Blunder Komunikasi Pemerintah dan Dampaknya terhadap Kepercayaan Publik: Tinjauan Literatur

Abstract

Communication is one of the government’s primary instruments for building public trust. On several occasions, government officials or institutions have made errors in word choice, narrative, or message framing referred to in this article as communication blunders which have eroded public trust. This narrative literature review aims to compile and synthesize studies on the relationship between government communication blunders and public trust in Indonesia over the past eight years (2018–2026), using Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), Image Restoration Theory, and framing theory as analytical lenses. Sources were collected from academic databases (Google Scholar, Garuda, ResearchGate, and DOAJ) using keywords related to communication blunders, government message framing, and situational crisis communication. The review finds that government communication blunders manifest in various forms, including officials’ statements perceived as lacking empathy, defensive or reactive crisis responses, and gaps between official media framing and public perception—all consistently linked to declining institutional legitimacy and public trust. The studies reviewed further indicate that symbolic recovery strategies without genuine corrective action tend to be less effective, while speed, consistency, transparency, and empathy repeatedly emerge as decisive factors in trust recovery. This review contributes to filling a research gap by synthesizing cases of Indonesian government communication blunders across institutions within a single, consistent analytical framework.