scholarly journals The language of crisis: spatiotemporal effects of COVID-19 pandemic dynamics on health crisis communications by political leaders

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Mandl ◽  
Ben Y. Reis
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Crisis Communications ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Prevention Of Infections

AbstractIn times of crisis, communication by leaders is essential for mobilizing an effective public response. During the COVID-19 pandemic, compliance with public health guidelines has been critical for the prevention of infections and deaths. We assembled a corpus of over 1500 pandemic-related speeches, containing over 4 million words, delivered by all 50 US state governors during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the semantic, grammatical and linguistic-complexity properties of these speeches, and examined their relationships to COVID-19 case rates over space and time. We found that as COVID-19 cases rose, governors used stricter language to issue guidance, employed greater negation to defend their actions and highlight prevailing uncertainty, and used more extreme descriptive adjectives. As cases surged to their highest levels, governors used shorter words with fewer syllables. Investigating and understanding such characteristic responses to stress is important for improving effective public communication during major health crises.

Communications and Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Sharfstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Political Judgment ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
Centers For Disease Control

An effective communications approach starts with a basic dictum set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Be first, be right, be credible.” Agencies must establish themselves as vital sources of accurate information to maintain the public’s trust. At the same time, public health officials must recognize that communications play out in the context of ideological debates, electoral rivalries, and other political considerations. During a public health crisis, this means that health officials often need to constructively engage political leaders in communications and management. Navigating these waters in the middle of a crisis can be treacherous. Figuring out the best way to engage elected leaders is a core aspect of political judgment.

scholarly journals Social Media for Crisis Communication in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak: A Study of NCDC

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 (40)) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Beryl EHONDOR ◽  
Christiana UNAKALAMBA
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Communication Policy ◽  
Crisis Communications ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
High Level

Several scholars have studied social media use for crisis com- munication. However, few studies have been carried out to investigate so- cial media deployment during a public health crisis, such as the Corona- virus outbreak. This study accessed public awareness and engagement of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)’s social media use for crisis communications during the Coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria. It also as- sessed the influence of communication towards public positive behavioural adjustments. The study data was gathered via a survey of 400 citizens and Facebook users and analysed using excel and SPSS. The study found public awareness of the NCDC social media communications during the outbreak; there was also a public behavioural adjustment to NCDC’s recommended preventive behaviours. However, there was a low engagement in NCDC’s crisis communication via Facebook. The study reveals a high level of public uncertainty about NCDC Facebook communications and a change in public opinion about the Coronavirus. This study concludes that this situation could result from competing information about the Coronavirus on social media during the COVID outbreak and recommended further studies in this area. Findings are helpful for health communication policy reviews, strategic crisis communication assessments, appraisal of similar agencies, and further research.

scholarly journals Indiana University's Community Engagement Framework for a Public Health Priority

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Newhouse ◽  
Faith Kirham Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Grand Challenge ◽  
Indiana University ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Major Health ◽  
The People ◽  
High Utility

In 2017, significant increases in opioid overdoses and the crippling effect of substance use on the health of Hoosiers heighted a sense of urgency to address this major health crisis. Indiana University (IU) initiated a Grand Challenge: Responding to the Addictions Crisis (AGC) through a $50 million investment in intramural research and projects to address addictions in Indiana in synergy with state and health system partners. The announcement resulted in immediate response from the community via email and calls with request for engagement from the people of Indiana, groups, organizations and policy makers.  To organize quickly, initial contacts were  categorized into an AGC Community Engagement Framework with five potential levels of engagement - curiosity, interest, advocacy, project partners, initiative partners. To guide our team’s responsiveness, each level is mapped to specific AGC goals, mechanisms of engagement, and engagement owners. The engagement framework developed has high utility for Universities and other public institutions who seek to engage the broad community in public health responses.  

scholarly journals The Use of Social Media Amid Government, Mass Media, and Non Government Organisations Responsibilities Due to Haze Disaster

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nevrettia Christantyawati
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Government Organization ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Government ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
National Disaster

 The haze disaster that have been devastating many regions in Indonesia from July to October 2015, was stated as national tragedy by the Government. As a consequence, there were many cases of public health deterioration.There were many efforts done to tackle this crisis due to provision of public information. In a contrary, there were also many angry public statements and dissatisfaction.This paper will scrutinize the content of using social media, particularly twitter, as various channels and mediums employed in order to cast overwhelming information to public. This is because social media pervasively and easily gets through to wide range of public. It has a high promptness and simplicity in stating effective messaging. The observation conducted through collecting data during the haze have been occuring since July until October 2015. Furthermore, the research will pore over public communication that commited by the National Disaster and Mitigation Guard, Non Government Organization and Mass Media.More over, the research  is part of risk and crisis communication in overcoming the mitigation of haze disaster and due to public health. The outcome will be able to contribute to figure out the tendency of risk and crisis communication patterns in Indonesia.Finally, the conclusion leads to the relevancy of connectivity amid society, state and capitalists in public communication.Keywords : risk and crisis communication, haze disaster, social media.

scholarly journals Crisis Information Seeking and Sharing (CISS): Scale Development for Measuring Publics’ Communicative Behavior in Social-Mediated Public Health Crises

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin-I Lee ◽  
Yan Jin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Communicative Behavior ◽  
Seeking Behavior

This study first refines the conceptual framework of publics’ communicative behavior in social mediated health crises. Then two multiple-item scales for measuring publics’ health crisis information seeking and sharing (CISS) are developed and tested by employing online survey data sets from a random national sample of 279 adults and 280 adults in the United States, respectively. Results indicate seven types of crisis information seeking behavior and 17 types of crisis information sharing behavior crossing over platforms, channels, and information sources. The CISS scales provide a valid and reliable tool for crisis communication researchers and practitioners to measure publics’ information seeking and sharing activities in social-mediated public health crisis communication.

scholarly journals Narrating the crisis: Moral regulation, overlapping responsibilities and COVID-19 in Canada

2021 ◽  
pp. 001139212110558
Author(s):  
Sean P Hier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Moral Regulation ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Epidemic Curve ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Moral Capital

This article theorizes some of the ways that the COVID-19 health crisis was publicly narrated and morally regulated in Canada. Beginning with Valverde’s theory of moral capital, public health crisis communication is conceptualized as dialectical claims-making activities aimed at maximizing the individual moral capital of citizens and the aggregate moral capital of nations. Valverde’s historical sociology explains how moral capital operated in relation to economic capital accumulation in the context of 19th-century moral regulation of the urban poor. This article applies aspects of Valverde’s historical framework about mixed economies of regulation to contemporary biopolitical moralization in the midst of a pandemic. It does so by arguing that responsibilizing citizens to flatten the epidemic curve of the disease contributed to the social construction of a normative pandemic subject. In this way, the analysis provides insights into how public health crisis communication explicitly intended to mitigate COVID-19 infection rates both reflected and reinforced the conjunctural norms associated with neoliberal governmentality.

scholarly journals Civil-Military Engagement During Public Health Emergencies: A Comparative Analysis of Domestic Responses to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel T. Boland ◽  
Rob Grace ◽  
Josiah Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
International System ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Military Engagement ◽  
Policy Guidance

Abstract Background Despite the central role that domestic militaries regularly play in supporting civilian disease outbreak responses, the dynamics of domestic civil-military engagement (CME) during major health emergencies remain largely under-explored in public health, humanitarian, and security literatures. Previous research has found, furthermore, that existing international and domestic civil-military guidelines hold limited relevance during public health emergencies, including epidemics and pandemics, currently evidenced by the observable lack of coherence and high variance in both international and domestic military approaches to supporting COVID-19 responses worldwide. Methods This article presents a comparative analysis of three of these approaches—in China, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines—and maps these countries’ military contributions to the COVID-19 response across a number of domains. Results Analysis of these case studies provides important insights into the ways that CME exists in unacknowledged contexts and forms; how militaries, particularly domestic forces acting as first responders, play an important role in major health crisis contexts; the confusion surrounding how to understand various non-military armed and security actors; and how pandemics, in particular—and other types of largescale health emergencies more broadly—represent a unique domain for CME that tests both the international system and international norms. Conclusion This paper concludes with policy, guidance development, and research recommendations for improved practice for localised CME during public health emergencies.

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