Editor’s note: The language challenges of the COVID-19 crisis have held much of our attention this year. Here on Language on the Move, we have been running a series devoted to language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis since February, and readers will also have seen the special issue of Multilingua devoted to “Linguistic Diversity in a Time of Crisis”.
Additionally, multilingual crisis communication has been the focus of the research projects conducted by Master of Applied Linguistics students at Macquarie University as part of their “Literacies” unit. We close the year by sharing some of their findings.
Here, Yudha Hidayat shows that the over-reliance on written communication channels in rural Indonesia has resulted in a stark lack of information about how to prevent the spread of the virus.
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Official COVID-19 information
The information gap between urban Australia and rural Indonesia
When the COVID-19 pandemic really took off in March 2020, I called my parents, who live in a village in West Nusa Tenggara (WNT) province. I asked them how the people in my village were preparing themselves to stem the spread of the virus.
Their shocking response was that they had no idea what to do.
I explained the health protocol in detail and sent money so that villagers could buy face masks. That was all I could do while I was far away from home.
For this research, I explore how it is possible that a community is not aware of COVID-19 prevention measures. How could my parents not know what to do? It is true that they do not own smartphones and do not have internet access but they do watch a lot of TV.
Unlike most people in my village, I am a literate and educated man. Having a strong internet connection in Australia, I can access a wide range of information from different sources in English and Indonesian.
Here, I argue that the pandemic has exposed global inequalities in information delivery and that local governments need to take local communication seriously in the fight against the disease.
How COVID-19 prevention information was delivered in WNT province
The local government has relied heavily on its official website and social media as the primary tools for delivering Covid-19-related information.
Official COVID-19 information
The official website is updated weekly and provides infection lists. The website also includes a long health protocol, and provides flyers, graphics, tables, and figures. All this information is only available in Indonesian with some English words and phrases mixed in, such as “social distancing”, “lockdown”, and “contact tracing”.
Monolingual information in a multilingual context
The reliance on the Indonesian language, as the only language used for this essential information, ignores the diversity of multilingual citizens.
WNT province comprises two main islands, namely Lombok and Sumbawa, and tens of small islands. The majority of the people in this province are from three ethnic groups, namely Sasak, Bima, and Sumbawa. Each of these groups has its own language including various dialects and at least nine other languages are spoken in the province, including Bajo, Balinese, Bugis, Javanese, Madura, Makasar, Mandarin Ampenan, and Melayu.
Given low levels of education in the province, the Indonesian language proficiency of many of these speakers of other languages will not be sufficient to fully understand the public health information provided to them.
Digital written communication in a low-literacy and low-technology context
The reliance on written text and on online delivery is also problematic.
According to data from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia (2019) WNT has a low overall literacy index (i.e., 33.64). Furthermore, only a small number of citizens use digital technology to access written materials (20.48), and reading is a habit for only a minority (38.17). Another indicator shows that 12.41% of the population of WNT are illiterate.
All these facts make it clear that COVID-19-related information provided only through the written medium on a website is out of the reach of many citizens.
English loan words exacerbate the problem
The use of foreign terms, tables, and figures on the website exacerbates these problems further.
Even among those who are proficient in Indonesian and have access to the internet, not everyone will understand English. The high level of English loanwords thus acts as a further barrier.
Infection numbers remain high throughout Indonesia
The same is true for the ability to interpret tables and figures.
What can be done?
As I have shown, vital information related to COVID-19 is provided in a way that makes it inaccessible to many in WNT. Although it is true that Covid-19-related reporting can also be found on TV and in newspapers, neither of these channels address the problems of illiterate people and/or those who live in remote areas.
It is obviously impossible to lift the literacy levels of a populations during a crisis or to catch up on telecommunications infrastructure. But that does not mean that public health information cannot be communicated effectively.
The alternative method that I propose is to utilise the oral method as an additional communication channel, as has been done successfully in Taiwan (Chen, 2020). The infrastructure exists as every neighborhood has a leader (‘Ketua RT’) who could be trained and tasked with providing COVID-19 information in this manner.
Oral communication could utilize the loudspeakers of mosques and temples that are readily available in every neighborhood. Oral announcements over loudspeakers are plausible since they can easily be delivered in local languages and are accessible regardless of literacy level and internet access.
This would not only help curb the spread of the virus but also accord local people the dignity and respect they deserve.
Reference
Chen, C-M. (2020). Public health messages about Covid-19 prevention in multilingual Taiwan. Multilingua, 39 (5), 597-606.
This work is licensed under a
Thank you Yudha is such an important article that highlight points and spots that we didn’t know about it as most of us live in a literate community, but this could lead us to see the small cities and villages that we originally came from.
I originally came from Syria, a small city in the east of the country. the community had a huge amount of elderly people who illtreat. When the pandemic starts, this group of people had not any access to the resource which help them to know more about the pandemic, than about vaccination. However, there was the only TV, and the news was concerned about the negative side of the pandemic and the vaccination. So, this oral communication wasn’t helpful, however, it was an essential part to let this group avoid the vaccination.
As I think, the oral communication should come with rise of the awareness, because the oral communication could be the one side cognition. For example, when we know about the disadvantages and nothing about advantages.
Thanks a lot.
I can feel the situations in Indonesia and Peru since I was born and grew up in a rural area, where people have ever lived under shortages of many things, especially education. Regardless of wherever literacies announced, unclarified information often causes many difficulties in prevention and fight work of the COVID-19 disease.
An example happened in a big city in Vietnam, one of the recent literacies has caused misunderstanding and inconvenience to health staff team. A doctor who went out to help and bring medicine to patients treated at home was stopped by a policeman under stay-at-home restriction orders although the doctor brought enough papers to prove his identity and responsibility. The police did not understand clearly that the stay-at-home order does not involve authorized health staff because of partly orders without logical explanations of subjects being able to go out. Thus, I agree with Alejandra that it should be combined literacies and oral communication to provide information with clarified explanations to people.
Thanks, Jenny, for this telling example!
Thank you for the informative writeup, Yudha. Unlike the context you have described, the Australian government has provided translations of Covid-19 related information into 63 different languages. However, according to the 2016 Australian census, there were responses of over 300 different languages spoken at home so there are bound to be minority languages that are excluded in this. Furthermore, the information is provided is only accessible from the Department of Health website which requires a smartphone/tablet/laptop/desktop device as well as internet access. It is almost impossible to access the information without digital literacy. Additionally, Peru’s Covid-19 situation described by Alejandra, reminds me of a friend’s situation in Malaysia. My friend is able to access the guides provided by the government in her language, but the unstable situation in her area means there are constant disruptions to the water system, leaving them cut-off from a clean water supply for periods of time when it’s listed as a part of an important precautionary step.
India a multilingual country is communicating well during the first & second waves of COVID-19 utilizing digital literacy and telecommunications. Its effectively using literacy of the notable 22 languages in posters, Tv, social media, and radio to spread preventive measures in urban and rural areas. Though most of the literacy rate has risen in a couple of years, yet we still see many illiterates in rural areas across the states (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana Rajasthan, and many more).
At the same time, the vaccination drive has been slow in rural areas as compared to urban. The key reasons for this include lack of internet connectivity, low smartphone access, digital illiteracy, and apprehensions about vaccine safety. Moreover, there is also a problem of availability of doses, which has intensified the lag. This is related to Yudha’s context of rural areas facing low-literacy rate, low-technology medium access which is out of reach for such people in less developed rural areas.
Thanks, Fathima, for this insight from India!
Thanks, Yudha. Your writing is informative as it highlights that Covid preventation information is inaccessible to some areas with the current technological and literate rate. Indonesia has overlooked the multilingual context and hindered the preventative likelihood against COVID by employing only Indonesian language and high-tech communication means. Another context, Covid communication in Australia is impressive with multilingual and widespread approaches, but it also receives criticisms. The mask wearing rule was released by afternoon through media and required an immediate execution by evening with a penalty fine. Furthermore, regulations often need paraphrasing and further explanations, such as 5km travel distance for local governments of concern, buddy bubble, who being essential workers.
These two articles had emphasised how literacy practice is one of the most essential elements in fighting this COVID-19 pandemic. When people focus more on the action of fighting the pandemic (i.e. washing hand, social distancing, etc), they forgot that distributing information is as important as the practice itself. I agree that in a multilingual country or city, literacy practice regarding COVID-19 could be challenging for some people, especially the non-literate one. Having lots of regional languages where not all these speakers are fluent in the national language would be an issue for the government to communicate the prevention of the spreading if they are not trying to include all walks of life.
I would like to highlight some of the major concerns regarding this crisis communication during the pandemic. Cavero, the author of the first article, mentioned that though the government had made an effort on providing information in various languages, none of this would work when access to proper infrastructure is provided.
As an Indonesian, I do understand that welfare distribution in Indonesia is not equally spread. While people in great cities might enjoy the luxury of internet access, literacy practice, and proper hygiene and sanitation, some people in rural areas do not. There are even some areas that do not have access to clean water and electricity at all, let alone internet access, makes the communication barrier between people even bigger. Although oral communication could provide the better practice, an effort should be made to improve people’s life and welfare to stop this pandemic.
About the first blog, There are multilingual approach and availability of materials in numerous Indigenous languages in Peru. So I can see that Peruvian use different languages to tell citizens how to prevent COVID-19 virus, their literacy is rich, but if their method can combine with the telecommunication approach, it will be better advertised. As for the second blog, there is big information gap between urban Australia and rural Indonesia. I can see that when we use written languages and scientific and technological means to prevent COVID-19 virus. And this article provides us with a new idea which is that we can use oral announcements to deliver the information of prevention of COVID-19 virus infection and transmission. Maybe this method is a concise and very popular way to citizens to accept among different societies.
Reading these articles affirms that literacy is the ability to read texts, tables, figures, diagrams, skills that enable comprehension of Covid related texts and print media.
In these 2 articles, the approaches to disseminating covid news made assumptions about the reader. In the first , that their literacy level, lifestyle and access to services are matched with the rest of the nation. Similarly, in the second, the same assumptions are made.
It could be misconstrued that this assumption is the result of the government not giving value to these minority communities. They have mass produced the posters and assumed the information contained in it will do its job. It is a case of quantity over quality. On second thought, the preventative action hasn’t gone further enough.
Hi,
This post is another important example the effect of multilingual literacy in helping the society to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. The condition of Indonesia is similar to that of my country in the sense that many people, especially those in remote areas, still have limited understanding to access to the information. Also, I find the alternative solution of spreading the information to the people is quite similar to the methods used in my country. Luckily, my country does not have that so many groups of indigenous people as in Indonesia so that it seems easier for the government to take action to respond to the crisis. Plus, my country also shows the efforts to use multilingual communication to reach the target minority who are residing in our country too. Yet, mostly other minorities who are still staying in my country are normally live in the big city where access to information is not a big deal.
Thanks,
Hi Ingrid,
Thank you for another insightful reading.
It is interesting to read about the language challenges of the COVID-19 crisis in different parts of the world and seeing how this pandemic has brought to light the inequalities in delivering information. In Indonesia, the local government relies on websites, social media, and the reliance on the Indonesian language as the primary tool for communication among the citizens, but clearly, this is not working due to low literacy and low technology context. The idea of utilising oral methods as a channel of communication would certainly decrease the inequalities as it becomes accessible to all individuals regardless of literacy levels. I definitely agree that it would create inclusivity and minimise inequalities. This is a similar action taken by the NSW government as it uses websites and holds press conferences to provides information and updates. It also has information available in different languages for individuals with low English levels which is a positive step in communicating effectively. Although the information is available on websites, there’s also a limitation as it requires individuals to be able to use the internet and have navigation skills to find the required information.
COVID19 resources in different languages.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/languages.aspx
Thanks, Odette! I always think that organizing information by language is useless because that’s not how people look for information – I mean when we want to know about [topic], we don’t go “Let me look up information in English …” but “Let me look up information about [topic]” … and that’s how it works in other languages, too.
Thanks, Ingrid. Your observation and reflection of the communicative barriers in the period of COVID-19 are really significant. Also, it is a representation of many countries with low literacy and low technic. There is a gap between how the government spread public health information and what can be received by the public. For Indonesia, compared to Australia, except using the internet to convey messages, loudspeakers and door-knocking could be more effective based on its own context. What is the effective method to spread information should be decided by the context. In my country, China, loudspeakers are used almost in every community so that people with low literacy can be benefited. Using multimodal text is a good way to cater to a complex context.
Probably we should not take it as an interesting issue but a serious social one. These two conditions have some differences from each other in addition to crisis communication. Rural Peruvian areas are not provided with adequate concrete and entitative equipment to get access to the actual action on prevention information, apart from crisis communication, people here are possibly losing confidence in written language as it constantly carries information that they can not act on. The issue in Indonesian villages is slightly different. Instead of actions behind language meanings are not taken correspondently, the language meaning itself is probably not delivered successfully, in this case, people may get less confidence in the identity of their own language since important information is all covered through other languages, even in the same national land.
As mentioned in this article, the medium to bridge this gap could be the oral form of the local language for the later issue. The first issue could probably only be coped through the construction of a realistic context for language meaning – infrastructure construction.
Thank you, Anka! Couldn’t agree more – language is a social issue!
I am so inspired by every week’s readings which facilitate me to start thinking about how literacy is in the current condition worldwide. The huge gap between countries appeared in many ways against Covid-19. To promote the instruction of Covid-19 prevention, Peru encountered difficulties in promoting the instruction throughout multilingual communities and infrastructures in poor rural areas. Similarly, Indonesia has the issue of multilingual communities due to the telecommunications infrastructure and low level of literacy. Oral communication is a good suggestion that reminds me of the method used in my hometown, China. Many social workers or volunteers who walked around the village every day to play the local language’s instruction of Covid-19 prevention via loudspeakers, ensure each family knows how to protect.
Thanks, Milly! These relatively low-tech communication solutions like loudspeakers and health workers door-knocking are too easily forgotten but super-important, particularly in rural, linguistically diverse and/or low-literacy contexts.
Thanks, Yudha, for sharing your case study. You clearly highlight the big barriers between the government’s communication strategies and people’s information access practices. What is really fantastic is that your suggestion seems to be something very easy to achieve. And, as you say, it is a great way to not only to effectively deliver crucial information, but also communicate respect to its recipients!
Hi Yudha,
I love that you highlight that the provision of inclusive communication is tied to giving respect and dignity to the locals.
This was a really interesting read!
Thanks,
Tazin.
Hi Tazin
Thank you for reading my research blog post. I believe that one way to respect the locals is by utilising their languages.
Yudha