Indonesia's Political Colours: From the New Order to Joko Widodo

This study aims to examine the meaning behind the political colours in Indonesia. It uses Roland Barthes' semiotics analysis. The results show that yellow is identified with the power of Golongan Karya Party which means oligarch wealth; red symbolises the intertwine association of the communism history and the labour movement in Indonesia with PDI Perjuangan; blue symbolises the values of patriotism and neoliberalist agenda for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: whereas the combination of red-white-black of Joko Widodo's plaid shirt symbolises political progressiveness.

representation of political campaign media, and their social meanings (Drechsler, 2009;Berger, 2014). One of the elements examined through semiotics approach is political colours used by politicians and political parties in their campaigns.
The Candidates are seen as the products in the advertising process with so much money at stake. Political campaign needs strategies for colour using to associate their candidates with certain values the colours have. Previous studies (Labrecque & Milne, 2012, p. 712-714;Lichtlé & Plichon, 2014, p. 5) argue that colours are linked to emotions and human personality. Its have been used to identify and communicate cultural and political ideas and to stimulate buyers' decision to buy a product. Previous studies have shown that different colours have different emotional impacts on perceivers. Burgoon and Saine (in Argyle, 2013, p. 186) show that yellow has more positive emotional effects on human compared to purple colour. These studies have associated yellow as joyful, cheerful, exciting, and stimulating, and purple colour as the unhappy, dejected, despondent, and melancholy.
Colours affect how audience feels about candidates. An effective political communication is often measured by increasing popularity of a political candidate as well. Often, their likability is measured by their public appearance, including the choice of their outfits they wear (Cartner-Morley, 2016). Previous studies showed that people were responded to someone's wearing in public, they were responded to symbols they first encountered in their early emotional development. The symbols has power based on conditioning, modeling, cognitive consistency, affect transfer, and other socialisation mechanisms (De Landtsheer, De Vries, & Vertessen, 2008, p. 22;Medveschi & Frunza, 2018, p. 141). This makes it more important than those political candidates to present a political brand through dress that is appealing to his potential voters. Additionally, this is more important in the digital era, when such political branding has more alternative platforms for distribution. In the age of social media, politicians compete to produce personal image for attracting potential supporters. The motive behind choice of presentation, fashion, and style, will be more essential than the message they convey and policies they offer (McNair, 2017, p. xviii;Salazar-Sutil, 2008, p. 23-24).
This study proposes theoretical propositions from a series of hypothesis. Firstly, parties and political candidates incorporate colours in their campaigns for voters' identification of their campaign. This makes the use of colours in political campaigns is not different from the use of colours in product packaging for advertising (Kauppinen-Räisänen, 2014, p. 663). Schaffner and Streb (in Conroy-Krutz, Moehler, & Aguilar, 2016, p. 5-6) suggests that colour is important in a political climate where voters have lowinformation and high political illiteracy (e.g. in the Indonesia's New Order era), in that case, voters will tend to identify their voting preferences with colour coded options. With the way of an election is set-up accor ding to a national standard, colour uses are also standarised and appear consistently to establish a stable symbolic association between the party, objectives, and their colours.
Secondly, according to Marini (2017, p. 3) politicians and party leaders selects their identity colours with taking consideration collective meanings attached to the colours.
Her study argues that political elites that have connection to the established ruling class and royal family would refer to their traditional colours and their coats of arms (e.g the British Conservative party), or rather some would associate their political colour with patriotism (e.g the U.S Republican party).

METHOD
This study uses an interpretative semiotics approach. It uses the Barthesian semiotics to understand the meaning behind the colour symbols based on the social context. In the semiotics approach, representation could be understood as the foundation of the way of words work as signs within language (Hall, 1997 … as a result, [I] acquired the conviction that by treating "collective representations" as sign-systems, one might hope to go further that the pious show of unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into universal nature. (Barthes, 1972, p. 8)

Image 1 Barthes Model of Semiotics Analysis
Barthes' semiotics model defines a sign as something that stands for something else and constituted by a signifier and a signified. Barthes (1972, p. 115) also explains that signs can both work at denotative and connotative levels. The interpretation of these signs will be referred to larger collective social meaning and in the analysis will be coded as "myth" (Hall, 1997, p. 97). This study will categorise the sample colours and analysed them based on the social 'myth' and based on study of Marini (2017) that colour palate as the anchor category. Using the colour guidance above, this study interprets several colours of Indonesian political icons -yellow, red, blue, and redblack-white (plaid). These colours were selected as prominent political colours in the Indonesian history of politics. These colours will be compared with the relationship of colours designed by Marini (2017) based on the colour classification. This colour classification is used as a control group to signify the objects of the study.

Semiotics of Political Colours in Indonesia
Signifier (1) Yellow Colour for Soeharto

Signified (1)
In many countries, yellow symbolises prosperity and wealth. Meanwhile, in Indonesia it has been politically associated with Golongan Karya (Golkar), the ruling party of the Soeharto era which is associated with authoritarianism, military oppression, and corruption. During the New Order period, members of Golkar would proudly wear bright yellow outfits. As a campaign machine for the New Order regime, supporters of Golkar would gather in major rallies, entertained by Indonesian popular celebrities and received money and other souvenirs from the party. Budiman (in Tomsa, 2008, p. 219) suggests that the choice of the colour of yellow as Golkar's signature colour was a token of appreciation for the students of the Universitas Indonesia. They were heavily involved in demonstrations against Soekarno and the Old Order. Universitas Indonesia's students traditionally wear yellow for their uniform following the failure of the "September 30" movement in 1965-1966. Tim Litbang Kompas (in Tomsa, 2008 show it has been alleged that the yellow symbolises the intellectual ambition of Golkar as the political party that supposedly represents wisdom, education, and noble character. However, according to Silalahi (in Tomsa, 2008, p. 125), when Golkar was founded in 1964, just before the fall of Sukarno's "guided democracy" regime, the choice of yellow did not have any special meaning. It was chosen because green was already taken by the muslim parties and PKI had taken red. Harry suggests that it is also possible, although he personally doubts it, that yellow was chosen because it symbolises royalty and the old priyayi (Javanese aristocratic) culture.
Soeharto's politics was coloured with fascism -a form of such a violent and authoritarian regime that lasted for more than three decades. His politics focused on protecting his wealth through any necessary means, including violence. His politics did not compromise any civil disobedience and a large number of human rights abuse were not recorded or never investigated properly. Haris  (Dhakidae, 2003, p. 262-263).
This dual functions of Golkar as a political party, which is civilian and military, are some examples of how the colour of political party in Golkar symbolises the long oppressive regime that exercised violance in order to maintain power.

Soekarnoputri
Signified (2) Red has contradictory and controversial meaning in the Indonesian politics. However, in Indonesia, red has different interpretation as it has always been associated with communism, but also the national flag symbol of red and white which commemorate the struggle of freedom in Indonesia. Red symbolises people's struggle and it is referred as the as blood of the freedom fighters in the national anthem. However, politically, red has been associated with communism in Indonesia and it has got a negative sentiment especially after the killing in 1965 (Miller, 2018, p. 303).
Historically, red has always been associated with revolution and socialism, particularly after the Paris Commune in 1870. During the French Revolution, red was not only used for liberty caps and the radical flag but also for ribbons and armbands. Red was competed with the tricolour of the republican flag that symbolises three elements of the than the symbolism of revolution that is much associated with communism (Sawer, 2007).
In this context, red signifies the political dynasty of Soekarno through Megawati.
In the election of 1955, Soekarno's party, In the American culture, blue is associated with conservatism and patriotism (Marini, 2017, p. 4 (Sheridan, 2012).
Blue was also associated him with the American patriotism and neoliberal ideology (Murphy, 2010, p. 373). This influence of  NOMOR 2, Desember 2018: 189-202 The colour scheme black-red-white were also popular in traditional culture. For example, black is popular across Indonesia as the basic colour for clothing and symbolizes wisdom likewise in Bali. Red itself represents the richness and often worn in celebratory events. For example, in Batak culture their traditional ulos uses red thread with some golden colour mix as a gift for newlywed couple. Meanwhile the colour of white symbolizes the holiness across the archipelago likewise in similar culture in the Pacific's (Couacaud, 2016, p. 210).

DISCUSSION
This study has explained of the changing dynamics of the ruling power in Indonesia and its colour representation of their political ideology. By surveying colour related research, it makes an attempt to highlight the denotative meanings of the colour symbolism from each ruling party in Indonesia from the New Order to the Jokow Widodo's era. By reviewing the current status of colour research in the field of visual communication and political advertising, the study develops a theoretical base and proposes a comprehensive framework that incorporates meanings of those colours and draws inter-relationships between them. By having this approach, the study contributes Megawati choice of dress and the way her campaigns were coloured reflected  It is hoped that this study, which has used the example of the differing dress and Since the human memory tends to keeps visuals better than text messages, it makes political colours become important for political branding in campaigns.
In brief, colours have political meanings in political communication.
In Indonesian context, there are five prominent colours that have cultural meaning association, yellow, blue, red, and plaid colour of red, black, and white. Out of these four categories, this study argues that each colour has their own political meaning attached to the history of the Indonesian national politics. These meanings are also attached to their political supporters.
Understanding the political colours and sociocultural meanings that are associated with them is essential for political advertising and developing campaign strategy. As has been shown by this study, conservative parties will be more suitable with darker warmer colour such as blue, magenta, purple or light blue. Meanwhile, brighter-cooler colours will match progressive parties such as red and orange. While independent candidates will stand out with unpredictable colour (Jokowi with his red-black-white shirt). However, colour selection must also take consideration of cultural meaning in a society.
For decades, yellow has been identified with the right wing politics and the authoritarian regime of the New Order.
The colour symbolises the celebration of conservatism and the non-democratic way of leadership in Indonesia. With such a long history of using yellow colour for their political party identity, yellow has been associated with Soeharto as its political icon.