DOI: 10.11648/j.ijics.20261102.12 ISSN: 2575-1719

Discourse Network Analysis of Digital Transformation Policy: Evidence from Indonesia's E-Government System

Gusmia Arianti, Edoardo Irfan, Nanang Haroni
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Digital transformation in the public sector requires massive changes in organizational structures, processes, and cultures, yet e-government development in Indonesia often shows a negative trend due to coordination failures and a lack of quantitative research. Prior research has primarily focused on technical challenges and IT system readiness, leaving a significant gap in understanding the discursive and relational dynamics among policy actors. To address this gap, this study aims to analyze the public debate and communication structures over Indonesia's Electronic-Based Government System (SPBE) policy, providing insights into how actors construct, contest, and disseminate digital governance outcomes through media networks. Theoretically, this research is built upon an ideational approach by integrating Actor Network Theory (ANT), which emphasizes relational materiality between human and non-human entities, with a specific focus on discourse and policy belief systems. Methodologically, this study employs Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) to combine qualitative content analysis with social network analysis. The data corpus comprises 6,274 straight news articles encompassing 11,144 data entities from major national news portals published between March 1 and June 29, 2024. The results reveal a predominance of neutral sentiment (66.3%), reflecting the media's role as an objective bureaucratic information channel, despite periods of crisis triggering heightened polarization. Network visualization identifies Budi Arie Setiadi as the central actor and primary information hub with high degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality, strategically connected to other key figures like Tito Karnavian, Pratikno, and Abdullah Azwar Anas. While this hierarchical structure supports efficient top-down information flow, it creates a structural gap between central ministerial actors and peripheral stakeholders, posing risks of communication bottlenecks. These findings offer practical implications for policymakers to foster more distributed communication structures and strengthen cross-actor connectivity.

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