Informal care in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Australia has been less impacted by COVID-19 than most other countries, partly due to strong preventive responses by government. While these measures have resulted in lower rates of infection, family and friend carers have been disproportionately affected by public health orders. The heightened risk of transmission to vulnerable populations, combined with the impact of economic uncertainty, unclear government communication, significant restrictions on movement and personal contact, and the reduction in formal support services, have highlighted pre-existing, systemic shortcomings in support for carers. The COVID-19 pandemic left many carers more stressed, isolated and worse off financially.

The Relationship between Government Information Supply and Public Information Demand in the Early Stage of COVID-19 in China—An Empirical Analysis

Accurate and effective government communication is essential for public health emergencies. To optimize the effectiveness of government crisis communication, this paper puts forward an analytical perspective of supply–demand matching based on the interaction between the government and the public. We investigate the stage characteristics and the topic evolutions of both government information supply and public information demand through combined statistical analysis, text mining, text coding and cluster analysis, using empirical data from the National Health Commission’s WeChat in China. A quantitative measure reflecting the public demand for government information supply is proposed. Result indicates that the government has provided a large amount of high-intensity epidemic-related information, with six major topics being the medical team, government actions, scientific protection knowledge, epidemic situation, high-level deployment and global cooperation. The public’s greatest information needs present different characteristics at different stages, with “scientific protection knowledge”, “government actions” and “medical teams” being the most needed in the outbreak stage, the control stage and the stable stage, respectively. The subject of oversupply is “medical team”, and the subject of short supply is “epidemic dynamics” and “science knowledge”. This paper provides important theoretical and practical value for improving the effectiveness of government communication in public health crises.

Celebrity Endorsers in Government Communication: A Plausible Option amidst Uncertainty and Declining Public Trust

This paper examines the harness of celebrity endorsers by government organizations as a strategy of political public relations. The purpose of this study was to broaden understanding of how celebrity endorsers and key opinion leaders work in the political realm, notably in supporting government policy. This descriptive-qualitative research uses a single case study on the promulgate efforts of the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program using celebrity endorsements. Literature research and social media material from a celebrity endorser were used as data collection techniques. To discover propaganda techniques, content analysis was performed on Raffi Ahmad’s social media posts. Next, a group discussion with six key informants was held to confirm the findings. Given the context and focus of this study lies on government organizations, we offer a different approach in examining celebrity endorsements by using propaganda theories and concepts. Kahneman’s dual-system theory of fast and slow thinking was also fruitful to rationalize the work of endorsement and relevant to propaganda and other persuasion theories. We found that the key messages that Raffi Ahmad published on his social media contained propaganda elements that had the potential to influence public opinion before making a decision. Therefore, the use of celebrity endorsements by government organizations is likely to be effective in influencing public behavior, or at least in raising awareness of government policies. We conclude that celebrity endorsement can be a plausible option to be implemented in the government communication strategy to achieve certain objectives.

Optimalisasi Pusat Layanan Migrasi Desmigratif di Masa Pandemi Covid-19

To reduce the problems that befall the Indonesian Migrant Workers/Pekerja Migran Indonesia (PMI), the government formulate a program called Desa Migran Produktif or commonly known as Desmigratif, which formulated for 400 chosen village over Indonesia. One of the pillars that support the program is the existence of an Information Service Centre (Pusat Layanan Informasi) that can be accessed by PMI, prospective of PMI, and their relative. The performance of Desmigratif officers in operating the Information Service Center is increasingly challenging, specially during the Covid – 19 Pandemic. Spessificaly in optimizing government communication used by the officials and all relevant stakeholders. The purpose of this research is to examine the optimization efforts done by Desmigratif workers in service operation of the Information Service Center during the Covid-19 pandemic. The method used is a qualitative that can be further explored to discuss the topic of government communication in efforts to optimize services during the pandemi. The results showed that the services are adaptive to the times and follow the technological developments and appropriate especially during the pandemic, where the opportunity to communicate directly very limited. Furthermore, another thing that also affects are the improvement of the quality and competence of the Desmigatif offical and the collaborations that built with related parties

Pelayanan Komunikasi Pemerintahan Dalam Pemberitaan Kebijakan Pemerintah Daerah Kepada Stakeholder di Kalimantan Selatan

This study was conducted in the midst of the lack of studies on local government communication in developing countries. Existing studies tend to attribute performance in this area to central government. The contribution of this study is related to exploring the practice of government communication in the context of local government in countries towards democracy. The author uses the communication of the local government of South Kalimantan Province in its services to stakeholders as a case study. The results of the analysis of various documents, observations and in-depth interviews related to the communication performance of local government in South Kalimantan from January to October 2020 were compiled and analyzed using Miles and Huberman data analysis techniques. In conclusion, the results of the study show that the quality of local government communication is influenced by various factors, both structural and management. Although management factors remain important, in the case of South Kalimantan, structural factors have more influence on local government communications. While the communication performance of local government has not involved active participation from the bottom, it is more elite-oriented than public-oriented. Local government officials are less responsive and still communicate downward, so that the ideas of professionalizing local government communication are still limited to expectations rather than reality. This study recommends that local government communication can be effective if it is participatory, ie has a vision and mission of community empowerment and citizen involvement in participation for local government policy planning and implementation.

Government Communication in New Zealand : Changing Roles and Conventions

<p>A brief study of democratic theory as it relates to public participation and government communications within a New Zealand context. A literature review identifies the traditional communications conventions pre-state sector reform and a survey of state sector communications managers reveals the conflict between this traditional approach as it is articulated, and actual practice in the post-state sector reform environment. A new convention is presented based on three divisions within the core public service: primarily policy; primarily operational; and mixed objective. Communications conventions for state-owned enterprises, Crown entities and Crown research institutes are also identified.</p>

Government Communication in New Zealand : Changing Roles and Conventions

<p>A brief study of democratic theory as it relates to public participation and government communications within a New Zealand context. A literature review identifies the traditional communications conventions pre-state sector reform and a survey of state sector communications managers reveals the conflict between this traditional approach as it is articulated, and actual practice in the post-state sector reform environment. A new convention is presented based on three divisions within the core public service: primarily policy; primarily operational; and mixed objective. Communications conventions for state-owned enterprises, Crown entities and Crown research institutes are also identified.</p>

Using moral foundations in government communication to reduce vaccine hesitancy

Having a vaccine available does not necessarily imply that it will be used. Indeed, uptake rates for existing vaccines against infectious diseases have been fluctuating in recent years. Literature suggests that vaccine hesitancy may be grounded in deeply rooted intuitions or values, which can be modelled using Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). We examine the respective prominence of the MFT dimensions in government communication regarding childhood vaccinations and explore its effect on parents’ vaccine hesitancy. We measure the MFT dimension loading of the vaccination information brochures from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) between 2011-2019 and connect this information with the electronic national immunisation register to investigate if the use of moral foundations in government communication has a measurable effect on vaccination uptake. We find the largest positive effect for the dimensions Authority/Subversion and Liberty/Oppression and suggestive evidence in favour of a small positive effect for Purity/Degradation. Conversely, Loyalty/Betrayal actually has a negative effect on vaccination rates. For the dimension Harm/Care, we find no significant effect. While Purity/Degradation and Harm/Care appear to be the two most frequently used moral foundations by RIVM, these dimensions have in fact no or only a minor effect on parents’ vaccine hesitancy. Reducing the use of these moral foundations may be the first step towards optimising government communication in this context. Instead, formulations activating the moral foundations Authority/Subversion and Liberty/Oppression appear to have positive effects on vaccination uptake.