POLITICAL INFORMATION SHARING PATTERN AMONG STUDENTS IN THE ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOL

Community engagement and citizen participation in political communication have long been important, especially with the advent of Internet. This research focused on the impact of Internet access towards the political formation sharing pattern and trend among students in the Islamic Banyuanyar boarding school in Madura, Indonesia. Observant participation method was used to collect the data between 2013 and 2014. The community at Banyuanyar Boarding School responded to the existence (implementation) of the internet. However, in terms of digital divide arise from the policy of 'No Internet' during school introduced by the school management seems not a hindrance at all for the young students to learn their favourite political figures. Sharing of information at this level revealed a significant role played by the school leaders. The students were particularly alert 'who is doing what' and 'what happened?' in terms of local politics. Words of mouth, face-to-face mode of communications took place and local elections were their best learning process when the Internet did not allow them to do so. Sharing of information has different characteristics that the digital natives. The digital divide pushed for a different mode of information sharing. Priorities went with local standing environment and local political images such as the `Kabupaten' Election (Pilkada), where Islamic leaders or Kiai mostly stood as candidates. Thus, it created a local political participation trends and patterns which is actually a start to an informal introduction to political participation among students and supports political literacy at a very young age. (C) 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org .UK