p–ISSN: 2723 – 6609 e-ISSN: 2745-5254
Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 http://jist.publikasiindonesia.id/
Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5659
The Construction of The Meaning of the Boycott According to
the Boycotters on the Israeli-Palestinian Issue
Yolanda Tristania Ashari
1*
, Lusy Mukhlisiana
2
Universitas Telkom, Indonesia
Email: [email protected]
1*
, [email protected].id
2
*Correspondence
ABSTRACT
Keywords: boycott;
phenomenology; Israel;
construction of meaning;
Palestine.
The boycott movement is a public action in response to the
genocidal situation between Israel and Palestine which was
again in the spotlight of the media at the end of 2023. The
public uses all forms of media to spread the widest possible
awareness about this boycott movement, one of which is
using social media. But the action did not last long, as seen
from some stalls that were considered pro-Israel to be
crowded again after several months of the boycott
movement. So this research was carried out to find out the
construction of the meaning of the boycott according to
people who boycott products with the pro-Israel label. This
research focuses on how people construct meaning in a
movement that is currently being carried out by society,
namely the boycott movement as part of cancel culture. This
research was conducted using a qualitative research method
with a phenomenological approach proposed by Alfred
Schutz to find out how the intrapersonal communication of
each boycott perpetrator is formed into a personal meaning
construction about the boycott movement they are doing.
The results of the study show that a boycott is interpreted as
an effort to show disagreement with an issue or phenomenon
by stopping support for parties that are considered
detrimental so that the party makes efforts to change the
issue.
Introduction
Canceling culture or cancel culture according to Merriam Webster is defined as the
loss of support for public figures in response to their unpleasant behavior or opinions,
some of the movements that fall into this cancel culture include boycotts, or refusal to
promote (Dershowitz, 2020). Although this canceling culture is often associated with
individuals, it is possible that the target of cancel culture can extend to the level of
organizations, companies, and countries. Currently, cancel culture has become a
phenomenon in the virtual era, where people start a cancel culture movement and spread
it through social media using tools, one of which is hashtags. This is also the reason for
Yolanda Tristania Ashari, Lusy Mukhlisiana
Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5660
the rapid spread of information on social media because according to Hwang & Kim (in
Sitorus, 2022), social media is considered a medium for actors or users to be active in
promoting criticism and protest.
One of the massive dissemination of information that has attracted public attention
is the war between Israel and Palestine which is back in the spotlight. Israel continues to
carry out genocidal attacks against Palestinians in Gaza. In response to this, the people
who defended Palestine then launched a boycott of the state of Israel as a form of
condemnation of the attack given. The boycott movement carried out by the community
is by making a list of products affiliated with the state of Israel directly or indirectly and
then disseminating through social media as the main means of spreading issues that have
a call-to-action impact on their user. (Dalimunthe, Syam, Suhendar, & Al-Mujtahid,
2024).
Although the overall data shows a decrease in sales figures, the visitors to the outlets
that are included in the official boycott list are not completely quiet even though the
Indonesian Ulema Council has issued a MUI fatwa related to this boycott movement.
Therefore, the researcher is interested in knowing how the boycotters construct the
meaning of the boycott reflecting on this Israeli-Palestinian issue. This research will take
place at Tunas Unggul High School, Bandung City, which is located on Jl. Abah Sastro
No.20, Mandalajati District, Bandung City. Tunas Unggul High School is known to be
quite active in socializing the boycott movement on Israeli-Palestinian issues through
knowledge-sharing activities such as cult agendas, and others. The teaching staff at SMA
Tunas Unggul Bandung City are also known to be active in voicing this boycott
movement among students and parents of students, this is what researchers consider in
determining the teachers of SMA Tunas Unggul Bandung City as the subject of research.
With the points mentioned above, the researcher decided to conduct this research with a
qualitative research method with a phenomenological approach to explore the experiences
and construction of the meaning of the informants.
Daily communication is highly dependent on the social construction of individuals
in giving meaning to their environment. (Calhoun, Gerteis, Moody, Pfaff, & Virk, 2022),
researchers are interested in knowing how the teachers of Tunas Unggul High School as
boycott actors in constructing the meaning of the movements they make. In this case,
Alfred Schutz offers a perspective in research on meanings that arise from everyday life
through phenomenological theories.
Alfred Schutz's thought forms a strong foundation on which understanding is
prepared from the meaning incorporated by the individual from the actions they take, so
Schutz describes the actions of individuals in two related motives, namely in-order-to
motive and because of motive. (Manggola & Thadi, 2021).
In this study, three questions are the basis for the research, these questions include
understanding the boycott perpetrators, motives, and sharing of experiences of the boycott
movement that they have carried out.
The Construction of The Meaning of the Boycott According to the Boycotters on the Israeli-
Palestinian Issue
Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5661
Method
As explained in the introduction, in conducting this research, the researcher uses a
qualitative research method, where qualitative research is considered a research method
that has limited goals but does not have a limit on data depth (Wahyuni, 2023) (Hirose &
Creswell, 2023) Also explained that qualitative research is a method used to explore and
understand meanings that are considered to originate from social or humanitarian
problems by several individuals or groups of people.
The researcher uses a phenomenological approach, defined by Littlejohn. (Queirós,
Faria, & Almeida, 2017) As the exploration of knowledge arising from consciousness at
the event of understanding an object or event by experiencing it directly. Researchers
with a phenomenological approach aim to describe the similarities experienced by all
participants/informants in dealing with a phenomenon, with the main goal of reducing
individual experiences to a description of the universal essence of the phenomenon
according to Creswell & Poth. Another perspective regarding the phenomenological
approach in a study is that phenomenology refers to research that focuses on individual
awareness from the first perspective. (Enggarwati & Utomo, 2021). Based on the points
mentioned above, this research will include the experiences, feelings, and meanings that
the research subjects gained about the boycott movement they have carried out.
Researchers use a constructivist paradigm, a research paradigm that is a
combination of beliefs and fundamental principles that influence the researcher's
approach to conducting research. (Dempsey & Lindsay, 2018).
The subjects in this study are the teachers of Tunas Unggul High School, Bandung
City as actors of the boycott movement against the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the
construction of the meaning of the boycott as the object of research. To collect data, the
researcher used in-depth interview techniques with five teaching staff at Tunas Unggul
High School, Bandung City. An interview is an exchange of information between two
individuals that is carried out to form a deep understanding of a particular topic. In
addition to in-depth interviews, the researcher uses literature study techniques as a
technique that emphasizes the data obtained from in-depth interview activities. The
literature study as quoted from Green (in Satori & Komariah, 2017) becomes a study
document because it has relevant criteria in breaking down the need for information on
the topic being researched. Some of the documents used by researchers in literature
studies are scientific journals, book reviews, and others.
In analyzing the research data, the researcher uses five steps in analyzing the data
according to (Hirose & Creswell, 2023), where the first stage, namely the recording of
the interview results obtained, is processed by making interview transcripts to then
reduced according to the needs of the research, after the data is reduced, the researcher
then makes data coding by the theory of meaning construction by Alfred Schutz, the
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Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5662
interview transcript that has been coded is then presented again in the form of a
description by the theme of the discussion.
Qualitative research requires researchers to check the validity of previously
obtained data. One way to check the validity of data is to use triangulation. In this study,
the researcher uses source triangulation, which is a technique where the researcher
explores the correctness of the data obtained through various sources.
Results and Discussion
Data collection has been carried out since May 20, 2024, namely pre-research,
where researchers collect information before in-depth interviews are conducted. Then the
data collection continued to the in-depth interview stage from June 10 to June 19, 2024,
with a total of 5 research informants.
Understanding Boycott
To find out how the research informants knew the movements they were doing, the
researchers asked the question 'What is a boycott' and the question 'Why did this boycott
happen?'
Based on the results of the interview, which then continued to the data reduction
process to the coding of the data received, the researcher obtained keywords related to
the definition of boycott through these two questions. These keywords include,
'exclusion'; 'rejection'; 'partiality'; 'blocking'; 'not contributing'; 'form of protest'; 'anger';
'A form of concern' for the aggrieved party or the disadvantaged party because it is not
by the values believed by a group of people.
The researcher asked questions about the access to information obtained by
informants related to the boycott movement, this question will be decisive information
about the knowledge underlying the informants in carrying out this boycott movement.
Based on the results of the interview, Informant One and Informant Two received
information about the boycott movement through social media, news media, and the
internet without involving social interaction or information exchange dialogue, while
Informants Three, four, and Fifth informants, information was obtained that these
informants obtained information about the boycott not only through news media, the
internet, and social media but also through interaction with others, this is marked by the
answers of informant three, informant four, and informant five as follows:
"The difficulty, for example, wanting to buy a product at the supermarket,
sometimes I like to have my doubts, actually I am sure that this product is not affiliated,
but when I want to buy it, sometimes I like to check again, so it's quite a bit takes time,
then from this information from a friend or something like that." (Informant 2, 2024)
"I have known about this boycott invitation for a long time, since 2020 I happened
to be active in Islamic community activities. And it was indeed a year ago." (Informant
3, 2024)
The Construction of The Meaning of the Boycott According to the Boycotters on the Israeli-
Palestinian Issue
Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5663
"Because in the past, when I was a student around 2005 to 2010, I was also active
in several student organizations whose focus was to fight for the Islamic brotherhood, so
at least we have discussed, shared, and shared information," (Informant 5, 2024).
The answers from the three informants above are information that supports Alfred
Schutz's theory, where according to Alfred Schutz meaning is formed based on
knowledge obtained through social interaction and experience. (Tayo & Nursanti, 2023),
therefore based on the results of interviews with the three informants, it can be confirmed
that the answers of informants three, four, and five are contrary to Kreitler's theory of
meaning construction, where Kreitler argues that knowledge and meaning play a role in
the formation of meaning, knowledge is personal and private (Kreitler, 2022), while in
informants one and two, the results of the interviews show that there is alignment with
Kreitler's theory and contrary to Alfred Schutz's theory.
Motives for Boycotting
To obtain information about the motives of informants in carrying out the boycott,
the researcher asked questions related to their personal reasons for the boycott. The
answers obtained were then reduced and analyzed by categorizing the informants'
answers into the category of motives, namely in-order-to motive and because of motive.
In terms of the motive of the goal, through Informant Two and Informant Five, the
researcher found that these informants carried out this cancel culture movement with
several objectives, including stopping the supply of support to Israel so that Israel's money
power was reduced and attacks on Palestine could be stopped. This is in line with Alfred
Schultz's phenomenological theory which explains the motive of the goal as a projection
of a phenomenon that will occur as a result of an action. (Aho, Altman, & Pedersen,
2024), while the motive because, the researcher found that the research informants carried
out the cancel culture movement for religious and humanitarian reasons, the answers of
Informant One, Informant Three, and Informant Four validated Alfred Schultz's theory of
motive because (because motive) where the factor environment and history (in this case,
religious and humanitarian factors) that affect the cancel culture movement they carry
out.
Experience of Boycott
In addition to knowledge, meaning is also generated from individual experience.
The researcher provided interview questions about the experiences of each informant
during this boycott movement.
The researcher gave several questions to the teachers of Tunas Unggul High School
in Bandung City as research informants. Through this subchapter, informants were asked
to elaborate on how they experienced themselves as individuals as well as teaching staff
who carried out the cancel culture movement.
Based on the results of the interviews, the five research informants had their
underlying experiences in carrying out this boycott. Through this experience, researchers
can find out that the opinions of Kreitler and Alfred Schutz are valid in stating that
experience plays a role in the formation of meaning, this finding is contrary to Atwar
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Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5664
Bejari's theory of meaning construction (Simarmata, 2017) which states that meaning is
not formed from experience, but through the motives that underlie individual actions.
Conclusion
Through the above findings, the researcher then concluded how the teachers of
Tunas Unggul High School in Bandung City constructed the meaning of the boycott
through 3 factors of meaning construction according to Alfred Schutz, namely
Knowledge, Experience, and Motive.
Based on the answers given by the informant after going through the data analysis
process, a boycott is interpreted as an effort to show disagreement with an issue or
phenomenon by stopping support for parties that are considered detrimental so that the
party makes efforts to change the issue. The boycott movement carried out by everyone
is based on different reasons, namely because of religion, humanity, or those based on
goals such as 'so that the genocide that occurs immediately stops', and or 'so that the
aggrieved party feels what the affected party feels'.
The Construction of The Meaning of the Boycott According to the Boycotters on the Israeli-
Palestinian Issue
Indonesian Journal of Social Technology, Vol. 5, No. 12, December 2024 5665
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