EQUIVOCALITY DALAM KOMUNIKASI ORGANISASI: STUDI KASUS PERBEDAAN PENAFSIRAN INFORMASI PUBLIK YANG DIKECUALIKAN PADA KEMENTERIAN KEUANGAN

Abstract

In this age of freedom of information, people want the government to provide excellent and transparent public information services. Unfortunately, these demands sometimes experience obstacles due to equivocality in organizational communication. One case was the occurrence of equivocality of excluded public information (or can be interpreted as confidential information) in the Ministry of Finance, which was interesting to study further. This research tried to examine comprehension differences to uncover the causes of public information service officers' interpretation differences and ways to overcome them. This research approach was qualitative with a case study method. The research results identified several causes for differences in the interpretation of confidential public information, including concerns regarding negative impacts, potential misuse of information by applicants, political aspects of the information requested, and officers' lack of understanding in interpreting excluded public information. In overcoming differences in interpretation, personnel (public information service officers) had an important role and were responsible for overcoming equivalency in organizational communication. In addition, intensive meetings, consequence tests, annual monitoring and evaluation, minutes of agreements, training, the legal classification of information, firmness in decision-making, and knowledge internalization were used to resolve interpretation differences.