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Abstract

This study examines how pro-caliphate and anti-democratic narratives are articulated and normalised within YouTube comment spaces in Indonesia. As the world’s largest Muslim-majority country with high levels of digital engagement, Indonesia provides an important context for analysing how political-religious discourses circulate through everyday digital interaction. The research analyses 1,354 YouTube comments related to the caliphate, governance, and democracy. Data were collected using Google Apps Script, manually filtered for relevance, and examined through qualitative content analysis informed by Social Network Theory (SNT) and the Radicalisation Factor Model (RFM). The findings show that 34.49% of comments endorsed ideological pro-caliphate narratives, while 35.97% contained markers of potential radicalisation. These comments framed the caliphate as a divinely mandated alternative to democracy, questioned the legitimacy of the Indonesian state, and mobilised religious identity as a basis for political exclusion. Rather than demonstrating a broad transformation of radicalisation, the findings indicate discursive patterns consistent with early-stage radicalisation in a specific YouTube comment environment. The study highlights how digital comment spaces may contribute to the normalisation of extremist-leaning narratives through decentralised participation and repeated exposure to ideologically charged claims. These findings point to the need for platform-sensitive monitoring that accounts for how extremist narratives are normalised through ordinary user interaction.

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