Comments on: Why Indonesian villagers don’t know how to protect themselves against COVID-19

By: Arakah

Arakah — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 04:48:25 +0000

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.

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 07:43:11 +0000

In reply to Jenny. Thanks, Jenny, for this telling example!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 06:44:32 +0000

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.

By: Grace

Grace — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 06:38:25 +0000

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.

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 07:16:42 +0000

In reply to Fathima. Thanks, Fathima, for this insight from India!

By: Fathima

Fathima — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 05:18:10 +0000

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.

By: Jolie Pham

Jolie Pham — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 01:18:37 +0000

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.

By: Natalia

Natalia — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 05:29:34 +0000

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.

By: kexin pu

kexin pu — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 02:28:02 +0000

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.

By: Thao Nguyen

Thao Nguyen — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 06:01:34 +0000

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.

By: Vatnak

Vatnak — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 18:54:23 +0000

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,

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 03:22:14 +0000

In reply to Odette.

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.

By: Odette

Odette — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:48:05 +0000

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

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 19:17:32 +0000

In reply to Anka. Thank you, Anka! Couldn't agree more - language is a social issue!

By: Chen Wang

Chen Wang — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 16:23:18 +0000

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.

By: Anka

Anka — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 09:49:24 +0000

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.