scholarly journals Blunders of Government Communication: The Political Economy of COVID-19 Communication Policy in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Masduki Masduki

Government officials and politicians have been both a help and hindrance in the public dissemination of information during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention of a president and his/her ministries with their political and economic interests is particularly problematic when they employ a tactical approach rather than provide accurate and effective disaster information. This paper utilizes a political-economy approach to analyze the link between COVID-19 communication policies and practices with the interests of politics and market stability in Indonesia. In this paper, the author drills into the extent to which the country’s president and ministries manage their political interests in times of global pandemic. The ways they interact with the public during various stages of disaster are crucial because society is severely disrupted, with the government serving as the sole actor. This study uses qualitative methods and all materials are managed from an extensive review of current literature, policy analysis, and field observation. This paper finds that Indonesian government communication during the COVID-19 pandemic period (February– June 2020) has been dominated by a desire to maintain a strong power of the ruling authority and to secure market stability. Two factors—pro-market communication policies and manufactured- politicized COVID-19 data—have occurred. This paper contributes to the literature by focusing on the political and economic approach over the mediated discourses surrounding the pandemic.

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Henrique Demarchi ◽  
Maria Teresa Miceli Kerbauy

RESUMO A realização da 1ª Conferência Nacional de Comunicação (Confecom) em 2009 no Brasil teve como consequência o fortalecimento de organizações da sociedade civil ocupadas com a democratização da mídia. Uma dessas entidades é o FNDC (Fórum Nacional pela Democratização da Comunicação), que colocou na agenda de debates a necessidade de um novo marco regulatório para a radiodifusão. A partir da metodologia e do exame da revisão bibliográfica, e tomando como aporte teórico a economia política da comunicação, o presente artigo examina a proposta de um novo marco regulatório no período, considerando a ausência de políticas para a área.Palavras-chave: Marco regulatório; Democratização; Confecom; Políticas de Comunicação; Economia Política.ABSTRACT The first National Conference on Communication (Confecom), held in 2009 in Brazil, had as its main result the strengthening of civil society organizations which dealt with media democratization. The National Forum for the Democratization of Communication (FNDC) is one of such entities and has stressed the need for new regulation regarding media broadcasting. Based on bibliographical research and the analysis of its results, as well as the theoretical support of the political economy of communication, this paper analyzes the proposal for new regulation in the period, taking into account the lack of public policies in the Communication segment.Keywords: Regulation; Democratization; Confecom; Communication Policies; Political Economy of Communication.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-134
Author(s):  
Lubomír Kopeček ◽  
Miloš Brunclík

The article deals with the influence of presidents in the government formation process (GFP). The authors propose an original classification of roles of presidents, reflecting real constitutional practice, with five categories based on real presidential influence on the GFP, from the weakest to the strongest: observer, notary, regulator, co-designer, and creator. This classification is applied to Czechia, where the formal constitution gives the president great opportunities to intervene in the GFP. The results of the analysis of all cases of GFP show a significant variety of roles the Czech presidents have played: from notary to creator. Two factors are particularly important. Firstly, the timing of elections proved significant. When the GFP directly followed parliamentary elections, the presidents were weaker. In contrast, if the GFP followed a government break-up during the electoral term of the Chamber of Deputies, presidents were significantly stronger. Secondly, it depends on the real power of parties, that is, their ability to act together as a cohesive parliamentary majority. In most cases, the presidents showed their resolve to play a greater role than a notary, but they often faced a firm parliamentary majority that actually did not allow them to exert greater influence on the GFP. In contrast, the political proximity between the president and parliamentary parties appears difficult to assess, because there has been the public desire of non-partisan or “above-partisan” presidents in Czechia.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Tawanda Zinyama ◽  
Joseph Tinarwo

Public administration is carried out through the public service. Public administration is an instrument of the State which is expected to implement the policy decisions made from the political and legislative processes. The rationale of this article is to assess the working relationships between ministers and permanent secretaries in the Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe. The success of the Minister depends to a large degree on the ability and goodwill of a permanent secretary who often has a very different personal or professional background and whom the minster did not appoint. Here lies the vitality of the permanent secretary institution. If a Minister decides to ignore the advice of the permanent secretary, he/she may risk of making serious errors. The permanent secretary is the key link between the democratic process and the public service. This article observed that the mere fact that the permanent secretary carries out the political, economic and social interests and functions of the state from which he/she derives his/her authority and power; and to which he/she is accountable,  no permanent secretary is apolitical and neutral to the ideological predisposition of the elected Ministers. The interaction between the two is a political process. Contemporary administrator requires complex team-work and the synthesis of diverse contributions and view-points.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Anton Surahmat ◽  
Susanne Dida ◽  
Feliza Zubair

Crisis communication is one of the most important instruments in crisis management. Unfortunately, there is a lot of criticism about how the Indonesian government implemented its crisis communication strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic season. This study aims to uncover the government's crisis communication strategy from the perspective of Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis. Based on the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), researchers study the structure of discourse in texts consisting of macro, superstructure, and micro. There were 6 press releases from President Jokowi, Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto, and Spokesperson dr. Achmad Yurianto was collected using a purposive sampling method to describe the government's crisis communication strategy at the beginning of pre-crisis and crisis. The results show a significant dynamic crisis communication strategy on how the government implemented it in the pre-crisis and crisis phases. In the pre-crisis phase, they were statements from public officials especially in this case coming from President Jokowi and Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto. Both of these statements tend to lead to Deny and Diminish's strategy while still delivering messages in the form of Adjustments and Instructive Information so that the public remains alert and calm. However, in the crisis phase, government communication shifted towards Diminishes' statement, in the view of Justification that the crisis was actually not so terrible and bad. This is the biggest idea that emerged in the statement of President Jokowi and Spokesperson dr. Achmad Yurianto. Broadly speaking, this phase also provides a greater perspective on projections of government policy in the Covid-19 arrangement.


Author(s):  
Michael Eamon

In October 2011, the Government of Canada began a two-year, nation-wide celebration of the bicentenary of the War of 1812. The widely-criticized initiative returned the public eye to a traditional ‘interpretive tableau’ of war heroes, namely Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, Charles de Salaberry and Laura Secord. While the scope and expense of the federal government’s efforts have been unprecedented, the political battle to maintain certain memories of the War is one that is not new. A struggle against the forgetfulness of Canadians, and particularly young Canadians, has animated commemorations of the War for almost two centuries. Looking at a selection of past commemorative efforts this essay explores how the inertia of a traditional tableau of heroes has tended to overshadow other narratives and newer interpretations. Yet all is not lost. Using the example of the author’s exhibition, Faces of 1812, it is suggested that publicly-constructed histories can be employed as a useful departure point for the public historian and provide a foundation from which the public can obtain a broader, more critical perspective on both the commemorated events and history writ large.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
David Broadstock ◽  
Xiaoqi Chen ◽  
C. S. Agnes Cheng ◽  
Wenli Huang

ABSTRACT We investigate whether the aggregated political relations of a firm's top management team (TMT) add value to the firm's performance. We distinguish between the political relations that arise from TMT's own work experience, which are termed direct political connections (DPC), and the relations that TMT develops from working for the same institution with the government officials, which are termed implicit political connections (IPC). We find that IPC are positively associated with firm performance and that they often have a stronger effect than DPC do. We also find that the effect of IPC on firm value is stronger in SOEs and in firms located in under-developed provinces. Moreover, we find that after the anti-corruption campaign, the effect of DPC decreases but the effect of IPC does not significantly change. Overall, our results suggest the importance of investigating a firm's aggregated political connections, especially its IPC. JEL Classifications: G32; D72; J33; L33. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.


Author(s):  
W. W. Rostow

I have tried in this book to summarize where the world economy has come from in the past three centuries and to set out the core of the agenda that lies before us as we face the century ahead. This century, for the first time since the mid-18th century, will come to be dominated by stagnant or falling populations. The conclusions at which I have arrived can usefully be divided in two parts: one relates to what can be called the political economy of the 21st century; the other relates to the links between the problem of the United States playing steadily the role of critical margin on the world scene and moving at home toward a solution to the multiple facets of the urban problem. As for the political economy of the 21st century, the following points relate both to U.S. domestic policy and U.S. policy within the OECD, APEC, OAS, and other relevant international organizations. There is a good chance that the economic rise of China and Asia as well as Latin America, plus the convergence of economic stagnation and population increase in Africa, will raise for a time the relative prices of food and industrial materials, as well as lead to an increase in expen ditures in support of the environment. This should occur in the early part of the next century, If corrective action is taken in the private markets and the political process, these strains on the supply side should diminish with the passage of time, the advance of science and innovation, and the progressively reduced rate of population increase. The government, the universities, the private sector, and the professions might soon place on their common agenda the delicate balance of maintaining full employment with stagnant or falling populations. The existing literature, which largely stems from the 1930s, is quite illuminating but inadequate. And the experience with stagnant or falling population in the the world economy during post-Industrial Revolution times is extremely limited. This is a subject best approached in the United States on a bipartisan basis, abroad as an international problem. It is much too serious to be dealt with, as it is at present, as a domestic political football.


2020 ◽  
pp. e1-e8
Author(s):  
Michael Harvey

The “political economy of health” is concerned with how political and economic domains interact and shape individual and population health outcomes. However, the term is variously defined in the public health, medical, and social science literatures. This could result in confusion about the term and its associated tradition, thereby constituting a barrier to its application in public health research and practice. To address these issues, I survey the political economy of health tradition, clarify its specifically Marxian theoretical legacy, and discuss its relevance to understanding and addressing public health issues. I conclude by discussing the benefits of employing critical theories of race and racism with Marxian political economy to better understand the roles of class exploitation and racial oppression in epidemiological patterning. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print December 22, 2020:e1–e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305996 )


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