Public Sentiment toward Indonesia's Free Nutritious Meal Program on X: A Systematic Review

Ardianta Sabtu, Oktober 03, 2026
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FORMOSA NEWS

Public Discourse on Indonesia’s Free Nutritious Meal Program Reflects Heterogeneous Public Sentiment on X

A systematic review published in September 2026 examines public sentiment toward Indonesia’s Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program expressed on the social media platform X. Conducted by Indri Anjar Kartika Sari, Chess Suratnoaji, and Agus Widiyarta from East Java "Veteran" National Development University (UPN "Veteran" Jawa Timur), the study synthesizes empirical findings across multiple research papers to explain how citizens communicate about this large-scale welfare initiative. Understanding these digital discussions provides critical feedback for policymakers, government agencies, and communication strategists evaluating public responses to national welfare initiatives.

Background and Relevance

The Free Nutritious Meal program represents one of Indonesia's major national social welfare initiatives designed to combat childhood stunting and improve nutritional intake among vulnerable populations. Officially launched on January 6, 2025, through 190 Service Nutrition Fulfillment units (SPPG) serving 570,000 individuals, the program expanded rapidly to 19,188 SPPGs across 38 provinces, serving approximately 55.1 million citizens by January 2026. This rapid scale-up generated widespread public attention and active digital discourse across social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter). Analyzing online public sentiment allows government bodies and social analysts to monitor public reactions, track emerging concerns, and measure public trust during large-scale policy implementation.

Simplified Methodology

The researchers conducted a systematic literature review following the PRISMA 2020 framework to identify empirical studies analyzing MBG sentiment on X. They searched academic databases including Google Scholar and GARUDA for peer-reviewed studies published between 2024 and 2026. Out of 892 initial records, 30 empirical studies met the full inclusion criteria and were synthesized descriptively and narratively. Rather than focusing solely on algorithm performance, the authors applied a communication perspective to analyze sentiment patterns, recurring themes, and methodological factors that explain variations across studies.

Key Findings

The review indicates that public sentiment toward the Free Nutritious Meal program on X is complex and heterogeneous rather than uniformly positive or negative:

  • Dominance of Positive Sentiment: A majority of reviewed studies reported a higher proportion of positive sentiment, primarily driven by perceived nutritional and social benefits, stunting reduction efforts, and support for vulnerable children.
  • Concerns Over Operational Quality: Critical and negative sentiments focused heavily on implementation challenges, including regional distribution inequalities, food hygiene, reported cases of food poisoning, budget transparency, and procurement accountability.
  • Significance of Informational and Neutral Content: Neutral posts represented a substantial portion of online discourse, reflecting X's role as a platform for circulating news, program updates, and factual discussions rather than purely evaluative opinions.
  • Methodological Impact on Findings: Variations in reported sentiment ratios across individual studies were strongly influenced by methodological choices, such as data collection periods, dataset sizes, sentiment labeling strategies (lexicon vs. transformer models like IndoBERT), and classifier algorithms.

Implications and Real-World Impact

The research offers valuable insights for public administrators, government agencies, and digital communication specialists managing large public policies. Public sentiment on social media serves as a real-time policy evaluation tool, distinguishing between overall public approval of a policy's goals and specific critiques of its execution. Policymakers can utilize these insights to improve food safety standards, address distribution bottlenecks, and enhance budget transparency, thereby maintaining public trust. For researchers, the study underscores the necessity of combining computational sentiment analysis with qualitative thematic analysis to accurately interpret digital public discourse.

Indri Anjar Kartika Sari, Chess Suratnoaji, and Agus Widiyarta from East Java "Veteran" National Development University noted, "Public attitude toward the Free Nutritious Meal program on X should not be viewed simply as approval or rejection, but rather as a combination of public expectations and evaluations of how the policy is implemented on the ground".

Author Profiles:

  1. Indri Anjar Kartika Sari, S.I.Kom. is a postgraduate researcher in the Master of Communication Science program at East Java "Veteran" National Development University, Indonesia, specializing in digital communication, social media analytics, and public relations.
  2. Dr. Chess Suratnoaji, M.Si. is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Communication Science at East Java "Veteran" National Development University, Indonesia, specializing in communication theory, political communication, and new media studies.
  3. Dr. Agus Widiyarta, M.Si. is an academic and researcher at East Java "Veteran" National Development University, Indonesia, with expertise in public administration, public policy evaluation, and governance.

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