Presidential Communication Protocol

By Gun Gun Heryanto

Jakarta, UIN Online News - A fundamental aspect requiring improvement in the Red and White Cabinet era led by President Prabowo Subianto is communication management. This issue has been openly acknowledged by the President, stating that government communication is still lacking and remains a major weakness.

Prabowo conveyed this during a meeting with several investors and economists at Menara Mandiri, Central Jakarta (8/4/2025) and previously during an interview with seven senior journalists at his residence in Hambalang, Bogor (6/4/2025).

Two areas need immediate improvement: presidential communication specifically and government communication generally, so that various strategic policies and priority programs undertaken by the government have a significant impact.

Presidential Communication

Prabowo's desire to work with an evidence-based performance philosophy will be hampered if communication management is neglected. The variety of channels accessed by citizens, and the speed of information exposing them, require Prabowo to genuinely have a presidential communication protocol.

The three main characteristics of presidential communication – being official, providing direction, and reflecting the authority inherent in the President's figure – are what need to be managed, both by Prabowo and the Presidential Communication Office (PCO) team.

The goals of presidential communication – to build mutual understanding, foster goodwill among parties for cooperation, strengthen mutual respect, and mitigate potential damage – are in practice influenced by three factors: the President's choice of communication style, the dynamic context of developing issues, and the competence of the communication team in the presidential institution.

The President and his communication team must fully understand that one of the principles of communication—referring to Larry A Samovar and Richard E Porter in their book, Communication Between Cultures (2012)—is that it is irreversible.

Communication cannot be retracted once the President or the team has conveyed it to the wider public. When President Prabowo and his spokespersons mistakenly express thoughts or policies, the public might understand or forgive, but they will not forget, especially in their collective memory.

Therefore, proficient communication privacy management is essential. Referring to Sandra Petronio, Boundaries of Privacy: Dialectics of Disclosure (2002), communication privacy management involves managing considerations and choices about what should be said and what should be kept from the public.

President Prabowo and his spokespersons must consider and regulate the messages produced and shared with the public based on the criterion of their importance. In high-level communication like the President's, relying solely on personal style and habits is insufficient.

If analyzed based on personal communication style choices, referring to the typology of communication styles from Stewart Tubbs and Sylvia Moss in the book Human Communication (1994), Prabowo has on many occasions shown himself to be a dynamic style.

The dynamic style has an aggressive tendency because the sender understands that their work environment is action-oriented.

The advantage of this style is that messages are more easily understood because statements are rarely ambiguous, and there isn't too much play on implicit cues, such as body language and other polysemic symbolic politics. This is a different personal style choice from what Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has practiced.

The disadvantage is the high potential for outbursts from controversial statements. Someone with a dynamic style is accustomed to being aggressive, evident in their choice of diction, oratory style, and a Daringness to present verbal aggressiveness.

Several of President Prabowo's controversial statements, such as regarding the Value Added Tax (VAT) increase, the discourse of regional heads being re-elected through the DPRD, forgiving corruptors, concerning the capital market, statistics from cases of free nutritious food poisoning, and several other issues, have sparked polemics.

A president with a dynamic style must be assisted by a solid, professional communication team that understands the character of presidential communication, rather than adding to the problem, as when PCO Head Hasan Nasbi responded to the pig's head terror incident at the Tempo office some time ago.

Referring to Dominic Infante in his writing, Argumentativeness and Verbal Aggressiveness (1996), there are two aggressive traits: argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness. Argumentativeness is the tendency to engage in conversations about controversial topics.

Meanwhile, verbal aggressiveness is the habit of attacking ideas, beliefs, egos, or self-concepts, where arguments are reasoned.

Argumentativeness is common in a democratic country. The problem is verbal aggressiveness that attacks other parties with message choices that risk causing problems, such as a tendency towards a lack of empathy or appearing condescending. These are the kinds of things that need to be addressed in the daily practice of presidential communication.

Improving the PCO

The PCO's working pattern must be improved immediately. The PCO was born at the end of President Jokowi's second term. At that time, Jokowi issued Presidential Regulation No. 82/2024 concerning the Presidential Communication Office. The PCO was formed with the consideration of realizing the effectiveness of organizing communication and information on strategic policies and priority presidential programs.

The PCO's work basis involves identification and findings, analysis and conclusions, and important recommendations for Presidential communication. This is reflected in the PCO's functions, namely analyzing actual issues and information, managing communication materials and strategies, carrying out information dissemination and media communication, and coordinating, synchronizing, and evaluating strategic communication information between ministries/agencies.

These strategic roles and functions of the PCO have been problematic at the beginning of the Prabowo administration. Personally, there is a clear communication gap and an unbridged chemistry between the Head of the PCO and his spokespersons with the President.

The Task Force for Handling Thuggery and Mass Organizations will work effectively if, and only if, President Prabowo is at the forefront of comprehensive institutional reform.

It is difficult to imagine the PCO functioning effectively with an office distanced from the President's office. The presidential institution's communication team must know the dynamic context of issues, the President's state of mind, thoughts, program priorities, and strategic policies. In addition, it must also intensely provide data reports, findings, analyses, and communication strategy recommendations to the President.

Therefore, there should be regular and intense briefings between the President and his communication team. Ideally, the communication team becomes the eyes, ears, and mouth in matters of presidential communication. Daily and regular activities, such as issue management, media analysis, social media conversation analysis, developing public opinion dynamics, and crisis management, must be an inseparable part.

The President must communicate diligently with his communication team. The more distant they are, the official, directive, and authoritative character of presidential communication will not be reflected by the communication team.

Institutionally, the PCO must also receive strong support. It should not be that the institution exists but cannot function optimally because it is not supported by the budget and trust to carry out its role. There should be a team disciplined as information "chefs" and those who serve as presenters.

Spokespersons who play the role of primary information gatekeepers must be divided with specific main focuses to avoid overlap.

In an era of abundant information, presidential communication must be present with adequate data management, communication management, and bureaucracy management. Unfavorable global, regional, and national conditions require communication mitigation readiness to avoid erosion and entry into a crisis vortex.

Referring to the views of Michael Regester and Judy Larkin, Risk Issues and Crisis Management (2000:48), a crisis does not arise suddenly but progresses from potential issues, then becomes actual and known to the wider public, especially if it receives massive media coverage, so that the crisis can peak and become uncontrollable. Therein lies the importance of communication management so that crisis potentials can be well mitigated.

A communication protocol is important to have so that communication management is more measurable, effective, and targeted. At a minimum, there are 12 important standards in a communication protocol, namely the communication context of statements and policies, the expected communication objectives, data and rule references, the main narrative, the role of information including who plays the role of spokesperson, and selected impactful communication activities.

In addition, the parties involved, the appropriate channels to use, the target audience or communicants, the expected effects, and guidelines on what may and may not be done/conveyed.

One of the urgent needs to be owned and used as the direction and workflow of the presidential communication team is a communication protocol.

Government Communication

This presidential communication protocol is also needed to overcome blockages between ministries and institutions, especially those connected to strategic policies and priority presidential programs.

Before the PCO, this role was played by the Presidential Staff Office (KSP). When the presidential regulation that became the basis for the formation of the PCO came into effect, the implementation of functions in the field of communication strategy management within the presidential institution, as well as the management of political communication strategies and information dissemination carried out by the KSP as regulated in Presidential Regulation No. 83/2019, were transferred to become the duties and functions of the PCO.

This shows the important position of the PCO in strengthening and accelerating government communication through the main characteristics of presidential communication.

The Red and White Cabinet lineup is the largest in post-Reformation history, consisting of 7 coordinating ministers, 41 ministers, 5 heads of institutions, and 56 deputy ministers. It carries the grand vision "Together with Advanced Indonesia: Towards Golden Indonesia 2045."

To realize this, the government has set 8 main Astacita missions, 17 priority programs, and 8 quick wins programs. It is almost impossible to realize all of this if the government's communication handling is chaotic. The presidential communication protocol with three pillars, namely public communication, political communication, and organizational communication, must be clear, directed, measurable, and adaptive to various dynamics that occur.

Presidential communication must not be trapped by personal taste but must be institutional. If it doesn't have a communication protocol and cannot function, what is the PCO for?

This article was published in the Kompas.id article column on Monday, May 21, 2025. The author is a Lecturer in Political Communication, Dean of FDIKOM UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, and also a Member of the Expert Council of the Indonesian Communication Scholars Association (ISKI) Central.