Seizing Public Digital Dominance; The Phenomenon of Mainstream Islamic Media Digital Battle

Abstract

Since youth are among those whose very active in digital space, this paper will qualitatively give in depth elaboration on the contestation of mainstream moderate Islamic websites in seizing public digital domain.

Methodology
This paper will elaborate using a qualitative descriptive technique, focusing on features of the distinctive phenomena of the natural process of the object under investigation rather than just the study's findings. Thus, it will be used as an entry for the inductive analysis process that follows the process of gathering data on the traffic performance of visitors to Islamic websites that are affiliated with mainstream Muslim civil organizations and non-mainstream organizations, as well as free Islamic sites that are not affiliated with any group, based on Similar Web analysis for three months. This paper's primary materials largely rely on media research, social media analysis, and management interviews from moderate Islamic websites. In addition, this article discusses trending news stories and how various Islamic media organizations react. From there, it is examined how the media's discourse, when combined with high visitor traffic and popularity, may affect Indonesians' religious beliefs.
Deductive inferences are made based on the aforementioned data collection process, along with a thorough analysis of the pattern of how these Islamic websites are gaining popularity in the online public sphere and recommendations for how to keep or improve these websites' rankings so that they can continue to appeal to Indonesian internet users.

The Phenomena of Digital Religion
In the mid 1990s, when the cyber world began to penetrate in society, the term digital religion has been mentioned by many academics. Terminology of digital religion or cyber religion is a term used to describe how religion is in touch with Media Information Technology (MIT). How important religion is indicates when the religious spiritual rituals of a particular community have been brought to life in cyberspace. Of course, this radical change in the development of digital technology has had an impact on one's religious culture, as digitally people start find a way so that religion can be felt its existence in digital culture. Thus, not surprising that the term 'digital religion' is used to define the evolutionary process of online religious practices. 6 The contestation for digital public space in the Indonesian context is not without reason. This strengthening of religious identity is because Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, of which almost 87 percent of its citizens are Muslims. Furthermore, ideological contestation, religious-based ideology will be more easily spread efficiently and cheaper with internet technology, all of this is related to the large number of internet users in Indonesia, where more than 51 percent of the total population is a large digital market, both on the ideological markets, political and economic markets. Plus how the majority of internet users are Y-Z generation, namely those in the age range of 17-35 years. 7 Therefore, what is happening now is digital public contestation and whoever succeeds in dominating digital public space can easily dominate the young generation market. This contest has raised hundreds or even thousands of digital websites, of which only a few hundred have been verified, the rest are still big question marks, from data released by the Ministry of Communication and Information some time ago mentioned that there were approximately 43,000 online news platforms, no more than 100s which was verified by the Indonesian Press Council, while the Indonesian public interest reading survey was in the 60th level of 61 countries surveyed. 8 On the other hand the fast growing internet users apparently unequal with the reading interest if Indonesian people in general. The Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) 7 Hootsuite, Report of Digital 2019 Indonesia, January 2019, 15-6 8 https://www.kominfo.go.id/content/detail/12345/me nkominfo-baru-100-portal-berita-onlineterverifikasi/0/berita_satker reported that Indonesian people has low level reading interest. Indonesia literacy rate put Indonesia at level 60 out of 61 total studied 9 which generally the level of literacy rate in Southeast Asia region reached 98, 8%. 10 This means that the rise of online media is not comparable to the reading interest of Indonesian people in general, so it is not surprising that approximately 63% are not able to distinguish between journalism and hoax information, while 53% are unable to identify whether the news received is news that originated from the media whether it is credible or not. So it is not surprising that there are many websites that do not prioritize media ethics and the accompanying rules, because what matters is how to occupy digital public space and change the way of logical thinking.
On the other hand, the website content is certainly inseparable from the ideological content that is constantly being built to occupy digital public space; therefore, the digital content of website is very likely to represent the ideology carried by the media to meet the interests of various parties. From this, of course, it can be concluded that the mass media can be used as an instrument to influence public opinion, through the creation of various stories and supporting data presented by the media, then transformed into hard news that becomes the focus of the media spotlight. In fact, very often the supporting data to be imaginary fiction from news writers themselves, this This phenomenon has also later subsequently changed the pattern of religious learning in Indonesian society, which previously religious studies were offline forums in public mosques or prayer rooms (mushalla), now shifted to online studies, so anyone with an internet connection will be able to access religious studies from anywhere and anytime without having to be physically present in the majlis. This phenomenon in religious studies shifted into new channel and new form of online interaction, where a person could access religious studies without having physically presented.
Questions about religion can be presented quickly concisely and naturally in the language of the general public in simple way and easily understood. On some websites we can find how various kinds of religious content can be accessed easily, with the help of search engines like Google and so on, this digital search engine will guide searches on Islamic websites based on the richness content and website popularity. Thus from the search engine, it will lead to 11 Siaran Pers Kominfo tentang identifikasi hoax selama April-Agustus 2018 https://kominfo.go.id/content/detail/18420/siaranpers-no-95hmkominfo052019-tentang-kominfo-the popular Islamic website that will appear on the first page targeted by a search engine for certain keywords.
The content richness of an Islamic website is certainly a challenge for website managers, because the richness of web content cannot be built quickly, but it requires a long process and regular content updates to increase popularity in search engines. Therefore getting popularity of websites is become the goal of any website managers and to compete in increasing traffic for visitors, it it very common for website managers to get caught up on trending issue from social media and mainstream media in general. Very often getting caught up on trending topic deflects the direction of Islamic websites from positive content to content that actually plunges certain websites into utterances of hatred, exclusive, so as to alienate the substance of friendly Islamic teachings. Obviously from this kind of websites and with its popularity will shape the mindset of general public's which further could have an impact on the disruption of social cohesion in a society.
Meanwhile, the weak digital literacy in our society also contributes to the emergence of incredible websites and only relies on the trending issue as an effort to capture the popularity of visitors. Because practically, when we search some theme related to Islam, subsequently will lead us into the most popular website presented in the first row in popular search engine. identifikasi-486-hoaks-selama-april-2019-totalhoaks-sejak-agustus-2018-sebanyak-1731/0/siaran_pers

Result and Discussion
Battle" can see some significant notes as follows. This discussion will closely look at the digital traffic performance on three mainstream sites on three Islamic Mainstream moderate websites, namely NU Online, Alif.id and Islami.co, from Similar web data, as well as the traffic performance on 20 of Islamic sites. The aforementioned data relates to websites connected to major Islamic groups, however if we examine the popularity of Islamic websites based on 20 websites, we 12 Similar Web, Data accessed on July 2019 Firstly, the competition for online popularity among Islamic websites has had a significant impact on the development of a public digital attitude that is dominated by youth.
Secondly, a website that has succeeded in becoming popular with an average monthly visitorship of more than 11 million users, websites linked with major mass organizations have largely been able to change the popularity of non-affiliated websites. Third, even if affiliate websites have taken over as the most popular Islamic websites, the risk of visitor declines still exists, especially if frequent content updates are not made. Fourth, making the social media staff as effective as possible for every content update as part of the digital campaign. Fifth, the success of the website is also influenced by the selection of contextual content and storyline that is simple for regular people to understand.
A mainstream moderate Islamic website should prevail in the online public sphere for a number of interrelated reasons: First, there is the issue of a lack of digital literacy in our society, making it difficult for the general public to differentiate between information and misinformation. As a result, people often believe whatsoever is currently popular on social media. Second, the majority of ordinary individuals just read the content they find on social media and reluctantly verify it. This occurred because it was unable to distinguish between reliable and unreliable web pages. Third, another significant aspect of our society is the dependence of the general populace on search engines. As a result, what appears on the first page of a search is determined by the popularity of the website, which is directly related to its consistency in managing regular content updates as well as social media updates. Additionally, the "Hijra" trend, which is becoming increasingly popular among urban Muslim society, has largely moved the culture of religious studies from offline forums to digitally friendly forums. This has consequences for the issue of authority and authenticity, as some well-known religious figures occasionally are not credible enough to qualify as ulama.
Additionally, the unfinished laws governing electronic communication have created an ambiguous space where they can be abused or even manipulated by certain groups. As a result, freedom of speech has turned the internet into a platform for the spread of exclusive ideologies that undermine the true meaning of Islam as a peaceful religion.
According to Islamic Site Popularity, websites affiliated with moderate mainstream Islamic organizations have become trendsetters in dominating the digital public masses, but dominance struggles persist, as only 6 Islamic websites affiliated with Mainstream Islamic organizations dominate the 20 most popular Islamic media, while the rest are dominated by Islamic media that are not affiliated with mainstream Islamic organization media. As a result, this corresponds with how the exclusive religious perspective continues to have a considerable influence on the religious perspective of Indonesia's Islamic digital community.

Conclusion
The above discussion provides some important discourse in the change of the da'wah approach from conventional approach towards the digitization of da'wah. There are several important points from this discussion, among others: The potential for increasing digital audiences in Indonesia, the studies of digital culture of religion become important discourse in understanding the inclination towards the passion of Indonesian religious diversity.
The world view of a single truth that has an impact on the rejection of differences is still widely influence by our society, and it is widely spread through digital channels which give so raise into exclusive and closed mindset in certain groups, and it could impact on the potential for social friction, which if left unchecked would certainly easily cause into horizontal conflicts.
The importance to build common interest, to build an inclusive digital public and respects diversity, by strengthening digital da'wa approaches based on religious moderatism by promoting the fraternity of humanity.
Digital literacy must be the main agenda in educating the public, so that the digital gap does not widen because of the inability of the community to identify which media resources are credible and which are not. This then requires joint education about basic knowledge related to the ethics of journalism to the general public, which is expected as preventive effort in preventing the spread of false news, as well as fortifying the public to be careful in spreading or receiving information.
This public digital space contest will continue to exist, especially to strengthen the religious sentiment of Indonesian people who are also interconnected with political interests, and this will always appear in the presidential election cycle as an effort to capture constituents of the political mass.

UNESCO Institute for Statistic.
"Literacy Rates Continue to Rise from One Generation to the Next." 2017.