Communicating the Digital Turn: Social Media Strategy, Live Commerce, and Quadruple Helix Governance in Indonesia's Creative Economy Tourism Destination

Abstract

Digital transformation among creative economy micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia's Super Priority Tourism Destinations remains structurally uneven despite growing international visibility, and existing scholarship predominantly explains this gap through technological and economic variables while overlooking its communicative dimension. This study aims to reposition digital transformation as a communication-governance phenomenon, examining how narrative construction, content-mediated identity performance, and multi-stakeholder dialogue shape MSME digital adoption in Mandalika, Lombok Tengah Regency, West Nusa Tenggara. A qualitative design was employed, comprising 32 in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation across four sites conducted between April and May 2026, analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis and integrated with the Quadruple Helix communication governance framework. Findings identify three overlapping communication challenges: fragmented digital communication competency along generational and spatial lines; underutilized culturally anchored narrative identity in social media content; and the structural absence of institutionalized cross-helix communication linking the Mandalika Special Economic Zone's international tourism economy with the regency's indigenous creative economy base. The study advances a Communication Mediated Digital Transformation (CMDT) model built on four pillars, each carrying a specific practical implication: narrative localisation, requiring producers to embed documented cultural provenance into content to build purchase trust; live commerce as communicative performance, requiring platform and government-supported training in real-time video presentation; cooperative content infrastructure, offering shared-resource clusters as a scalable alternative for infrastructure-poor artisan communities; and Quadruple Helix dialogue institutionalisation, requiring formal communication protocols connecting government, tourism industry actors, academia, and village-level civil society to close the boundary gap between the Special Economic Zone and the local creative economy.