Diplomacy as a Visual Commodity: Guy Debord's Integrated Spectacle in Indonesia's Foreign Policy Trajectory

Abstract

This article examines the shift in Indonesia’s foreign policy under President Prabowo Subianto towards an outward-looking and hyperactive stance, utilizing Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) alongside Guy Debord’s theoretical framework, Society of the Spectacle. The study uncovers a fundamental contradiction. On one hand, the administration constructs and commodifies a grand global diplomatic image through international arenas (such as state visits and visual hegemony on social media platforms like Instagram) to rebuild national prestige and sovereignty. On the other hand, the domestic economic reality faces severe vulnerabilities, marked by a plummeting stock market index (IHSG) and the sharp depreciation of the Rupiah. The paper concludes that this hyperactive diplomatic performance functions as an integrated spectacle a political tool designed to mitigate public anxiety and manufacture domestic legitimacy amidst a real-time economic crisis.