This paper, which is focused on evaluating the policies and institutional control of the Brantas River Basin, East Java, Indonesia, aims to review government regulations on watershed governance in Indonesia. A qualitative approach to content analysis is used to explain and layout government regulations regarding planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and accountability of the central and local governments in managing the Brantas watershed, East Java, Indonesia. Nvivo 12 Plus software is used to map, analyze, and create data visualization to answer research questions. This study reveals that the management regulations of the Brantas watershed, East Java, Indonesia, are based on a centralized system, which places the central government as an actor who plays an essential role in the formulation, implementation, and accountability of the Brantas watershed management. In contrast, East Java Province’s regional government only plays a role in implementing and evaluating policies. The central government previously formulated the Brantas watershed. This research contributes to strengthening the management and institutional arrangement of the central government and local governments that support the realization of good governance of the Brantas watershed. Future research needs to apply a survey research approach that focuses on evaluating the capacity of the central government and local governments in supporting good management of the Brantas watershed.

Social media has a significant impact on political and social life, particularly in policy making. In order to examine social media use in policy making, the researchers obtained and analyzed data on Twitter or Facebook using a NodeXL program from January to June 2016 in three ASEAN cities, Bandung (Indonesia), Iligan (Philippines) and Pukhet (Thailand). Research found that Bandung City has made significant achievement at the engagement level by engaging with the city community in daily city affairs. Meanwhile, Iligan City and Pukhet City are still in the stage of transforming their respective internal organizations. The pivotal factors of social media use in three cities is top and middle leader role, legal standing for social media use, policy framework and internal change management

This study evaluated the branding of a slum project as a social marketing initiative to transform the Jodipan slum area into a tourism village in the city of Malang. An action–evaluation research project was conducted through the combination of the marketing and planning oriented approaches by the communications department at a major public university in Indonesia between June 2016 and October 2017. The study employed a case study supported by qualitative data from primary and secondary sources, including social media text mining analysis. Moreover, an evaluation survey was conducted using proportionally random sampling from 650 slum dwellers to assess the impacts of the project in terms of the general welfare of the community. The transformation of the slum area into a new tourist destination was found to have been successfully implemented through the combined marketing and planning-oriented community social marketing project. The tourist destination produced was also observed to have a good impact on environmental sustainability and economic value for the local community. Jodipan branding project is unique as observed in its ability to transform an unhealthy settlement into a healthy settlement. Theoretically, it has contributed to new knowledge on slum upgrading in urban studies, especially with the focus on the successful improvement of the physical, social, and economic conditions of the area. This research further contributed to a new understanding and novelty of knowledge on the ability of place branding, as a social marketing strategy, to change the behavior of slum dwellers. However, this research has limitations in exploring the local government’s response to the project, therefore, future studies need to clarify issues relating to local policies and official budgets for its sustainability.

This article analyses the polarisation of Islamic groupings in Indonesia which have taken place since 2017. It reviews the situation from the 2017 gubernatorial elections in Jakarta and the incident of the Ahok Video, during which the various Islamic factions were united, up to the 2019 elections, during which they polarised around the different presidential candidates and were unable to present a united front. This article analyses the division of Islamic groupings in Indonesia into traditionalist, fundamentalist and modernist, and looks at the interactions within them and between them on social media towards the 2019 campaign to better understand their positioning.