fundamentalist groups used their new rights to have their voices heard. Nowadays, the presence of various social media platforms facilitates Muslim groups with diverse backgrounds – ranging from conservative to progressive, moderate to fundamentalist, – to spread their perspectives on religious discourse and engage in discussions on social issues, albeit that recently the Indonesian authorities have run counter-narrative programs on social media in order to prevent the spread of hatred and animosity between individuals or groups based on ethnicity, religion and race. Furthermore, the Indonesian authorities have implemented regulations (The ITE Law) that enable the government to request social media companies to take down content, or to close social media accounts that promote radical views, and that allows for arresting users suspected of violating this regulation.

Whereas in the past, traditional Islamic institutions considered new communication technologies and media as potentially harmful, with the rise of social media, numerous Islamic groups have started to employ social media to further their goals. To illustrate, in remote areas of Indonesia, many students and teachers of pesantren (traditional Islamic boarding schools) distribute religious content on their Facebook accounts to expand their influence in the communities they are active in (Halim, 2018). In 2010, a group called Hijabers Community (HC) was founded by groups of Muslim women, fashion bloggers, and fashion lovers to campaign for the obligation to wear a hijab or veil while still being fashionable and acceptable by modern society. Massive campaigns and information regarding HC activities were disseminated via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in a combination of information about exhibitions and fashion shows and recitations and discussions about the Koran (Baulch & Pramiyanti, 2018; Beta, 2014). A group of Muslim youth called ODOJ (One Day One Juz) initiated a WhatsApp group that encourages Muslims to read at least one juz (approximately 20 pages) of the Quran per day. ODOJ has become one of the most popular Indonesian religious movements on social media with hundreds of thousands of members. These movements are proof that social media plays an essential role in promoting socio-religious movements (Nisa, 2018).

The rise of social media and the increased freedom of expression after the collapse of the dictatorial regime of President Suharto prompted the rise of Islamic fundamentalist movements (Hefner, 2013; Lim, 2017). For example, the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) group, a trans-national fundamentalist organization aiming to establish the Khilafah Islamiyah (Islamic State), manages different Twitter accounts in each province in Indonesia. Islamic youth organizations such as the HTI affiliated Gema Pembebasan (Movement for Liberation Students) are using Twitter to reach out to university students. Fundamentalist groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) group have accounts on various social media platforms, ranging from official accounts of leaders to accounts of supporters that are not officially associated with, but express support for FPI. Another example is Felix Siauw, a well-known preacher and member of the HTI group, who uses Twitter and other social media for da’wah (Islamic proselytization). In his preaching activities, Felix Siauw often calls on the public to support and establish a caliphate system. These messages are in line with HTI’s views that firmly rejects the democratic system and the idea of nationalism (Hew, 2018).

Twitter has become an important shared virtual public space among other social media where religious communities can be built and maintained (Aeschbach & Lueddeckens, 2019; Cheong, 2018). Previous studies have explained how religious fundamentalist groups strategically use Twitter for achieving organizational aims (e.g., Fisher & Prucha, 2013; Klausen, 2015). In this paper, we aim to gain more insight into how Islamic fundamentalist organizations use Twitter by a) adopting the framework formulated by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) and classify Tweets in terms of their information, community or action function, and b) by using the information, community and action distinction to explain differences in the reach (number of retweets) of tweets by religious organizations.

Social Media Functions for Organizations: Information, Community, and Action

For organizations, employing social media has resulted in a wide range of organizational outcomes, most notably more positive evaluations of the organization (and its services, products, or policies) and more behaviors that help the organization achieve its strategic goals. To illustrate, consumer social media engagement with a company may result in a more positive corporate reputation (Dijkmans et al., 2015), and nonprofit organizations that actively use social media are more successful in obtaining financial resources (Saxton & Wang, 2014).

Saxton and Guo (2020) conceptualized the possible gains for organizations of using social media in a model in which social media activity (messaging, connecting) leads to organizational outcomes through acquiring social media capital. Social media capital is described as “the stock of social media-based social resources an organization has generated via its day-to-day social media efforts” (p. 4). Social media capital can be observed using an organization’s network size and position, the length and intensity of social media interactions, and the extent to which social media messages are shared in the network (e.g., retweets).

Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) designed a theoretical framework that helps to understand the different strategic functions social media may have for organizations. This framework distinguishes three communication functions: information, community, and action. With the information function, social media are used to provide information to followers (e.g., making announcements, sharing a hyperlink to a website). Previous studies revealed that providing information is the function most frequently used by organizations (Inauen & Schoeneborn, 2014; Lovejoy et al., 2012; Waters & Jamal, 2011).

The community function entails using social media to build dialogue by engaging stakeholders and providing opportunities for feedback. A clear example of this is using the @mention feature of Twitter that helps to build relationships with other users. In employing the community function, Twitter is used to create opportunities for conversations and connections between the organization and its stakeholders (Saxton & Waters, 2014), asking for suggestions and opinions (Park et al., 2016), and acknowledging community development (Brengarth & Mujkic, 2016; Cho et al., 2014; Guo & Saxton, 2018). Saffer et al. (2013) concluded that interactivity in online communication is a useful strategy for fostering loyalty in the relationship between organizations and stakeholders.

A third function of the organizational use of social media is action mobilization, which entails inviting followers to engage in activities, make donations, or ask for support for petitions. Several studies have shown how organizations utilize social media to successfully invite people to engage in actions such as donating to a charity or participate in protest (Kende et al., 2016; Saxton & Wang, 2014).

Social Media Functions and Retweets

Next to establishing the main communicative functions of social media for Indonesian fundamentalist organizations, we aim to explore how using Twitter for information, community and action helps to evoke public attention through retweets. On Twitter, a retweet is an important indicator of public attention (Lee & Xu, 2018) and support for the content of the message, since retweets are often used to persuade others to follow the views presented in the shared tweets (Lee & Song, 2017), even when in some cases retweets are used to criticize a tweet’s content (Wang et al., 2016). The number of retweets an account receives may impact the popularity of the account and result in more followers. Importantly, retweets not only share information within the organization’s network (i.e., followers) but also beyond the network.

It can be argued that community or action-focused tweets are retweeted more frequently than information focused tweets, which do not aim for any specific action (as action-focused tweets do) and do not target a specific community (as community-focused tweets do). Only a few studies have been conducted that attempted to answer the question of whether community or action-focused tweets are retweeted more often compared to information focused tweets, one of which confirms the reasoning above and shows that action-oriented tweets are retweeted most often (Nelson, 2019), while another study points in the opposite direction, i.e., information-sharing tweets were retweeted more often than community building or action mobilizing tweets (Chung et al., 2020).

Our study will establish which retweeting pattern can be found in the diffusion of tweets posted by Indonesian fundamentalist organizations. Since network size has a strong relationship with retweeting and message popularity (Bakshy et al., 2011), we will incorporate the number of followers of the accounts we included in our analysis.

To summarize, this study aims to increase our knowledge of how Islamic fundamentalist organizations in Indonesia use Twitter to disseminate information, build communities, or call for action. The following research questions address these objectives:

RQ1.

How and to what extent do Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups use Twitter for information, community, and action?

RQ2.

Does the differential use of Twitter for information, community, or actions lead to differences in the number of retweets?

Method

In order to answer our research questions, we conducted a content analysis of tweets from Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist accounts. The accounts were selected based on two criteria: the accounts needed to be from Islamic fundamentalist groups and popular. First, we selected Islamic fundamentalist groups that are active on Twitter by looking for groups that met the criteria of fundamentalism as defined by Koopmans (2015): (1) Fundamentalists aim to return to the rules and laws that have been set in the past, (2) these religious rules should be interpreted rigorously and (3) religious practices are placed above secular laws. The three criteria were used to select accounts based on information or explicit statements on their account profile, their tweets’ messages, and their involvement and demands in rallies disseminated through their tweets. We then selected accounts based on popularity, where popularity was defined in terms of the number of followers on Twitter at the time of selection in October 2019. Also, for each group, we identified the accounts of group leaders active on Twitter. In the tradition of Islamic fundamentalist groups, the leading figure is very important. This is reflected in the fact that in some cases, the personal accounts of leading figures have more followers than the account of their group. Finally, we selected the accounts of influential followers. These are accounts of people with more than 2000 followers who followed the accounts selected in the previous steps and tweeted similar ideas.

Based on these criteria, we identified 91 Twitter accounts associated with Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups: 17 group accounts, 14 leader accounts, and 60 accounts of influential followers. In November 2019, we collected the tweets of these accounts using the Twitter Application Programming Interface (API), with a maximum of 3200 tweets per account due to Twitter API restrictions, which resulted in 209,858 tweets. Given the large number of tweets and the need for manual coding, we decided to limit the analysis to tweets posted in 2018 by the 20 accounts with the most followers. To obtain this sample, we first selected accounts that had posted at least 100 tweets, excluding retweets, quotes, or replies. This resulted in 71,979 tweets posted by 82 accounts, 59 of which had posted at least 100 original tweets during 2018. We subsequently selected the 20 accounts with the most followers (based on the highest number of followers at any point during 2018), consisting of 9 accounts of leaders, 6 group accounts, and 5 influential followers accounts. The median number of followers for these 20 accounts was 17,002 together they posted over 23,109 tweets in 2018 (median = 1117, ranging from 138 to 2696 tweets per account). After excluding retweets, replies and quotes, 11,052 tweets remained. From these 11,052 tweets, random samples of 100 tweets were taken from each of these accounts, resulting in a total sample of 2000 tweets.

All tweets were manually coded in terms of their information, community, and action function. Within each category, we determined specific subcategories by adopting the subcategories from prior studies that used the Lovejoy and Saxton’s (2012) framework. We then adjusted these subcategories to fit the context of our study better. The category of tweets with an information function consisted of two subcategories: tweets that contain opinions on issues and tweets about group events, news, or activities. Community-focused tweets consisted of three subcategories: (1) tweets about giving recognition to or thanking followers or other people for doing something for the group, (2) tweets acknowledging other fundamentalist groups events, and (3) tweets responding to public reply to messages or asking followers for their opinion. Action-focused tweets contained three subcategories: (1) tweets calling for volunteers, which ask followers to take voluntary action to support or engage in group activities. (2) tweets inviting followers to attend events or meetings, and (3) tweets asking for donating goods or money, which encourages followers to make direct donations in goods or money.

Two coders were involved in the coding of the tweets. Before the actual content analysis, both coders independently analyzed 100 tweets from one Twitter account in the sample using the eight-category scheme to determine intercoder reliability. Each tweet was assigned as a single code from this scheme. Differences between codings were discussed and resulting in more detailed coding instructions and a refined coding scheme. This resulted in acceptable intercoder reliability (Cohen’s Kappa .74; Krippendorff’s Alpha .73).

Results

Distinguishing Information, Community, and Action-Oriented Tweets

The results of the independent coding indicated the information function as the function that is by far the most frequently used by the fundamentalist accounts (73% of all coded tweets, n = 1448), followed by the community function (18%, n = 367), and the action function (6%, n = 122). A small number of tweets could not be categorized as they contained too little text or a hyperlink that was no longer active. These tweets (3%, n = 63) were categorized under Other.

Information-Oriented Tweets

Closer inspection of the tweets with an information function allowed us to differentiate them into two subcategories of tweets focused on (a) sharing of opinions and (b) information about events.

Sharing of opinions (49.45% of total, n = 989); This subcategory contained tweets with information related to groups’ opinions or key figures about issues such as religion, politics, economics, culture, government policies, and national and international news. Included in this subcategory are tweets that directly quoted verses from the Qur’an, the words of the Prophet Muhammad or his companions, or well-known Islamic scholars and figures as arguments to represent their opinions on these issues.

Information about events (22.95% of total, n = 459); This subcategory consists of messages containing information about events of Islamic fundamentalist groups or their key figures’ activities, such as news articles and reports of events and rallies that the groups organized.

Community-Oriented Tweets

Community building tweets contained messages written to create opportunities for conversations and connections between the groups and their followers. The primary purpose of tweets in this category is to build and maintain relationships with followers and to facilitate interaction. We divided the community category into three subcategories of tweets focused on (a) recognition and appreciation, (b) acknowledging other groups, and (c) asking and replying to questions.

Recognition and appreciation (5.75% of total n = 115); This subcategory contains tweets that give recognition to group members and followers, for instance, for volunteering, donating time or money, organizing an event, or mentioning the group in a tweet. Also, tweets that involve thanking people outside the group but whose opinions are considered in line with the group’s opinions or goals were included in this subcategory.

Acknowledging other groups (2.45% of total n = 49); Another way to engage with audiences both inside and outside the group is through acknowledging other groups, including the opinions of other group members about issues being discussed. Tweets in this subcategory contain messages that recognize or acknowledge people outside the group whose roles or activities are considered to be in line with the group’s opinions or goals.

Asking and replying to questions (10.15%, of total n = 203); All tweets in which questions were asked or responses to questions from followers were given fall in this subcategory. This group of tweets contains the most explicit expressions of the efforts to create dialogic communication: messages that explicitly ask for responses and answer questions from followers.

Action-Oriented Tweets

Tweets in the action category contained messages explicitly encouraging followers to engage in actions such as volunteering, attending an event, or supporting the organization through infaq or donations. This could be done either directly in the tweet or by using a hyperlink to another source where people could learn more about how they could get involved in taking action. We divided the action category into three subcategories of tweets that focused on (a) calling for volunteers, (b) inviting followers for events or meetings, and (c) asking for donating money or goods.

Calling for volunteers (0.35%, n = 7); This subcategory contained tweets that asked followers to take voluntary action to support or engage in group activities.

Inviting followers to attend events (5.45%, n = 109); Messages explicitly asking followers to attend events or meetings were in this subcategory. The types of events and meetings people were asked to attend were religious events such as Tabligh Akbar (a large-scale Qur’anic recitation event or mass religious meeting), religious discussions, and invitations to talk shows about politics, rallies, or online group events. Tweets containing invitations to pray were also included.

Asking for donating goods or money (0.3%, n = 6); These tweets encouraged people to make direct donations in the form of goods or money.

Figure 1 shows a ternary plot showing the position of each of the 20 accounts on the use of social media for information, community or action (cf. Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). Ternary plots are a way of showing the proportions of three different variables which are represented as points on the plot, with each point on the graph representing a unique combination of these variables. A dot at the top of the plot indicates a high share of informational tweets, a dot at the bottom left indicates a high share of community-building tweets, and a dot in the bottom right of the plot indicates a high share of action-oriented tweets. For example, a point with coordinates (50%, 10%, 40%) indicates that the information tweets are 50%, the action tweets are 10%, and the community tweets are 40%. As can be seen in the ternary plot, the majority of the accounts have a relatively high share of informational tweets and lean toward the community function. Only one account is located near the center of the triangle, suggesting that it has a relatively balanced use of the three functions.

Figure 1. Ternary plot: Proportion of tweets in each category.

The results of the coding of the tweets answers RQ1 on how and to what extent do Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups use Twitter for information, community, and action. Results show that information sharing is the most frequently used function for Indonesian fundamentalist groups. A large number of these messages focused on the dissemination of opinions by groups, key figures, and influential followers of Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups. The use of Twitter to facilitate action and mobilize public interests is relatively rare among the accounts studied.

Account and Tweet Characteristics and Reach of Tweets

As a first step to answering RQ2, we looked at the relationship between the characteristics of Twitter accounts and the nature of the tweets posted. Table 1 provides an overview of the characteristics of the 20 accounts and their Twitter activity (posts, quotes, replies, and retweets) of all tweets posted in 2018, and their use of Twitter in terms of information, community and action. As can be seen in Table 1, there is much variation in the number of tweets (7 accounts posted less than 500 tweets, whereas 5 accounts posted between 1500 and 2000 tweets in 2018), and in the share of posts (tweets which are not quotes, replies, or retweets), varying between 8% and 99%. These differences do not appear to be strongly related to the number of followers. The table further shows that the account with the highest number of community-oriented posts also has the highest share of replies, closely followed by the account with the most information-oriented tweets.

Table 1. Characteristics and Twitter behavior of the top 20 accounts.

Account characteristics			Type of tweets (%)				Twitter function (%)
Number of followers	Number followed	Number of tweets	Posts	Quotes	Replies	Retweets	Information	Community	Action
10-20k	>1000	1500–2000	14.13	7.64	3.47	74.76	93	6	1
10-20k	200–500	<500	61.08	1.90	25.63	11.39	84	16	0
10-20k	<100	<500	98.98	0.00	0.51	0.51	78	18	4
10-20k	<100	<500	98.68	0.66	0.33	0.33	72	22	3
10-20k	200–500	>2000	7.95	24.33	1.81	65.90	65	17	1
10-20k	<100	<500	90.75	2.64	5.73	0.88	59	16	17
10-20k	200–500	500–1000	89.56	0.11	0.68	9.65	54	45	0
20-50k	100–200	<500	70.08	0.26	29.66	0.00	92	7	0
20-50k	>1000	500–1000	94.24	0.00	0.19	5.57	82	15	3
20-50k	200–500	1000–1500	16.35	15.46	0.79	67.39	80	5	10
20-50k	100–200	>2000	56.61	11.94	0.84	30.61	65	25	2
50-100k	>1000	>2000	45.55	32.82	16.33	5.30	94	5	1
50-100k	<100	1500–2000	98.89	0.13	0.00	0.98	93	6	1
50-100k	>1000	>2000	17.54	12.57	3.71	66.17	78	18	1
50-100k	200–500	1500–2000	64.66	1.41	25.24	8.69	70	18	3
50-100k	<100	1000–1500	44.49	19.27	4.16	32.08	59	26	10
>100k	>1000	1500–2000	26.32	43.50	3.25	26.93	89	5	6
>100k	200–500	<500	96.72	0.41	1.84	1.02	86	13	1
>100k	<100	<500	94.20	0.72	1.45	3.62	76	12	12
>100k	100–200	1500–2000	64.91	2.28	32.36	0.44	41	30	26

The last step of our analysis aimed to establish the relations between the Twitter functions (community, action, and information), account characteristics (e.g., number of followers, interactivity) and the number of retweets. Retweets are an important way in which the reach of a single tweet is enhanced and play an important role in, for instance, mobilizing for protest through social media (Casas & Williams, 2019). The question is whether community, action or information tweets differ in the extent to which they get retweeted. To answer this question, we need an analysis that takes into account a) that the number of retweets is nested in accounts (tweets by accounts with a high number of followers are more likely to get retweeted), and b) that retweets are count data and are typically right skewed (most tweets receive no or very few retweets, only a few get a high number of retweets). To illustrate, among the 2000 tweets that we coded, 798 (39.9%) were retweeted ten times or less, whereas only 37 tweets (1.9%) were retweeted 1000 times or more.

We used a negative binomial mixed model to account for both characteristics of the data, the glmmTMB R package (Brooks et al., 2017) was used to conduct the analyses. To establish the extent to which the number of retweets is related to differences between the accounts, we first computed the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) using an intercept only model. The ICC was estimated at .619, indicating as expected that differences between accounts explained a large part of the differences in the number of retweets. We then estimated a negative binomial mixed model in which we predict the number of retweets by tweet function (information, community, or other, using action as the reference category), the (log10 of) the number of accounts following or followed by the account, and the share of replies, retweets and quotes of all tweets posted by the accounts in 2018 (using the share of posts as the reference category). Table 2 shows that, compared to action tweets, information tweets are more frequently retweeted (IRR = 1.30, p = .040), as are community tweets (although the effect does not reach the p < .05 threshold, IRR = 1.28, p = .083).

Table 2. Estimated effects of predictors on retweet counts.

Predictors	B	SE	Incidence Rate Ratios	CI	p
(Intercept)	3.62	0.23	37.41	23.74–58.96	<.001
Tweet category (Reference category: Action)
Community	0.25	0.14	1.28	0.97–1.69	.083
Information	0.26	0.13	1.30	1.01–1.66	.040
Other	−0.05	0.21	0.95	0.63–1.43	.797
Followers (log 10)	1.17	0.40	3.23	1.48–7.07	.003
Followed (log 10)	−0.84	0.31	0.43	0.23–0.80	.007
Replies	0.05	0.02	1.05	1.01–1.09	.022
Retweets	0.03	0.01	1.03	1.01–1.05	.012
Quotes	−0.02	0.02	0.98	0.94–1.01	.227
		Random Effects
σ^2			1.00
τ00 account			0.78
ICC			0.44
N account			20
Observations			2000
Marginal R^2 /Conditional R^2			0.325/0.621

Figure 2 shows the estimated means of the number of retweets for each of the four categories. The predicted number of retweets of action tweets (37.4) is lower than the predicted number of retweets of information tweets (48.5) and community tweets (47.9).

Figure 2. Predicted counts of retweets for different categories of tweets.

The effect of tweet function is limited compared to account level effects: the number of followers strongly and positively predicts the number of retweets (IRR = 3.23, p = .003), and, surprisingly, the number of accounts followed negatively predicts the number of retweets (IRR = 0.43, p = .007). To a lesser extent, the way accounts use Twitter affects the number of retweets: accounts with a relatively high number of replies (IRR = 1.05, p = .012) and retweets (IRR = 1.03, p = .022) generate more retweets than accounts with a high number of posts and quotes.

All in all, our analysis of the effect of the different Twitter functions shows that in terms of retweets, there is an advantage in using Twitter to spread information and to a lesser extent to build a community, compared to calling for action. Similarly, interactive ways of using Twitter, such as replying to and retweeting other accounts positively affect the extent to which an account is retweeted. However, the scope of this effect is limited, especially when compared to the number of followers of an account.

Discussion and Conclusions

This study aimed to gain more insight into the use of Twitter by Islamic fundamentalist organizations in Indonesia. We specifically investigated to what extent these groups used Twitter for informative purposes, to build and maintain a community, or for calling for action. Furthermore, we addressed whether differences in Twitter usage for these three purposes affected the number of retweets.

Our study showed that Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups mainly use Twitter to disseminate information rather than for community building or calling for action. The interactive nature of Twitter, supported by key features such as replying, and retweeting can be used to build the community and encourage public involvement. However, compared to the information function, Islamic fundamentalist groups in Indonesia are found to make less use of Twitter for these functions. In this sense, they are not much different from organizations in other domains (e.g., NGO’s) as revealed by previous studies (Inauen & Schoeneborn, 2014; Lovejoy et al., 2012).

Within the group of tweets that are information-oriented, the subcategory “sharing of opinions” is the prevailing function utilized by Indonesian fundamentalist groups. The use of quotations from Al-Quran verses, quotations from the Prophet’s hadiths, and quotes from famous and influential Ulema in strengthening religious messages is a characteristic of Islamic groups in dakwah (Islamic proselytization). Our study shows that this is also typical of how fundamentalist groups communicate on Twitter, where they frequently insert these quotes in their arguments and opinions, not only related to religious issues but also to social and political issues widely discussed. What is read in these messages are views on various issues that are all seen from a dogmatic religious perspective.

Sharing information about events is the second largest subcategory of all the subcategories. This subcategory of information-oriented tweets contains informative messages regarding the activities of Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups, including their leaders’ activities. For example, in these tweets, information is shared about the involvement of Islamic fundamentalist groups in (the preparing of) various demonstrations and political discussions. Also, group leaders and influential followers share information about these demonstrations and other activities.

When looking at the community-oriented tweets, results showed that Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups use Twitter most for asking or replying to questions. Tweets in this subcategory encourage followers to provide answers to questions and provide answers from followers. Recognition and appreciation are the second-largest subcategory for this category. This subcategory contains tweets that give recognition to group members and followers involved in group activities and tweets that involve thanking people outside the group whose opinions are in line with the opinion or group. To a much lesser extent, we saw that tweets were used to acknowledge other groups and their activities.

In our sample, we did not find many action-oriented tweets. “Inviting followers to attend events” which explicitly invites followers to attend group meetings or events, ranging from religious activities, discussions about politics to demonstrations, is the top subcategory in this category. Almost no tweets were found in which the groups ask followers to volunteer to participate in group activities or donate goods or money.

There are large similarities in the patterns of Twitter use between Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups and the type of organizations (mainly NGO’s) that have been studied previously (Guo & Saxton, 2014a; Merry, 2016; Svensson et al., 2015). Overall, these organizations rarely take advantage of the more interactive opportunities that Twitter offers and consequently miss out on opportunities provided by Twitter to build relationships with stakeholders (Neiger et al., 2013; Thackeray et al., 2012). Similar to the results of our study, Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) found that although attempts are made to build communities, the primary orientation of tweets by these organizations is toward disseminating information. Guo and Saxton (2014b) also explained, based on their analysis of advocacy organizations, that Twitter does not play a role as a tool for action mobilization, even though Twitter is a powerful communication tool for disseminating information.

Our results showed that tweets with an information orientation are retweeted most, and slightly more than tweets that are community-oriented. Tweets that were the least retweeted were tweets that were calling for action. This is in line with a recent study that showed that informational tweets are retweeted more often than community-oriented or action mobilization tweets (Chung et al., 2020). However, it is not in line with the study by Nelson (2019), where action mobilization tweets received more retweets. Note that in both these studies the tweets of only one organization were studied, and in the study by Nelson (2019) this organization was atypical in its use of social media in the sense that informational tweets were not the dominant mode of using Twitter. In our study, we analyzed the diffusion of tweets of 20 organizations, taking into account differences in terms of the numbers of followers. Across these organizations, information-oriented tweets were both the most widely used for most organizations, and the most retweeted. Our study did not aim to explain why this is the case. Future studies should aim to shed further light on questions regarding differences between organizations in their use of social media and why these are retweeted more frequently than other types of messages.

The use of Twitter by religious groups in a different way is an important topic to explore in the future. This includes looking at how religious organizations use Twitter hashtags, which this study did not cover. Research has shown that hashtags on social media have a performative and constitutive character, meaning they contribute to the co-creation of meaning (Albu & Etter, 2016). Hashtags create connections between different texts and actors, and can be used to connect different perspectives, create relationships, and contribute to online discussions (Albu & Etter, 2016). The specific responses to hashtags on Twitter, like re-tweeting, can also contribute to the formation of counterpublics by intensifying debates and making certain hashtags and usernames more prominent. Hashtags are also important for social movements because they allow activists to connect online conversations and create movement narratives through shared authorship (Dawson & Bencherki, 2022).

Based on our findings and analysis, the study contributes to the body of literature on how Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist organizations strategically use Twitter to further their goals. In particular, this study makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on media social capital. Social media capital is a concept that refers to the value or benefits that individuals or organizations can gain from engagement on social media platforms (Saxton & Guo, 2020). The networks, rules, and trust that encourage cooperation and coordination within a community are referred to as social media capital, which is a subset of social capital. In terms of its contribution to the social media capital literature, our study provides insights into how social media can be used to strengthen religious identities and practices. Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups use Twitter to connect with like-minded individuals and build a sense of community among their followers. This includes sharing information about religion and its practices, engaging in discussions on religious topics, and promoting events and activities. In addition, we show how some Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist groups use Twitter to mobilize their followers for social action and advocate for social issues. This provides insight into how social media can mobilize communities for specific causes and build collective action. In conclusion, this research can make a significant theoretical contribution to the topics of social media capital by providing insight into two areas: the role of social media in facilitating social relations and cooperation, both within religious communities themselves and between religious communities, and how religious groups use social media to build and maintain social capital.

Limitations

This study has several limitations that need to be addressed. The first limitation concerns the coding of the tweets. On some occasions, tweets could not be unequivocally characterized as information, community, or action-oriented, but contained elements of one of the other categories. Another limitation is the choice of the timeframe that we selected for data gathering. During our period of collection in 2018, the most prominent discussions on Twitter were about the upcoming 2019 presidential election in the Republic of Indonesia. Consequently, the tweets may be more focused on political issues from the perspective of Islamic fundamentalists than what would have been the case when another timeframe was chosen. We, therefore, have to be cautious in generalizing our results to periods where the agenda might be less about political topics.

This study focused on Twitter and how Islamic fundamentalist groups in Indonesia used it. Our study does not allow for conclusions regarding how typical our findings specifically for these groups. Future research should focus on how religious fundamentalist groups in other countries – with different socio-political contexts – use Twitter to achieve their organizational goals. Comparative research, including moderate religious groups, would help to understand better differences in the use the communication functions on Twitter. Lastly, including other social media platforms would help to develop better insights into the role of various social media for religious groups, and whether other social media platforms provide distinctive features that can be used for informative purposes, community building, or action.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).