Information Uncertainty during the Indonesian Pandemic: Sociological Perspectives

Abstract

This paper aims to describe how the development of information on COVID-19 handling policies adopted by the government in conditions of people who have cultural diversity and the ability to capture information and how the government's relationship with society in the policy. The pandemic in Indonesia began with the government's underestimation of the covid-19 virus. Almost all Ministers express their opinions openly to the public, which sometimes contradict each other, causing information uncertainty to arise. This paper uses a meta-analysis research method to collect scientific evidence regarding the uncertain information during the pandemic era in Indonesia. This paper uses a sociological perspective to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis collected from books, previous research results, official government letters, and mass media articles. The study results show that: (i) government policies regarding the handling of covid-19 are generally successful, but there are shortcomings such as inconsistency, and does not provide protection for some people; (ii) there is non-uniform communication to the public, which makes the public angry; (iii) literacy and public access to information have different characteristics between different groups, and; (iv) the relationship between the community and the government is generally dominated by legal sanctions.