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Abstract

This article examines the potential of YouTube comment sections as spaces of commoning in Indonesia’s digital media sphere. Drawing on the concept of counterpublics – that is, parallel discursive arenas where marginalized groups circulate counter discourses and voice their interests – it explores how users negotiate access to the digital public sphere and oppose dominant narratives. The article employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative methods into the analysis of the data, to investigate both the structural features (based on comment metadata) and the discursive content of comments. I argue that the comment sections’ dynamic, non-binding structure facilitates open discussion, scepticism, and criticism of authority, fostering alternative, bottom-up public discourse. At the same time, these spaces entail the risk of distributing oppressive narratives. This liminality is constitutive of the comment section’s potential as a site for mediated cultural commoning in Indonesia’s corporatized media landscape.

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