Felix Siauw’s Digital Da’wah Strategy in Strengthening Indonesian People’s Solidarity for Palestinian Independence
Article Sidebar
Page Numbers:
121-141
Digital Object Identifier:
10.58578/ajisd.v4i3.9680
Viewed: 73 times
Downloaded: 45 times
LYAS Publisher cordially invites qualified professionals to serve as Editors or Reviewers. Your expertise will make an important contribution to maintaining and strengthening the academic quality of our publications. Interested applicants are kindly requested to complete the application form at the following link: Editors & Reviewers
Please feel free to contact us if you need any further information about the submission process or if you have any additional questions.
Authors:
Lalu Ahmad Zaenuri1* 
Copyright :
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article analyzes Felix Siauw’s digital da‘wah strategy in building public solidarity for Palestinian independence in Indonesia. Moving beyond the assumption that digital da‘wah merely transfers religious lectures into online spaces, the study conceptualizes it as a strategic communication practice that frames geopolitical issues, intensifies affect, and directs cross-platform collective action. The research employed an interpretive qualitative approach with a cross-platform netnography design. The corpus consisted of Palestine-themed public content within Felix Siauw’s digital ecosystem, with primary emphasis on YouTube and Telegram, while Instagram, TikTok, and X served as complementary platforms. Data were collected through systematic manual archiving of uploads, captions, videos, engagement metrics, comments, and campaign trails, and were analyzed using hybrid coding, thematic analysis, and multimodal discourse analysis. The findings show that Palestine is constructed through a differentiated platform ecosystem in which YouTube deepens narrative and interpretive authority, while Telegram functions to amplify, archive, and direct participation. Felix Siauw’s messages sacralize Palestine through references to Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, and Islamic history, thereby presenting a distant geopolitical conflict as an immediate moral and religious obligation for Indonesian Muslims. This framing is further reinforced through affective intensification in the form of suffering, empathy, moral anger, and urgency, which together constitute a moral public grounded in the imagination of the ummah and shared responsibility. The study also identifies multilayered solidarity outcomes, ranging from symbolic expression and discursive reproduction to donations, boycott support, and offline participation. This article concludes that Felix Siauw’s Palestine-oriented da‘wah represents a form of public solidarity mediated by platformed religious authority and capable of moving audiences from expression to action in Indonesia’s digital public sphere in a communicative, structured, cross-platform, and sustained manner during moments of crisis. The study contributes to the understanding of how digital religious communication mobilizes solidarity by linking platform logic, affective framing, and collective action in contemporary Muslim public life.
Citation Metrics:
Downloads
Article Details
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
References
Ait Hadi, K., Bendahan, M., & Chemaou, S. (2024). The contribution of religion to protest mobilization on digital social networks. Religions, 15(9), 1035. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091035
Andriansyah, Y. (2024). Humanitarian aid from the Islamic mass organizations in Indonesia to Palestine. Millah: Journal of Religious Studies, 23(2), xiv–xxiv. https://doi.org/10.20885/millah.vol23.iss2.editorial
Association of Internet Researchers. (2020). Internet research: Ethical guidelines 3.0. https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf
Bucher, T., & Helmond, A. (2018). The affordances of social media platforms. In J. Burgess, A. Marwick, & T. Poell (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 233–253). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Campbell, H. A. (2012). Understanding the relationship between religion online and offline in a networked society. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 80(1), 64–93. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfr074
Campbell, H. A. (2024). Looking backwards and forwards at the study of digital religion. Religious Studies Review, 50(1), 83–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.17062
Fakhruroji, M. (2019). Digitalizing Islamic lectures: Islamic apps and religious engagement in contemporary Indonesia. Contemporary Islam, 13(2), 201–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-018-0427-9
Fakhruroji, M., Rustandi, R., & Busro. (2020). Bahasa Agama di Media Sosial: Analisis Framing pada Media Sosial Islam Populer. Jurnal Bimas Islam, 13(2), 203–234. https://doi.org/10.37302/jbi.v13i2.294
Khairani, U. (2020). Feed dan Filter, Strategi Komunikasi Islam Felix Siauw di Instagram. Jurnal Peurawi: Media Kajian Komunikasi Islam, 3(2), 14–26. https://doi.org/10.22373/jp.v3i2.8279
Kozinets, R. V. (2019). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Kurniawan, A. K., & Alhaq, A. F. (2020). Muslimness discourse, religious authority, and cyber-media activism in contemporary Indonesia. In Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on Islamic Studies, AICIS 2019, 1–4 October 2019, Jakarta, Indonesia (pp. 1–9). EAI. https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.1-10-2019.2291731
Kusumalestari, R. R., Permatasari, A. N., & Satriani, A. (2026). A social network analysis of Indonesian online conversations on the Palestine conflict. Al-i’lam - Journal of Contemporary Islamic Communication and Media, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.33102/jcicom.vol5no2.132
Laugu, N., Arianto, M. S., Mustafa, A., & Mukhlis. (2024). Correlative effects between digital literacy and religious authority among academic communities in Indonesia. International Journal of Media and Information Literacy, 9(1), 142–160. https://doi.org/10.13187/ijmil.2024.1.142
Lengauer, D. (2016). Workshop report: Social media and Islamic practice in Southeast Asia, 14–15 April 2016, Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Advances in Southeast Asian Studies, 9(2), 311–314. https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-2016.2-10
Lyansari, K. N. (2022). Celebrification and branding new female religious authority in Indonesia. Dialog, 45(1), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.47655/dialog.v45i1.568
Mudzakir, J. I. (2025). Indonesia’s support dynamics toward Israel: Between solidarity and national interests. International Journal of Social Science and Religion, 6(1), 37–56. https://doi.org/10.53639/ijssr.v6i1.309
Najiha, R. (2025). Agama dan Kemajuan Teknologi Digital: Digital Religion dan Media Sosial. Mozaic: Islamic Studies Journal, 4(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.35719/mozaic.v4i02.2299
Nisa, E. F. (2018). Creative and lucrative daʿwa: The visual culture of Instagram amongst female Muslim youth in Indonesia. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 5(1–2), 68–99. https://doi.org/10.1163/22142312-12340085
Noormansyah, R., Akhni, G. N., Widyantoro, S., Andini, A. N., Adinda, S. C., & Amalia, D. Z. (2025). Fatwa and transnational solidarity: Examining faith-based movement in Indonesia in addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict. Jurnal Kajian Peradaban Islam, 8(2), 134–144. https://doi.org/10.47076/jkpis.v8i2.342
Nuraini, F. P., Mulyana, D., Herawati, M., & Shaharoun, A. (2025). International Court Justice ruling for Palestine-Israel in Indonesian media: Discourse analysis in Kompas.com, CNNIndonesia.com, and Detik.com. Islamic Communication Journal, 10(1), 53–68. https://doi.org/10.21580/icj.2025.10.1.23793
Papacharissi, Z. (2014). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199999736.001.0001
Pratama, D. P. (2021). Islamic fanaticism in Indonesia and Malaysia as seen through the lens of online comics and memes. In Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Research in Social Sciences and Humanities Universitas Indonesia Conference (APRISH 2019) (pp. 82–98). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210531.011
Rohid, N., Sugihartati, R., Suyanto, B., Susilo, D., & Zikri, A. (2025). Digital activism in contemporary Islamic politics: A critical analysis of social media’s impact on Islamic movements. MILRev: Metro Islamic Law Review, 4(1), 208–233. https://doi.org/10.32332/milrev.v4i1.10159
Rohmawati, H. S., Zulkifli, & Hakiem, N. (2025). Mediatization and hypermediation in digital religion and the transformation of Indonesian Muslim religious practices through social media usage. Jurnal Sosiologi Agama, 18(2), 133–150. https://doi.org/10.14421/jsa.2024.182-01
Santoso, J. L., Khairina, N. N., & Wijoyo, W. H. A. (2020). An independent verification of education sector data in Indonesia. World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/d446240a-b85a-5eae-a980-480233cf5f45
Shadiqi, M. A., Muluk, H., & Milla, M. N. (2020). Support for Palestine among Indonesian Muslims: Religious identity and solidarity as reasons for e-petition signing. Psychological Research on Urban Society, 3(1), 40–51. https://doi.org/10.7454/proust.v3i1.83
Solahudin, D., & Fakhruroji, M. (2020). Internet and Islamic learning practices in Indonesia: Social media, religious populism, and religious authority. Religions, 11(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010019
Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Annals of the International Communication Association, 36, 143–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2013.11679130
Weng, H. W. (2018). The art of dakwah: Social media, visual persuasion and the Islamist propagation of Felix Siauw. Indonesia and the Malay World, 46(134), 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2018.1416757
Wolf, S. I. (2023). Learning Islam “ala Gaza”: Palestinian shaykhs as figures of religious authority in Indonesian Palestine solidarity practices. International Journal of Islam in Asia, 2(2), 170–202. https://doi.org/10.1163/25899996-20223007