Heliyon (Jan 2022)
Not just about representative: When democracy needs females and their competency to run Indonesian government public relations to management level
Abstract
The democratic era has promoted transparency, public participation, and open access on public information, therefore, public relations is considered an integral part of the democratic process. The study is not only about genders representation, but also the outcome of involving genders and their competence in managerial positions. This study aims to portray the outcome of employing male and female and their competency in managing government public relations in Indonesia. An online survey on 102 public relations practitioners from various government institutions. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and univariate formula. The research reveals that government public relations have applied two-way communication models and resulted in an excellent outcome on Indonesian democratization. The findings affirm that the emerging democracy has encouraged effective practices and challenge public information, the previous model that government institutions provided. Results show different outcomes on two-way communication when male or female manages the model. On the managerial level, the female practitioners have proper competence implement the model at a higher level than males. Since gender issue in government public relations practices has been little investigated, this study recommends the Indonesian governments to provide more opportunities for female practitioners as part of the top management in public relations divisions. The government needs to change its mind-set that gender issue takes into account not only representativeness but also their competence.
