Interpreting the Anger of President Joko Widodo: An Analysis in the Perspective of Javanese Political Culture

This study aims to reveal the meaning of President Jokowi's anger in the last June 2020 following the poor performance of his cabinet in handling the COVID 19 pandemic in the perspective of Javanese culture. Some questions to be answered are: How can Jokowi's anger be interpreted in the perspective of Javanese culture, where the president grew and formed his habitus? What is the attitude of a leader when angry in Javanese culture? Is this anger a reflection of the wisdom of the leader who defends the underprivileged or is it an indication of his power is increasingly weakened? These questions will be answered through media text analysis methods. In this case, the text as the object of analysis is twofold: written text in the form of media coverage and audio- visual text in the form of a video of the President's anger on YouTube that shows voice, facial expressions and body language as well as Joko Widodo. This study argues that Jokowi’s anger reflects the weakening of his power as a president who are surrounded by oligarchic elites who are now competing for their own political interest to win political stages to secure their positions after the end of Jokowi’s presidential second term.