13th Aceh International Workshop and Expo on Sustainable Tsunami Disaster Recovery - AIWEST-DR 2021 October 26 - 27, 2021, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
EFFICACY INFORMATION IN GOVERNMENT’S INITIAL RESPONSES TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN INDONESIA
RIZANNA ROSEMARY 1, TRI HASTUTI NUR ROCHIMAH2, NOVI SUSILAWATI1
1Department of Communication Studies , Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Aceh, 23111, Indoneisea rizanna.rosemary@unsyiah.ac.id
2Department of Communication Studies, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, 55183, Indonesia trinur@umy.ac.id
BACKGROUND
Media strategies are necessary for resilience-building during disasters and pandemics. Inevitable uncertainty conditions during the Covid-19 crisis resulted as an extension of the inadequate information and knowledge shared about the situation. The media plays a significant role in providing report of the pandemic to the public. Some studies explained the role of media in reporting and communicating risk related to the global Covid-19 outbreak. The Indonesian government carries out various actions and policies in responding to the pandemic through the media. However, there is no study found to understand how media provides efficacy information in the government’s initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the context of Indonesia.
PURPOSE
The study aims to examine and analyze the four national online newspapers. How the public receives information about the government responds to the Covid-19 pandemic within the local, national, and global context. To answer the research question, we carry out a content analysis to assess the external efficacy information, relates to government or politicians’ effort to take both positive and negative actions or responding to public opinion about the Covid-19 pandemic in those media.
METHODS
This content analysis focuses on coverage of the government’s response to Covid-19 in four online news sources: Kompas.com, Tempo.com, Republika.com, Tirto.id. The four selected media are national reputable online news platforms scale with a large readership. The unit of analysis of the study is the news/article—coverage on Covid-19 since the first announcement of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia and the first restriction about social/physical distancing released by the government. We included articles in Bahasa Indonesia about the Covid-19, with the keyword strings: dampak, penanganan, kebijakan (In English: effect/impact, response/action, policy/restriction).
The analysis stages of this study are: (1) develop conceptual and operational definitions and compile coding sheets based on conceptual definitions; (2) determine the object of research (type of media, selection period); (3) determine the research analysis unit; (4) coding; and (5) analyze and describe the findings by calculating the frequency of media coverage of the study’s unit of analysis.
RESULTS
This study shows more national coverage than local and global news about the impact/effect, response, and policy taken by the government to Covid-19. Moreover, the data reveal a negative tone of the reporting on the pandemic at the global, national, and local levels. Negative coverage is defined as a media focus or agenda reporting on statistics of the pandemic, such as the number of
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2 Rizanna Rosemary, Tri Hastuti Nur Rochimah, Novi Susilawati
Covid cases, the number of deaths, and those recover from the disease. This kind of information is likely to reinforce people's anxiety and helplessness rather than feeling relief and being informed.
For the global issue, four media report the pandemic in a negative tone—Kompas.com 38%, Tempo.com 11%, Republika.com 15%, and Tirto.id 22%. Likewise, three months after the Indonesian government announced the first found Covid-19 case in March 2020, news at the national level is mostly negative than positive coverage, exclude for Republika.com.
The study argues that the pattern of negative reporting by the four media is influenced by the government's public communication in the early stages of the pandemic. During the first three months of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, the government's responses are mostly focused on medical interventions in health services and hospitals, such as shortage of standard personal protective equipment (alat pelindung diri/APD) while undermining the importance of prevention intervention.
The government's policy has not comprehensively imposed the official health protocols to prevent the spread of coronavirus issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). Not to mention the re- sponse to economic impacts due to social restriction and temporary closure of commercial business and public transportation.
As the primary official source during an emergency such as the pandemic, the government's lack of priority to the social and economic consequences has an impact on the agenda-setting of the media in reporting about the issue. Furthermore, wide audience outreach and quick dissemination of information allow online news to create click baits or bombastic headlines that attract readers’
attention, despite irrelevant contents of the information. The principle of ‘bad news’ as ‘good news’
remains for many agenda-setting media during the crisis. Nevertheless, people rely on and trust more information about the pandemic through online media than the government’s official spokesperson tends to make them prone to the exposure of hoax information. This study indicates that there is a lack of media engagement between media organizations and the government. The study argues that the lack of efficacy information in media coverage may contribute to the public’s dissatisfaction with the government’s initial response to the global outbreak.
CONCLUSION
Evidence suggests that during a crisis, the media has the responsibility to report positive
information about the pandemic which prevents the public from anxiety and uncertainty. However, national online media coverage of Covid-19 issues shows more dominant-negative coverage than positive, in terms of impact, handling and policy. News at the local, national, and international level also shows a greater proportion of negative approaches to government’s handling the issue than positive coverage. Negative reporting about the impact of Covid-19 in addition to poor government’s performance in handling the Covid-19 pandemic has an impact on the public's negative perception and lack of trust towards the government’s effort against the Covid-19.
Keywords: Efficacy information, media coverage, Covid-19. content analysis, Indonesia
