The Tourism Sector Government Crisis Communication at the Beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Strategies for Utilizing Instagram Social Media

Abstract

This study aims to find out how the strategy used by the Government of Indonesia, in this case the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (MoTCE), in utilizing Instagram social media as a means of communication for the tourism sector crisis in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. This study uses a qualitative descriptive content analysis to describe the strategies used by MoTCE in using Instagram account @kemenparekraf.ri, by first mapping all posts for one month for later analysis. This study also uses the concept of crisis response strategies representing the actual responses that organizations use to overcome crises where crisis response strategies involve words (verbal aspects) and actions (nonverbal aspects) that are directed by organizations towards crises (Allen & Caillouet, 1994 and Benoit, 1995 in Coombs, 2015). The validity of the data in the study was carried out by analyzing data in the form of data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The result of the research is that various topics/themes are raised in response to various events related to Covid-19, the use of certain hashtags, policies that have been taken and campaigns that have been carried out consistently conveyed to the public regarding Covid-19, as well as a timeline of events that can be concluded as important efforts that have been carried out by MoTCE at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.