Unpacking Public Service Advertisements in Indonesia and Pakistan: A Content Analysis of Mass and Social Media Campaigns against COVID-19

Abstract

The governments of across the world adopted multifaceted strategies to control its spread and mitigate its effects. As the spread of COVID-19 pandemic was contagious in nature that was highly required to change public behavior regarding their health; one of the effective strategies adopted by the states is the use of public service advertisements (PSAs) through mass media and social media. This study conducted, through content analysis method, to measure themes, messages, and effectiveness of PSAs campaigns to control COVID-19 in mass media and social media in Indonesia and Pakistan. The themes and messages of PSAs that speak about COVID-19 identified and analyzed in comparison between both the selected counties Indonesia and Pakistan.  This study identifies themes in the PSAs that are about to take preventive measures, mitigation, personal hygiene, and social distancing in both the countries alike. The messages designed to increase awareness that may convince behavioral change of people; and to target people to provide basic guidelines for staying safe during the pandemic.

Varying the societal outlook of both the selected countries, PSAs also differed in terms of the frequency of themes and messages. In PSAs targeted Indonesian public put more emphasis on prevention and mitigation, while Pakistani side focused on personal hygiene. Through the analysis of PSAs related to COVID-19, this study found that, the effective PSAs in design and target bring notable behavioral change particularly in health-related issue. Further, this study concludes that PSAs are effective tool to bring behavioral change particularly in the time of such pandemic; it further recommends to explore the impact of PSAs on behavior change.