The Use of Social Media as a Space for Counter-Hegemony for Female Politicians: Discourse Analysis of Khofifah Indar Parawansa’s Leadership on Instagram

This study aims to analyze the use of Instagram social media by Khofifah Indar Parawansa as a space for counter-hegemony against the stigma of female leadership in Indonesia. Using a qualitative discourse analysis method, this study dissects digital content from late 2025 to early 2026. The results show that Khofifah employs three main narrative strategies: (1) Technical Narrative through achievements in food self-sufficiency and data digitalization to challenge the stigma of incompetence; (2) Empathy Narrative which repositions maternal traits as collaborative strengths; and (3) Authority Narrative in the masculine environment of Forkopimda to affirm the legitimacy of power. Social media has proven to be an effective tool for female politicians to construct independent identities and resist patriarchal hegemony in the digital public sphere in East Java, Indonesia.