Implementation of Government Crisis Communication During The Covid-19

Abstract

The spread of the covid-19 has become a major crisis for countries in the world and changed the government policies pattern to handling the crisis proactively. Crisis communication strategies by the government have to be important thing among policy makers and also community. The pattern of communication established between the central and regional governments in policy making and delivering the quality information to the public is a form of government's preparedness and seriousness for handling the crisis. This article examines the implementation of the crisis communication aimed at handling the spread of covid-19 and preventing the hoax information from mass media that can make the communities chaos, applying a framework developed using indicators derived from the strategic planning and quality literature. Results show that there are clear indices of formal rules governing the practice of communication flow or information policy. The covid-19 handling acceleration task force established by the government, both at the central and regional levels, as the main reference to the government in conveying the information about the covid-19 to public, is one of efforts to minimize the misinformation developing within the community. Although the mechanism is being applied to handle the crisis, the practices are still far from being fully systematized. The analysis provides evidence that the government has full attention and professionalism to manage the crisis and to save the public from misinformation. The article describes that the government policies made with the right communication will be able to manage the crises effectively.

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

“…Although there were enquiries made by the public, there were no attempts at responding to the questions. Thus, the response strategies that would test the leader's resolve and effectiveness in crisis communication (Kusumaningrum & Aryani 2020), was not evident. One of the reasons could be due to the regularly changing standard operating procedures and information updates on the pandemic.…”

“…By highlighting age-old practices of the Indians, Saravanan drew on the rationality of such practices upheld by our forefathers then. By looking back at the cultural norms, Saravanan Volume 22(1), February 2022February http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2022February -2201 eISSN: 2550-2131 ISSN: 1675-8021 50 backed up his point by mentioning the risks of having physical contacts, thus the message might appear less intimidating to the public.…”

Behind the scenes: A critical discourse analysis of Botswana government power plays on Facebook during two post-millennial state-owned organizational crises

“…However, this authority is now threatened since ‘everyone with a smart phone can share information of emerging events as they unfold’ (Rees, 2020: 107). Research examining crisis communication during COVID-19 suggests that although some government practices in handling crises are not systematic, most have the professionalism to manage crises and ‘save the publics from disinformation’ (Kusumaningrum and Aryani, 2020: 162). The way government PR practitioners disseminate information during crises can affect publics’ trust in their institutions and lead to the ‘formation of social panic’ (Zhou et al, 2023: 2).…”

“…The way government PR practitioners disseminate information during crises can affect publics’ trust in their institutions and lead to the ‘formation of social panic’ (Zhou et al, 2023: 2). One way to prevent such panic and loss of trust is to develop good policies accompanied by the right information (Kusumaningrum and Aryani, 2020).…”