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JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

Abstract

This article examines how young people in a mid-sized Indonesian city participate in producing the meaning of urban space, and how far a participatory communication intervention succeeds in opening dialogue with city stakeholders. Urban communication scholarship has developed primarily around metropolitan cities in the Global North, while participatory communication research often assumes that facilitated dialogue leads to empowerment. This article addresses both gaps through a Photovoice study conducted in Kediri, East Java, involving 37 young people from three social typologies: pelajar (students), santri (Islamic boarding school-affiliated youth), and pekerja/wirausaha (young workers and entrepreneurs). Drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial triad and Couldry’s concept of voice, the analysis shows that young people critically and unevenly interpret the city’s materiality, producing readings that diverge from the government’s official branding of Kediri as a harmonious service city. The exhibition that concluded the Photovoice process also fostered a collective youth voice, functioning as a counterpublic space. However, the intervention did not create a dialogic space with city stakeholders. Despite direct invitations, no city official attended, revealing structural conditions—including reliance on an informal invitation channel and a governance culture that treats experiential knowledge as secondary—that constrain participatory communication in practice. These findings extend urban communication scholarship to a mid-sized city in the Global South, reposition youth as producers rather than recipients of urban meaning, and refine the concept of the communicative city by specifying the conditions under which citizen voice translates into influence.

Bahasa Abstract

Artikel ini mengkaji bagaimana kaum muda di sebuah kota berukuran sedang di Indonesia berpartisipasi dalam menghasilkan makna ruang kota, dan sejauh mana intervensi komunikasi partisipatif berhasil membuka dialog dengan para pemangku kepentingan kota. Kajian komunikasi perkotaan sebagian besar berkembang di sekitar kota-kota metropolitan di Global North, dan penelitian komunikasi partisipatif cenderung berasumsi bahwa dialog yang difasilitasi mengarah pada pemberdayaan. Artikel ini mengatasi kedua kesenjangan tersebut melalui studi Photovoice yang dilakukan di Kediri, Jawa Timur, yang melibatkan 37 anak muda dari tiga tipologi sosial: pelajar, santri (pemuda yang berafiliasi dengan sekolah berasrama Islam), dan pekerja/pengusaha (pekerja dan pengusaha muda). Dengan mengacu pada triad spasial Lefebvre dan konsep suara Couldry, analisis menunjukkan bahwa kaum muda membaca materialitas kota secara kritis dan tidak merata, menghasilkan pembacaan yang berbeda dari pencitraan resmi pemerintah terhadap Kediri sebagai kota pelayanan yang harmonis. Pameran yang mengakhiri proses Photovoice juga membangun suara kolektif di kalangan kaum muda, berfungsi sebagai ruang publik tandingan. Namun, intervensi tersebut tidak membuka ruang dialog dengan para pemangku kepentingan kota: meskipun ada undangan langsung, tidak ada pejabat kota yang hadir, yang mengungkapkan kondisi struktural, termasuk saluran undangan informal dan budaya tata kelola yang memperlakukan pengetahuan berdasarkan pengalaman sebagai hal sekunder, yang membatasi komunikasi partisipatif dalam praktiknya. Temuan ini memperluas kajian komunikasi perkotaan ke kota berukuran menengah di Global South, memposisikan kembali kaum muda sebagai produsen daripada penerima makna perkotaan, dan menyempurnakan konsep kota komunikatif dengan menentukan kondisi di mana suara warga diterjemahkan menjadi pengaruh.

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