The Importance of Maintaining Self-Reputation

Tribratanews.polri.go.id - These weeks are sure to be tough and challenging days for the National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo and his staff. The decline in public trust in various surveys, as stated by the National Police Chief himself when President Jokowi summoned him and his entire staff, is clearly not an easy task to overcome.

The series of incidents that have hit the reputation of the Police, such as the murder case of Brigadier J involving high ranking officials, information on the 303 gambling consortium, the hedonistic lifestyle among the Police, the Kanjuruhan tragedy, to the TM drug case, makes a significant decrease in public trust towards the institution.

According to Rahmat Edi Irawan, a Communication Expert and lecturer of Bina Nusantara University, said that even though the message sent by the police is positive, could still often perceived as negative message by the recipient. This is because the recipient of the message already has his or her own judgment or perception, so they often do not want to accept the message, even though it is a positive message, and even tend to reject it.

One of the theories in communication science, Cognitive Dissonance Theory even explicitly states that there is a tendency for message recipients to select which messages that they will accept, and often times the accepted messages are only those that match their expectations and thoughts. Thus, it makes the sender hard to change the perception of the recipient if they already have a firm image of who the sender are.

For that, the Police need to reevalute and don’t act naturally as if things are normal as it was. Currently they are working hard and have planned various smart ways to regain the public trust they once had. Now, what the police needs to pay attention to is to focus on improving themselves, don’t repeat the same mistakes, and continue serving the community as best as they can, because that is the only way to regain the trust of the community that they lost recently.