Dakwah on Instagram and the Potential Application of ELM and Relevance Theory

Abstract

Instagram is popular in Indonesia, with 109.03 million users in a country with a population of 277,534,122 in 2023. It is the third most popular social media platform after Facebook and YouTube. The phenomenon of using dakwah on Instagram has gained significant attention in recent years, but it has yet to be studied using the fusion of Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Relevance Theory in Indonesia, which creates a research gap. Amongst the rise of social media platforms in Indonesia, according to previous studies, Instagram has become a popular platform for Muslims to engage in dakwah, which refers to the act of spreading Islamic teachings and inviting others to embrace Islam. The most attractive feature of Instagram is its great visual appeal and potential for engagement, which is attractive to young Muslims. This conceptual paper explores the possibility of using ELM and Relevance Theory as part of a conceptual framework for analysing dakwah content on Instagram from the perspective of young Indonesian users. ELM is a persuasive communication theory that seeks to understand how individuals process and respond to persuasive messages. Relevance Theory, on the other hand, focuses on the cognitive processes involved in communication and how the relevance of messages to users is determined. By applying both of these frameworks to the context of dakwah on Instagram, we can understand how persuasive messages are received and processed by Instagram users and how relevance is established in relation to Islamic messages.