*Rachmat Kriyantono, Azahar Kasim, Nilam Wardasari, Sinta Swastikawara, Nurshazana Abdul Rani

Abstract:

This research aims to evaluate the quality of Indonesian and Malaysian government websites as a communication channel for the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The evaluation involved three dimensions of WebQual 4.0, an evaluation standard for website quality because it contains the principles of mass communication and dialogic face-to-face communication. Government websites can serve as the main source of information for journalists in producing news. If a substantial amount of mass media news is sourced from government websites, then the government public relations practitioner functions as a provider of information subsidies to build a media agenda. A total of 37 Indonesian and 36 Malaysian journalists filled out the study’s online questionnaire. Findings reveal that the interactive quality of both government websites is still low, but aspects of technology or usability and information quality are at a satisfactory level.

Keywords: Information subsidies, government public relations, journalists, pandemic crisis, WebQual 4.0