Indonesian Government Agents' Responses to Hoaxes: From Platitudes to Rebuttals

Purwadi Purwadi, Musfiah Saidah, Ikbal Maulana

Abstract


Hoaxes have been troubling the government because they often claim to be official government information or make false accusations about the government. This research aimed to analyse how government institutions respond to hoaxes, as reflected in the content of their websites. This article employs a corpus linguistic approach and uses several tools to collect data and examine issues and responses related to hoaxes through content analysis of news and press releases published on the official channels of 34 ministries between 2020 and 2022. The data analysed consisted of 1,348 news and press releases related to efforts to counter hoaxes and promote digital literacy, collected from the websites of these ministries and agencies. The research highlighted that the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kemenkominfo) played a dominant role in countering hoaxes, providing dedicated web pages for fact-checking. While other government organisations could counter hoaxes directed against them, they also offered counterinformation to be published on Kemenkominfo's website. However, despite their extensive public outreach, some other government organisations were not as active in countering hoaxes. Hoaxes did not seem to be their primary concern. The findings underscored the importance of digital literacy and proactive communication strategies in mitigating the impact of hoaxes and maintaining public trust in governmental institutions.

 

Keywords: Hoax, disinformation, fact-checking, content analysis, Indonesia.

 

https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2026-4202-08


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