Shifting of communication style due to digital media penetration: An Evidence from dakwah communication in Instagram

Abstract

This article provides an explanation of the communication styles that occur in the religious process using digital media, especially Instagram through da’wah. Where religious messages were delivered in response to the issue of worship at home that occurred in Indonesia during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to stop its spread. Using the digital ethnography method, which was carried out on four major digital da’wah accounts in Indonesia, namely @nuonline_id, which has 760 thousand followers, your @lensamu account has 162 thousand followers, account @shiftmedia.id has 1.9 million followers, and the account @masjidjogokariyan has 141 thousand followers. For four months starting from March 2020-June 2020, researchers observed 368 content from the @nuonline_id account, 247 content from the @lensamu account, 59 content from the @shiftmedia.id account, and 32content from the @masjidjogokariyan account and reduced again based on the Issue of Worship at Home. In this study, it was finally found that in conveying da’wah on Worship Issues at Home, the account manager used six communication styles that were presented according to the Instagram characteristics. These communication styles are controlling style, equalitarian style, structuring style, dynamic style, relinquishing style, and withdrawal style.