72 Presidential Rhetoric in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: Jokowi’s Aristotelian Rhetorical Leadership Models Before and After Implementation of Lock Down Policy http://dx.doi.org/10.25008/jkiski.v6i1.538 Nyarwi Ahmad Department of Communication Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada Jl. Sosio-Justicia No. 1 Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta 55281 – Indonesia * Corresponding author: nyarwiahmad@ugm.ac.id Submitted: February 24, 2021, Revised: March 29, 2021, Accepted: May 15, 2021 Accredited by Kemristekdikti No. 28/E/KPT/2019 Abstract Presidential rhetoric evolved across the globe. Knowledge regarding the ways the presidents in democratic countries, which followed the presidential government system, such as Indonesia, advanced Aristotelian rhetorical leadership models in the covid-19 pandemic era, has, however, under-developed. Selecting president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) as a study case, this work raises the following question: what types of Aristotelian rhetorical leadership models performed by Jokowi before and after semi-lock down policy (PSBB) and how did he advance such rhetorical leaderships models? Focusing on such questions, this work adopts the president’s rhetorical leadership models, posited by Teten (2007) and Aristotelian rhetoric models, formulated by Gottweis (2007), as a conceptual framework. The materials posted in official Facebook pages of president Joko Widodo were extracted using the classic content and the qualitative and thematic content analyses. The findings are follows. Soon after the covid-19 pandemic outbreak took place in Indonesia, he attempted to develop the following types of rhetorical leadership, which are the identification, the authority and the directive rhetoric and the etho -logo-, and patho-centric Aristotelian rhetoric. Based on Indonesia case, this work offers the following knowledge contribution. It gives us new knowledge of 9 Aristotelian rhetorical leadership models, which are the etho-, logo- and patho-centric identification rhetoric, the etho-, logo- and patho-centric authority rhetoric and the etho-, logo- and patho-centric directive rhetoric models. Not merely the presidents, but also the local governments’ leaders could adopt such rhetoric models when they want to resolve diverse issues resulting from the pandemic. Key Words: President’ rhetoric; covid-19 pandemic, Aristotelian rhetorical leadership; Joko Widodo; lock down policy Introduction The outbreak of coronavirus has been taking place across the globe. This pandemic has been widely acknowledged as entailing huge negative impacts on not merely the global and national public health systems, but also the global and national economic and political orders. As this pandemic disrupted such systems and orders, most of top-leaders of the executive body of the governments within and across countries kept striving to establish not merely the workable policies, but also rhetorical strategies to do so. However, while such trends have been visible in Indonesia, types of Aristotelian rhetorical leadership models advanced by the presidents in the emerging democracies when they proposed and delivered Jurnal Komunikasi Ikatan Sarjana Komunikasi Indonesia, Vol. 6 (1), 2021, 72-85 J U R N A L E-ISSN: 2503-0795 P-ISSN: 2548-8740 KOMUNIKASI IKATAN SARJANA KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA