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Diana Hestya Ningsih, LSPR Institute of Communication & Business, IndonesiaAbstract
This study examines how Social Security Administrator for Health (BPJS Kesehatan) affiliated clinics in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi employ social media enabled communication strategies to manage slow burning crises, maintain patient trust, and protect institutional reputations. Operating within Indonesia’s National Health Insurance program (Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional, JKN), these clinics face administrative bottlenecks, heightened patient expectations, and competition from private providers, making effective crisis communication essential. Guided by Austin and Jin’s Social Mediated Crisis Communication (SMCC) model, with insights from Crisis Informatics and Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), this research reframes health communication as a hybrid, participatory process co constructed by organizations, patients, and broader publics. A mixed methods design combined a survey of 200 primary healthcare facilities with patient interviews and document analysis to assess the adoption and effectiveness of digital communication tools. Findings reveal that 92% of clinics use the JKN mobile application for complaint handling and teleconsultations, with 78% supplementing these functions through WhatsApp for personalized engagement, while Instagram and Facebook extend outreach and offline counseling supports elderly patients. Patients valued acknowledgment and empathetic responses, which improved perceptions of credibility even when resolutions were delayed. The study extends SMCC to systemic healthcare crises in the Global South, recommending stronger social listening, empathetic communication training, and improved JKN reliability to enhance patient centered care.
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Conference: MediAsia2025Stream: Social Media and Communication Technology
This paper is part of the MediAsia2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Ningsih D. (2026) Social Media Crisis Communication in the Global South: Lessons From BPJS Affiliated Clinics in Indonesia Using Austin & Jin’s SMCC Model ISSN: 2186-5906 – The Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 1-13) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2025.1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2025.1
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