Understanding Responses to Worship Regulations in the Pandemic Era: Text Data Mining Analysis in the Indonesian Context

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the critical discourse on responses to worship regulations during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Diverse responses emanated from the media, religious leaders, and civil society organizations in the Indonesian context. The wide range of responses to worship regulations is reflected in continuous debate, demonstrating two primary groups, one in support of the government regulations and the other opposed to limitations on congregational worship activities. This shows the need for the proper messaging of content and dissemination to promote behavioral changes relative to relevant health issues. In order to achieve the main objective, we employed a qualitative method involving a discourse analysis of several leading online news sources’ viewpoints, religious leaders’ viewpoints, and religious organizations’ public statements. This study found two main factors associated with the response to worship regulations in the pandemic era. The main finding involved supportive and contradictive orientations. The supportive path indicated a supportive response, referring to the enhancement of the proper analysis of public worship regulations, while the contradictive one referred to the continuation of life as normal, free of restrictions and regulations. This study suggests that clear details on the reasons for restrictions and regulations are required on all forms of social media in order to provide all parties with a better understanding of the need for these measures.