Representasi Kepemimpinan Calon Presiden di Twitter

Twitter is a new political communication channel massively used during Indonesian presidential election 2014. The character of the medium identified as interactive, participative and decentralized become main reasons why experts optimist on how this new media develop democratization. However, based on political situation in the context of Indonesian presidential election 2014, the argument needs to be confirmed. Twitter with its democratizing character, on the other hand has contradiction impact in facilitating irrational discussion, particularly run under mechanism of imagology politic. It is found in this research that implements Critical Discourse Analysis and confirmed with deliberative democracy theory. The study concludes that successful political discussion on Twitter about political leadership of presidential candidate was not determined by rational discussion (egalitarian, consensus, equal communication, etc) but it’s merely determined by how skillful political actor construct the image of political leadership of the presidential candidate