Communication strategies of a Malaysian politician in Tamil during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The world in general was not prepared for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in December 2019, which caused massive deaths. Government officials were forced to impose drastic measures to curb the spread. The Ministry of Health relied on political leaders and government agencies to help disseminate as much health information and the government policies efficiently and effectively. As these representatives or leaders belong to different ethnicities, they are more likely to understand the life circumstances, needs, strengths, and capabilities of multicultural and vulnerable communities, and would be the best people to convey the needed information. Tamils are the third largest community in Malaysia and there is not much research done on Tamil language and communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study aims to observe on how effectively Tamil language and culture influences crisis communication. Effective communication and leadership are central to the management of pandemics and to give the public assurance in order to alleviate their fears and anxiety in having to adapt to the rapidly changing societal and economic landscape. Based on the communication strategies recommended by Hyland-Wood et al (2021), the current study focuses on how a Malaysian Indian politician, Saravanan responds, engages, and communicates with his followers. Seventeen Facebook posts in Tamil on Saravanan's page were extracted and analysed qualitatively. The strategies utilized by Saravanan showed his resolve and effectiveness in managing crisis. This study will be useful for political leaders, community representatives, and medical practitioners in seeking equitable accessibility to quality health care and well-being of the people.

Communicating Public Health Crisis: Mobile Social Media as a Multimodal Discourse in Times of COVID-19

“…This type of frame is generally observed in the leader's speech. The roles of leaders are essentially important, especially during crisis periods, as their engagements with the community usually have a long-lasting impact on the uptake of information (Perumal et al, 2022). Facing such a social crisis, the central government is expected to come forward to address the citizens, while other authoritative agencies support it.…”

EKSPRESI KECEMASAN NETIZEN DI MEDIA SOSIAL FACEBOOK TENTANG PANDEMI COVID-19 (Netizens' Expressions of Anxiety on Facebook Social Media Regarding the Covid-19 Pandemic)

“…Penelitian ini dilandasi temuantemuan terbaru di bidang linguistik yang mengkhususkan pengkajian terkait pandemi Covid-19. Fokus riset terkait Covid-19 mencakup analisis korpus di media massa (Nor Fariza & Adlyn Syahirah, 2020;Zahra & Abbas, 2022), strategi komunikasi para politisi (Perumal et al, 2022), ideologi yang direpresentasikan melalui media massa (Dezhkameh et al, 2021), strategi retorika (Laongpol, 2021), komunikasi pemerintah (Park et al, 2020), dan tindak tutur berbahasa yang memiliki daya pengaruh terhadap kepatuhan masyarakat (Sultan et al, 2023). Keragaman kajian yang dilakukan peneliti terdahulu menunjukkan bahwa riset Covid-19 merupakan kajian penting yang telah menunjukkan perkembangan terbaru dan memperluas bidang kajian bahasa pada aspek kesehatan dalam situasi pandemi.…”