| LIBRARY & KNOWLEDGE CENTER

How to communicate COVID-19 risk

without fuelling anti-Chinese sentiment in
Indonesia
 Rifka Sibarani, Birut Zemits, and Stephen Miller

Jakarta   /   Tue, March 10, 2020   /   03:02 pm

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak has led to widespread travel bans

and turmoil on global financial markets. But it has also given rise to xenophobic
responses targeting Chinese communities in several affected countries.

This has been happening in a situation where online misinformation is credited as

being as dangerous as the virus itself. Misinformation outbreaks have been central
to xenophobic responses.

Researchers have already suggested this misinformation has complicated efforts

to communicate the risks associated with COVID-19. For example, misinformation
has amplified the fears of the virus outbreak in Indonesia as online hoaxes about
COVID-19 lead to racist responses towards the Indonesian Chinese community.

Meanwhile, in Australia, misinformation has cost Chinese-Australians business

and safety. In Europe, Chinese Italians have been reported to be targets of
racism. Even in the Ukraine, protesters have attacked buses carrying COVID-19
evacuees.

This xenophobic sentiment is also directed at Chinese Indonesians. Therefore the

Indonesian government needs to implement strategic risk communication to curb
the fearmongering and racist sentiments on social media, especially after the
public disclosure of COVID-19 patients in Indonesia.

Involve the public to win trust

Risk communication is not just about the scientific community or the experts
providing guidelines, instructions and warnings to public. Effective risk
communication needs to involve the public and it requires trust from the public.
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The major challenge for risk communication in the digital era is that so many more
people have so much more access and opportunity to create content of widely
varying quality, including material that is misleading, fanciful or patently false.

At times, content of this sort can even be picked up by mainstream media or

shared by public figures, which further spreads poor online information.

In this context, the Indonesian government’s risk communication approach has

been criticised. The government is notorious for hiding problems to protect its
public image.

A recent example of this was when the government tried to “restore peace” in
West Papua by curbing internet access amid mass political tension.

This approach might lead to misinformation and poor-quality information spreading

further on the internet. A study in Australia argues that when members of the
public are dissatisfied with the information provided by authorities, they will opt for
alternative information sources. As we have argued, this information can be of
varying quality, and is often not fact-checked or otherwise verified.

In the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, this can lead to harmful outcomes, for
example by encouraging social tension, such as the recent xenophobic sentiments
towards the Chinese-Indonesians.

Dark past repeats

In the Indonesian case, managing online misinformation is not just about reducing
the risks of an epidemic, but also about restoring community cohesion.
Throughout the period of the Suharto regime (1965-1998), Indonesians of Chinese
descent were the target of discrimination and violence.

As the regime established itself in 1965-66, Chinese-Indonesians were caught

up in the anti-communist violence that was unleashed with military backing.

In the last days of the regime (1997-1998), they were again targeted by violent
riots. The prejudice underlying such attacks on Indonesian-Chinese communities
continued to resonate in the reform (reformasi) era that followed the fall of the
Suharto regime in 1998.
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In the 2017 Jakarta election, Chinese Indonesians in Jakarta again became

targets of bigotry when a Chinese Indonesian served as acting-governor and then
ran as governor of the capital.

“It’s such a shame that coronavirus carriers are hidden in Indonesia. It seems the
government is concealing things, worrying that the Chinese will be kicked out by
the locals. When it’s announced that Indonesians have been infected, we should
realise that the coronavirus came from the boss of the communist countries.”

“It’s very easy for people to say bad things about Chinese Indonesians. We’ve
been told to go back to Wuhan, that the slanty-eyes cause trouble, that because
we have money, we can stock up all we want. The coronavirus spreads as a result
of our behaviour, so we can’t go around panicking.”

Steps to improve risk communication

There are several recommendations that the Indonesian government could

consider to communicate effectively during the current health crisis without
causing xenophobic responses or mass panic:

1. Involve and engage health workers at the local level (e.g. midwives, general
practitioners).

A one-way communication that does not address public concerns will make the
public ignore the government’s risk messages. Also, people are more likely to
respond to information coming from community-based sources rather than
“experts”.

2. Use positive story-telling with straightforward and accessible information to

avoid complexity and misunderstanding.
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Australian research on anti-vaccine misinformation suggests government risk

communication can be more effective when conveyed through a storytelling
approach. An example would be highlighting positive stories of preventing virus
spread, rather than amplifying fears of the virus.

Moreover, such research indicates the best messaging is straightforward. Social

media is not a space for complex messages.

3. Be persuasive, not instructional.

People will be likely to change their perception of the source of their fears
when they feel reasoned with, not instructed.

Anti-Chinese rhetoric is deeply rooted in Indonesian history and will not be easily
disappear. But this means it is even more important for the Indonesian
government to openly and persuasively address the anti-Chinese rhetoric.

By understanding public concerns and inviting public participation, risk

communication will be more relevant and effective. The internet must be used
strategically as it has now become one of the most important places people go
when they they need simple answers to some of their most troublesome
questions.

The COVID-19 virus does not care about race or nationality. If we let our
prejudices confuse and muddy our view of the issues at hand, we will only help its
spread.

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Sumber : https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/03/10/how-to-communicate-covid-
19-risk-without-fuelling-anti-chinese-sentiment-in-indonesia.html