ANTARA CEO Equips Immigration Directorate with Communication Strategies in the Disruption Era

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Chief Executive of the State News Agency ANTARA, Benny Siga Butarbutar, equipped the ranks of the Directorate General of Immigration with communication strategies in the disruption era to build institutional legitimacy and resilience.

“Currently, the government is engaged in a struggle to reconvince a changing society. That is the service, communication, and ease that must be done quickly,” he said while serving as a speaker at the Immigration Public Relations Gathering 2026 in Cibubur, East Jakarta, on Wednesday.

Thus, Benny stated, transformation in the field of communication becomes important to restore public trust.

According to him, the Directorate General of Immigration is a symbol of Indonesian service and bureaucracy because this agency not only provides services to the domestic population but also to foreign nationals (WNA).

Therefore, Benny reminded that the image and reputation of Indonesian Immigration must be built and maintained sustainably for the public interest and Indonesia’s image in the global eye.

Meanwhile, in his presentation, the ANTARA CEO discussed the global situation’s shift from the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity (VUCA) era to the Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible (BANI) era.

He explained that in the VUCA era, the world is viewed as a place of rapid change, difficult to predict, and full of uncertainty. This was developed by the US military during the Cold War.

Meanwhile, in the current BANI era, the world is seen as more fragile, unpredictable with usual patterns, increasingly uncertain changes, and compounded by a society gripped by high anxiety.

Benny emphasised that this condition must be addressed by building resilience, one of which is through transformative communication strategies.

Narrative Command

One of the communication strategies emphasised by Benny on that occasion was the transformation from a bureaucratic approach to public responsiveness. In this context, he reminded that public relations is the narrative command centre.

The strategic communication framework includes transforming public relations culture, building empathetic communication, understanding media relations, and implementing social listening through media monitoring.

According to him, public relations in the disruption era needs to transform from merely waiting for directives to reading situations, from responding to managing expectations, and from clarifying to building trust.

“Public relations here must be proactive,” he said.

The Immigration Public Relations Gathering is an annual event held by the Public Communication Function of the Directorate General of Immigration. The event was attended by hundreds of immigration office heads and immigration detention houses from across Indonesia.