The ‘Realness' Discourse of a Political Leader: a Komunikasi Berasa Perspective

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-communication' 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 discourse, whilst people see sensed-relevance and sensed-beneficial as the prominent 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