Fixing Pandemic Communication
One of the issues that must be addressed in the Covid-19 handling process is communicative performance, in addition to human resources such as officials as well as the budget.
The pandemic is a reality that has become intertwined with our daily lives. The situation is not one that is easily overcome and has caused high levels of uncertainty and discomfort.
The government certainly cannot handle it alone. The ongoing dynamics of the current pandemic handling measures calls for urgency in fixing the government\'s paradigm and way of communicating to help accelerate the country’s Covid-19 control. Communications management should never be viewed as having a peripheral role.
One of the issues that must be addressed in the Covid-19 handling process is communicative performance, in addition to human resources such as officials as well as the budget, which is now experiencing considerable reallocation.
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In Communication and Organizational Culture (1982), authors Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O\'Donnell-Trujillo define communicative performance as the symbolic process of understanding human behavior in an organization.
Social capital
In this context, the organization implied is, of course, the government bureaucracy, which must optimize their communication in managing public trust. Public trust is the substance of social capital and highly integral to handling the pandemic.
As a source for reflection, it is interesting to read the results of the Kompas survey on the level of public confidence as regards the government\'s competence in overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic. The Kompas Research and Development division has been conducting the survey periodically since June 2020.
The latest survey on 10-17 July 2021, which involved 839 respondents in all 34 provinces, showed a declining level of confidence. Respondents who felt confident that the government could overcome the pandemic comprised 60.7 percent of all respondents, while 36.4 percent of the respondents were unsure, and 2.9 percent either did not know or did not respond.
These indicate a drop compared to the June 2020 survey, which showed that 72.7 percent of respondents felt confident in the government, 16.2 percent were unsure and 11.1 percent did not respond. By the October 2020 survey, respondents who trusted the government had fallen sharply to 55.6 percent, with 36.4 percent expressing skepticism and 8.1 percent undecided.
In the December 2020 survey, 67.9 percent of respondents were confident, 26.3 percent were unsure and 5.8 percent were undecided. In February 2021, 67.9 percent of survey respondents were confident, 31.2 percent ere unsure not sure, and 0.9 percent were undecided. The data shows an increasing trend of the public’s declining confidence in the government.
President Joko Widodo gave directions in a limited meeting to discuss the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the plan for the implementation of vaccination at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday (6/1/2021).
Of course, the government has launched many initiatives under the leadership of President Joko Widodo and these should be appreciated as efforts to overcome the pandemic. However, observing the trend in public perception by listening to the people’s voices is necessary as a tool for evaluating these efforts.
During an interview on the miniseries A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers (1989), renowned writer Peter Ferdinand Drucker said, “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
Communications management during the pandemic requires a fundamental shift in paradigm. Communication is not merely a process to build common understanding, show goodwill towards working together and convey appreciation; rather, communication is a way to protect and save citizens through clear, accountable information and to build collective awareness.
With so many lives at risk and public health at stake, the adverse effects of the pandemic cannot be resolved merely through the health or economic approach, but also needs efforts in integrated communication.
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The Lowy Institute, based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, released in January 2021 the Covid Performance Index, which ranks the performance of 98 countries in the world in their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. New Zealand was ranked first and Indonesia was ranked 85th, one place above India.
Communication management is one prominent thing in New Zealand’s Covid-19 response. In late March 2020, the New Zealand government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, readied the public for the rapidly changing situation by introducing the four-level Covid-19 Alert System.
The four levels are: Level 1-Prepare, Level 2-Reduce, Level 3-Restrict and Level 4-Lockdown. The information is detailed, feasible and clear, and succeeded in raising awareness among its citizens that the system was an agenda for all.
It would be a mismatch to compare the objective condition of Indonesia with that of New Zealand, which has a population of less than 5 million.
Of course, one country’s problem-solving measures in dealing with the pandemic are not necessarily practicable and relevant to another. It would be a mismatch to compare the objective condition of Indonesia with that of New Zealand, which has a population of less than 5 million.
The magnitude of the problems that arise from Indonesia’s large population is indeed a challenge of its own, especially with people who are sharply polarized as a result of an electoral contest. Not to mention, literacy among the Indonesian people is still low, whereas they have a high rate of social media use.
However, one important lesson to learn from New Zealand is the way its government managed public communications so it was clear, accountable and mobilized the people.
Communication issues
There are three main issues in pandemic communication that must be addressed immediately. First is the obscure substance of the message in the government’s policy communication. A readily noted example is the self-paid vaccination scheme. The information was confusing as to what the government intended with this self-paid scheme. President Jokowi firmly stated that the vaccines were free. Then came the Gotong Royong (mutual cooperation) vaccination program involving private companies. This program, however, could be understood.
Bank employees receive the Sinopharm vaccine at the mutual cooperation vaccination center, Senayan indoor tennis court, Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium complex, Senayan, Central Jakarta, Saturday (19/6/2021).
Disruptive communication occurred when PT Kimia Farma (Persero) Tbk., through its network of clinics and pharmacies, launched the self-paid Covid-19 vaccination scheme. Public confusion surfaced over the self-paid vaccination for individuals because of the unclear communication narrative on the issue.
A number of activists from law research institutes, NGOs, and academia lambasted the Health Minister and called on him to immediately cancel and revoke Health Minister Regulation No. 19/2021 on the second amendment to Health Ministry Regulation No. 10/2021 on the vaccination program in the context of pandemic prevention.
The ministerial regulation stipulates the provision of a self-paid vaccination scheme that President Jokowi had canceled earlier on 16 July 2021. Human rights activists deemed regulation No. 19/2021 as contrary to all overarching laws and regulations, namely Article 28, Paragraph 1, of the 1945 Constitution and Law No. 36/2009 on public health.
The ministerial regulation was also deemed to stray from the general principles of good governance, which provides legal certainty and forms the basis of reasonable public expectations, whereby the President of the Republic of Indonesia made a public statement that vaccination was free for all Indonesians.
Ambiguous information can lead to ambiguous action at the operational level.
In communicating its policies, the government should not use equivocal communication. According to Janet Beavin Bavelas in her book, Equivocal Communication (1990), “equivocal” implies that information is deliberately made unclear, indirect, and not straightforward. Ambiguous information can lead to ambiguous action at the operational level.
Second is the propensity of communication overlap. The messages communicated must be widely accessible to effect change in public behavior. Why is the government always changing policy names? This makes it difficult to build understanding.
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Vehicle blocking post on Jalan Merdeka, Bogor City, West Java, Wednesday (4/8/2021).
For example, the government has used Pembatasan Sosial Skala Besar (large-scale social restrictions; PSBB), Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat (public activity restrictions; PPKM), PPKM Mikro, PPKM Darurat (emergency PPKM), and level-4 PPKM.
If the terms are always changing, how is it likely that the people will understand the message and collectively participate in the movement against Covid-19?
Third is rhetorical sensitivity and lack of public empathy in elite communication. Officials in both the executive and legislative spheres have often seemed insensitive to the situation. There are high-ranking officials in the Cabinet who tend toward verbal aggression when they are criticized.
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Challenging the public is no solution. Build harmony is. There are also politicians and members of the House of Representatives (DPR) who asked the government to provide a special Covid-19 hospital for officials, even suggesting that hotel facilities be provided for self-isolating DPR lawmakers who have tested positive for Covid-19.
These messages have been raised publicly in the face of the difficulties residents are experiencing in accessing health services, and then having to queue for hours at hospitals. It is time for the elite to develop rhetorical sensitivity, as well as persuasive communication so we can overcome the pandemic together.
Steps to improvement
Steps must continue to be taken towards improvement. Pandemic communication requires an integrated database to support communication that is accountable, clear and raises collective awareness, for example in the case of social assistance data.
The National Development Planning Ministry/National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) acknowledged on 1 March as regards the FGD Integrated Information System for Government Assistance Funds, that the data the government used to support the distribution of social assistance funds was not integrated well.
Unclear data creates potential vulnerabilities such as distribution that misses the target or creating loopholes for opportunists. The database is also essential, for instance, in communications on the vaccination program.
Another step that must be taken is improving the communication narrative. One of the keys to success in the pandemic response is managing the communication narrative amid the overabundance of information.
Changing the policy names is unnecessary. The focus should be on strengthening the narrative resonance to stimulate growth in collective awareness. From an academic perspective, it is about strengthening symbolic convergence.
The underlying point is that public communication needs to strengthen the narratives that drive awareness and change in public behavior.
John F. Cragan defines symbolic convergence in Understanding Communication Theory: the Communicative Forces for Human Actions (1998) as the power of communication to generate public awareness. This relates to perspective, ideology, or paradigm of thought. The underlying point is that public communication needs to strengthen the narratives that drive awareness and change in public behavior.
The last is to reorganize the information roles in government communication. The roles for disseminating information must be clearly defined for both individuals and institutions in communication that represent the government. Don’t point fingers at each other when a mistake happens. It is time to improve communication and for the government to continue to pull together all resources to overcome the pandemic.
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Gun Gun Heryanto
Gun Gun Heryanto, Executive Director of the Political Literacy Institute and Political Communication Lecturer at UIN Jakarta
(This article was translated by Musthofid).
