POLEMIC OF TWO MINISTERIAL REGULATIONS AND ITS IMPLICATION AMID COVID-19 CRISIS IN INDONESIA (CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS)

Abstract

The Indonesian government as the authorized holder of regulations enforces various policies to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these policies, there were two regulations of the Minister of Transportation ‘Permenhub’ and the Minister of Health ‘Permenkes’ which caused polemics in the community. Addressing this issue,  this paper aims to examine the problem that causes the two regulations to become controversial discussion among the people and how the online mass media highlights this polemic, as well as the implications arising from this polemic. The issue was examined through a critical discourse analysis approach.  The analysis method of this study uses the content analysis model. The source of this research data is the text regulation of Permenkes and Permenhub, namely the aspect of forming language discourse, text and context contained in the text as well as some news texts taken from the online mass media. The analysis shows that the polemic that occurs between the Permenhub and Permenkes policies was  one of the problems of developing text and context. Secondly, polemic was widely highlighted by the mass media crews and journalists, known that the mass media also featured the news as pro-cons. Mass media coverage was dominated by criticism of Permenhub.  Implication of this situation was the negative sentiment towards the Minister of Transportation Mr. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. In broader contexts, the polemics  caused the declining condition of Indonesian community belief to the government.