The Impact of pandemic upon the attitude of the audience towards the communicator
PR-campaign requires an effective communication process between the communicator and the audience. Therefore, with the development of social networks and increasing importance of the audience and its positive feedback for promotion of the brand, the popular bloggers-influencers are being used as the communicators. These are the people who have certain authority and trust among their followers. They share not only their life events, but also opinions on various issues: from politics to environmental protection, as well as give recommendations for purchasing certain goods and services. Based on the two closes survey conducted by the author in 2019 and 2021, this article traces the change in the attitude of the online audience towards bloggers-influencers due to the coronavirus pandemic. Comparing the results of surveys, the author captures such tendencies as drop in the level of trust in the popular bloggers, an increase in the level of trust in medical doctors and niche bloggers. The author attempts to explain these tendencies by advancing the hypotheses that involve the emotional component of the concept of “trust”; namely, the content used by popular bloggers could cause negative emotions in the audience at the time of pandemic, while niche bloggers used relevant content and established better connection with their audience. As far as trust in the medical doctors, the author indicates a possible link with the increased number of medical doctors being the key speakers in mass media.