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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 9, No. 8
Publication Date: August 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/abr.98.10741. Alhakim, B. A., & Ishomuddin. (2021). Unraveling the Social Meaning of Community Members to the Covid-19 Outbreak
(Pandemic) in East Java, Indonesia. Archives of Business Research, 9(8). 219-224.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Unraveling the Social Meaning of Community Members to the
Covid-19 Outbreak (Pandemic) in East Java, Indonesia
Bambang Amir Alhakim
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
Department of Political Science, Unisda Lamongan
Ishomuddin
Professor of Sociology, University of Muhammadiyah Malang
ABSTRACT
This study aims to understand the social meaning of some community members for
the occurrence of the covid-19 outbreak (pandemic). The method used to reveal the
social meaning is descriptive qualitative. In practice, the writers use Max Weber's
theory of social action based on "verstehen" and analyzed by Mile, Huberman and
Saldana's interactive model to reveal the social meaning of several community
members in East Java, Indonesia. The results of this study are as follows: Some
community members believe that this covid-19 outbreak (pandemic) is truly seen
as a test from God. Some other members of the public think that the COVID-19
outbreak (pandemic) is an engineering or scenario by certain countries to weaken
the nations of the world, including Indonesia, for the sake of mere (material) power
ambitions. Several other members of the public assumed that this COVID-19
outbreak (pandemic) did exist but had been engineered in such a way that it tends
to be exaggerated as a form of terror to the community and tends to blame the
government. And, some other community members consider this a disaster and
indeed the time has come for the calamity to come during the twin year, 2020 AD.
Keywords: Meaning, Covid-19, Pandemic Outbreak, Community Behavior
INTRODUCTION
As we all know that the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia is in a big test with its citizens,
together with its people or society with the occurrence of the COVID-19 (pandemic) that is
hitting the Territory of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, it can even be said to have
hit the whole world. With the occurrence of the COVID-19 outbreak (pandemic), it certainly
brings a very powerful affect to all Indonesian people, including specifically the people of the
City of Tuban, Lamongan, Bojonegoro. We often listen to various complaints from the public,
ranging from mild to severe, until they invite a sense of desperation, giving birth to various
responses, including the most narcissistic being the abusive words that blaspheme the
government and the health workers who handle it.
Regardless of who is at fault or blaming each other on the one hand, on the other hand, we are
actually facing a major disaster, a major national and even global test with the outbreak of
COVID-19, which to this day has not ended, but instead caused many deaths here and there.
which all of us often witness this phenomenon. Because it is a problem and concern for the
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 8, August-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
whole community, the author is interested in examining the meaning of the behavior of various
community responses to the Covid-19 outbreak (pandemic) in a sociological meaning
(behavior) study. Then look at the study of meaning carried out by previous research, which is
very relevant to current contemporary research regarding the covid-19 outbreak. The author
is interested in exploring the works of Weber [1], [2], Hamidi [3] on the meaning, where some
people carry out the conversion of understanding from NU to Muhammadiyah. As a study of
meaning, it really tickles my heart and intellectually to conduct research on the study of
meaning in different themes even though the context is the same, namely doing the same as
doing sociological studies of meaning in social science disciplines. From the background of the
problem, an urgent problem can be formulated from the study of the meaning of behavior as
follows: What are the motivations behind some community members giving birth to various
behavioral responses? What individual, social meanings were found after several members of
the community made a behavioral response to the COVID-19 outbreak (pandemic)? How do the
Government and related stakeholders respond and respond to the behavioral responses of
several community members related to the outbreak (pandemic) of covid -19?
LITERATURE REVIEW
In social life we always find many meanings because of the heterogeneity and plurality of a
society as its characteristics. Physically, humans may be the same, hair can be as black, lips can
be as thin or as thick, but this is not the case with individual orientations, thoughts, behaviors,
hopes, etc., so that the meaning found will also be different from differences. his behavior.
The meaning itself as a definition is defined as a deep understanding of the language
(Indonesian Dictionary). However, the meaning itself according to sociologists is the ability to
organize observations related to other objects or situations or more precisely, it can be said to
be an assessment. Weber said that human actions will be distinguished by the meanings that
form the basis (orientation) for taking action. In contrast to Ferdinand De Saussure, he
understands meaning as what is signified or signified. Then, the meaning itself as the purpose
of life is put forward by Rahardjo [4] in the main point of his entire book emphasizing that
meaning is aimed at obtaining the happiness of a meaningful life. Similarly, Tan [5] in his work
asserts that the meaning of life is if you are able to understand life full of meaning. Humans are
not only in the physical world alone. Humans live in a symbolic world. Therefore, symbols are
not only universal but also diverse. It takes a deeper understanding to understand a symbol. A
symbol can be interpreted in various forms. The meaning of symbols is not only in the
dimension of reality, but the meaning of symbols can also explain the dimensions behind reality.
The use of symbols can describe the social motives of users in society [6].
Likewise with regard to behavior, every human being who is still soulful has one behavior
which of course has different motives. The definition of behavior itself is a series of actions
made by each individual in relation to himself or his environment. But actually every behavior
contains meaning as an action that is always based on certain motives. Qurtubi, [7] in his work
"Organizational Behavior" asserts that every action is based on certain needs. However, in
Weber's view [8], every behavior is based on a certain rationality known as action rationality
as a response to human rationality acting or taking action.
Response is an answer, reply or response. It can be said to be more specific as an answer, reply
or response to events that arise. Nugroho [9] implicitly mentions that the response is a form of
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Alhakim, B. A., & Ishomuddin. (2021). Unraveling the Social Meaning of Community Members to the Covid-19 Outbreak (Pandemic) in East Java,
Indonesia. Archives of Business Research, 9(8). 219-224.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.98.10741
responsibility. Being responsive means being responsive, moved, likes to respond well in other
words very responsive and not ignorant. So the meaning, behavior, and response of each
individual is basically not the same, it will always be different to a problem that arises or a
phenomenon that arises because of differences in perspective, life orientation, interests, and
values that exist in each individual are not the same level caused by many things, can be
parenting family childhood, education, religion, and so forth form a different response. In
connection with the covid-19 outbreak (pandemic), the author wants to know the meaning of
the response behavior of several community members regarding the covid-19 outbreak
(pandemic) that is currently engulfing the world, including Indonesia, including people in the
cities of Tuban, Lamongan, and Bojonegoro. The definition of a pandemic is an epidemic that
spreads simultaneously everywhere or covers a wide geographical area. So the meaning of the
response behavior of some members of the community piqued the curiosity of the author to
conduct this research to find the answer in depth (verstehen) and comprehensively.
METHOD
This research is basically trying to find out, understand and reveal how the real meaning of the
behavior of the response of some community members to the COVID-19 outbreak (pandemic)
is. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative which is carried out to understand
and explore a social phenomenon based on the construction of meaning or human
understanding. It is very dependent on one's knowledge, understanding, perception,
understanding and assumption [10]. The world of meaning and understanding will then be
illustrated through words, both written and oral as well as in the behavior of the human
concerned as expressed by Denzin [11], [12], Wahidah [13] "The qualitative approach is
participatory observation and in-depth interviews are research procedures that produce
descriptive data in the form of written or spoken words from people and observable behavior”,
(2). In qualitative research, the process is more important than the result. (2) Analysis in
qualitative research tends to be done inductively. (3) Meaning is essential in qualitative
research. In this study, researchers present descriptive data in the form of written or spoken
words from respondents. After that, analyze and interpret the data, in other words using an
"emic" perspective with the understanding that the data collected is attempted to be described
based on expressions, language, ways of thinking and views of research subjects. So that it can
reveal the behavior of meaning contained in the responses of some members of the community.
Then to maintain the validity of the data validly, in-depth interviews were carried out until no
other opinion was found, religion in the form of the meanings implied in it. In summary, it can
be stated that the stages of research methods carried out in research in order to obtain the
validity of the data include:
1. Research paradigm: the naturalism paradigm is methodologically oriented to examine
social life in natural settings such as describing, understanding, and analyzing social life
that is free from scientific manipulation.
2. Research approach: a phenomenological approach used to understand the symptoms
that appear as a unified whole which has the basic concept of the problem caused by a
subjective perspective.
3. Types of research: including qualitative research, which collects data and interpretation
is not in the form of numbers. Qualitative research method as a procedure that produces
descriptive data in the form of written or spoken words from people or observed
behavior.