Rhetoric of Political communication in Indonesian 2019 Presidential Debate

ABSTRACT
This study examines the rhetoric of political communication in Indonesian 2019 Presidential Debate
between Joko Widodo versus Prabowo Subiyanto. As the incumbent president, Jokowi faced Prabowo
as his challenger. This gave way to their respective political communications to influence the political
environment. The modern concept of rhetorical theory (Hart, Daughton & LaVally, 2018) was used to
analyze how they constructed their lines of reasoning to win the support of their prospective voters.
Despite showing better lines of thought than his challenger, Jokowi was still lacking in well-spelled out
lines of arguments. Furthermore this study also examined the two candidates� political agenda by
using the theory of campaign packaging as proposed by Medhurst in terms of agenda setting, framing,
character construction, and emotional resonance. Unlike Prabowo, this paper indicates that Jokowi
was very much on the advantage based on his prior succesful first term of presidential office.