International Review of Humanities Studies
Abstract
This study examines persuasive strategies in Arabic- and Indonesian-language Umrah marketing flyers circulated on social media. As public interest in Umrah continues to grow, travel agencies increasingly rely on digital platforms not only to promote travel packages but also to construct spiritual appeal, religious credibility, and consumer trust. This study therefore aims to analyze how spiritual imagery is constructed, how rhetorical and pragmatic persuasive strategies are used, and how persuasive patterns differ between Arabic- and Indonesian-language Umrah marketing flyers. The study adopts a qualitative-dominant convergent parallel mixed-methods design. The qualitative analysis is based on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), integrated with Aristotelian rhetoric, Austin–Searle speech act theory, and Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal visual analysis. The quantitative component is used descriptively to calculate the frequency and distribution of analytical categories. The data consist of 40 Umrah marketing flyers collected from Instagram, Facebook, and X, comprising 20 Arabic-language flyers and 20 Indonesian-language flyers. The findings reveal three main patterns. First, the Indonesian sub-corpus shows a higher level of religious intertextuality, with an average of 0.75 references per flyer, compared with 0.20 references per flyer in the Arabic sub-corpus. This result challenges the initial analytical proposition and leads to the concept of felt need for legitimation, which explains the stronger need to display explicit religious legitimacy in the Indonesian context. Second, representative speech acts appear in all flyers in both sub-corpora, suggesting that verifiable factual information is a universal prerequisite for digital trust. Third, although the two sub-corpora differ in trust ecosystems and content variation, both display the commodification of worship as a dominant ideological pattern. This study contributes to research on religious and commercial digital discourse by offering a multi-theoretical model for analyzing persuasion in digital religious marketing.
Bahasa Abstract
Penelitian ini mengkaji strategi persuasi dalam brosur pemasaran umrah berbahasa Arab dan bahasa Indonesia yang beredar di media sosial. Seiring meningkatnya minat masyarakat terhadap ibadah umrah, biro perjalanan semakin mengandalkan platform digital tidak hanya untuk mempromosikan paket perjalanan, tetapi juga untuk membangun daya tarik spiritual, kredibilitas keagamaan, dan kepercayaan konsumen. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini bertujuan menganalisis bagaimana citra spiritual dikonstruksi, bagaimana strategi persuasi retoris dan pragmatis digunakan, serta bagaimana pola persuasi berbeda antara brosur pemasaran umrah berbahasa Arab dan berbahasa Indonesia. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain mixed methods paralel konvergen dengan dominasi pendekatan kualitatif. Analisis kualitatif didasarkan pada Analisis Wacana Kritis (Critical Discourse Analysis atau CDA) Fairclough yang dipadukan dengan retorika Aristoteles, teori tindak tutur Austin–Searle, serta analisis visual multimodal Kress dan van Leeuwen. Komponen kuantitatif digunakan secara deskriptif untuk menghitung frekuensi dan distribusi kategori analisis. Data penelitian terdiri atas 40 brosur pemasaran umrah yang dikumpulkan dari Instagram, Facebook, dan X, yang mencakup 20 brosur berbahasa Arab dan 20 brosur berbahasa Indonesia. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan tiga temuan utama. Pertama, subkorpus bahasa Indonesia memperlihatkan tingkat intertekstualitas keagamaan yang lebih tinggi, dengan rata-rata 0,75 referensi per brosur dibandingkan 0,20 referensi per brosur pada subkorpus bahasa Arab. Temuan ini menantang proposisi analitis awal dan melahirkan konsep felt need for legitimation, yang menjelaskan adanya kebutuhan yang lebih kuat untuk menampilkan legitimasi keagamaan secara eksplisit dalam konteks Indonesia. Kedua, tindak tutur representatif muncul pada seluruh brosur di kedua subkorpus, yang menunjukkan bahwa informasi faktual yang dapat diverifikasi merupakan prasyarat universal dalam membangun kepercayaan di ruang digital. Ketiga, meskipun kedua subkorpus memiliki perbedaan dalam ekosistem kepercayaan dan variasi isi, keduanya sama-sama memperlihatkan komodifikasi ibadah sebagai pola ideologis yang dominan. Penelitian ini memberikan kontribusi bagi kajian wacana digital keagamaan dan komersial dengan menawarkan model multiteoretis untuk menganalisis persuasi dalam pemasaran keagamaan berbasis digital.
References
Al-Shboul, O. K., Al-Khawaldeh, N. N., Alkhawaldeh, A. A., Hamdan, H. J., & Al-Oliemat, A. S. (2024). Cognitive aspects of persuasion in marketing discourse. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(1), 81–91. https://doi.org/10.32601/ejal.1000111
Aldahmania, F., & Alsamahid, S. (2026). Language, religion and society in intercultural contexts. Cogent Social Sciences, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2026.2647493
Aristotle. (1991). On rhetoric (G. A. Kennedy, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Armutcu, B., Tan, A., Amponsah, M., Parida, S., & Ramkissoon, H. (2023). Tourist behaviour: The role of digital marketing and social media. Acta Psychologica, 240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.104025
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press.
Burhani, A. N. (2018). Pluralism and Islamic identity in Indonesia. Al-Jami'ah, 56(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2018.561.1-24
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power (2nd ed.). Longman.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse. Routledge.
Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 258–284). SAGE.
Hefner, R. W. (2011). Islam in an era of nation-states. University of Hawaii Press. Jafari, J., & Scott, N. (2014). Muslim world and its tourisms. Annals of Tourism Research, 44, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2013.08.011
Khadijah, U. L. S., Novianti, E., & Anwar, R. K. (2022). Social media in guiding and marketing religious tourism. Sosiohumaniora, 24(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.24198/sosiohumaniora.v24i1.36579
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (4th ed.). SAGE. Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014
Rababah, M. A., Alali, H., Rababah, L. M., Al-Zboon, E., & Alshammari, T. (2024). Persuasive strategies in informational surels. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v24i2
Rafiq, M., Anwar, M. W., & Mahmood, A. (2023). Exploration of persuasive strategies in religious speeches. Pakistan Journal of Analytical & Environmental Chemistry, 20(2). https://doi.org/10.21743/pjaee.v20i2
Sanad, H. S., & Al-Harthi, A. S. (2025). Persuasion strategies in the prophetic Hadith. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2025.2505937
Saputra, A., & Harto, K. (2022). Dakwah digital dan pengaruh tokoh agama di media sosial Indonesia. Jurnal Komunikasi Islam, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.15642/jki.2022.12.1
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and meaning. Cambridge University Press.
Tamássy, R., & Géring, Z. (2022). Rich variety of DA approaches applied in social media research. Discourse & Communication, 16(5), 562–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813211043722
Turner, B. S. (2011). Religion and modern society. Cambridge University Press. van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. SAGE.
Wahyuni, A., & Sari, I. P. (2025). Aristotle's rhetorical principles and trust on Instagram. SRAWUNG, 4(2). https://journal.jfpublisher.com/index.php/jssh/article/view/747
Xing, Y. (2024). An exposition based on Fairclough's three-dimensional modeling. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature, 7, 181–184. https://doi.org/10.23977/langl.2024.070426
Zamani-Farahani, H., & Henderson, J. C. (2010). Islamic tourism and managing tourism development. International Journal of Tourism Research, 12(1), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.741
Zohdi, N., Azizi, A., & Sulaiman, F. (2025). Digital marketing transformation in Hajj and Umrah agencies. Indonesian Journal of Da'wah Management Scholars. https://ejournal.pamdi.or.id/indo-jdms/article/view/29
Recommended Citation
Asahri, Stevania C.
(2026)
"PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES IN UMRAH MARKETING ON SOCIAL MEDIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ARABIC AND INDONESIAN,"
International Review of Humanities Studies: Vol. 11:
No.
2, Article 13.
DOI: 10.7454/irhs.v11i2.1487
Available at:
https://scholarhub.ui.ac.id/irhs/vol11/iss2/13
Included in
Anthropology Commons, Art and Design Commons, Creative Writing Commons, Cultural Heritage Law Commons, Education Law Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, History Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons, Linguistics Commons, Museum Studies Commons, Philosophy Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons
