Indonesian Journal of Politics and Literary Studies
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): Literature, political futures, and contested lives in Indonesia

Writing under algorithmic rule: digital authoritarianism, surveillance, and counterpublic imagination in contemporary Indonesian fiction

M. Ansori (Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) Yogyakarta)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Jun 2026

Abstract

Background: Digital authoritarianism has increasingly transformed public communication into a terrain of algorithmic visibility, surveillance, informational control, and anticipatory conformity, yet its cultural representation in contemporary Indonesian fiction remains insufficiently examined. Objective: This study aims to investigate how Indonesian fictional narratives represent algorithmic rule, surveillance practices, authoritarian memory, and counterpublic imagination under digitally mediated conditions of power. Method: Using qualitative digital literary analysis, this study examines selected contemporary Indonesian fictional texts alongside scholarly and contextual materials through thematic coding, narrative interpretation, and comparative textual analysis. Results: Findings indicate that algorithmic rule is represented primarily through mediated visibility, data profiling, platform dependency, and self-censorship, showing how digital power enters everyday subject formation. Surveillance is narrated less as direct coercion than as anticipated monitoring, historical fear, informational restriction, and socially distributed observation. Implication: Counterpublic imagination emerges through alternative public formation, symbolic resistance, memory-based solidarity, narrative reclaiming, and future-oriented imagination, suggesting that fiction preserves critical spaces for meaning-making under conditions of control. Novelty: This study offers a novel contribution by bridging digital authoritarianism studies, surveillance studies, and Indonesian literary criticism to show how fiction functions as an interpretive arena where algorithmic power becomes culturally visible, emotionally intelligible, and politically contestable.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

ijpl

Publisher

Subject

Description

Indonesian Journal of Politics and Literary Studies is a double blind peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research articles and critical studies at the intersection of politics, literature, and cultural discourse. This journal is published quarterly as a platform for the ...