Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039663
Dongqing Xu, J. Li, Yeunjae Lee
ABSTRACT Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation.
{"title":"Predicting Publics’ Compliance with Containment Measures at the Early Stages of COVID-19: The Role of Governmental Transparent Communication and Public Cynicism","authors":"Dongqing Xu, J. Li, Yeunjae Lee","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039663","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"364 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42436010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2056040
Alejandro Álvarez-Nobell, Andrea Oliveira, Andréia Athaydes, B. Barroso
ABSTRACT With regard to strategic communication, there is a set of additive factors driving the strategic complexity that determines the magnitude of an issue and the path to follow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, different governments worldwide have played a variety of roles and their impact has been conclusive. In Latin America, current political and ideological antagonism has configured a diversity of contexts and scenarios that have conditioned public communication management, setting out from the assumption that they have variously weighted the different driving factors of the strategic complexity. Within the framework of the EUPRERA COM-COVID network, we present the cases of strategic communication management of the national governments of Brazil and Argentina during the second half of 2020 and their impact on the population from the sanitary, social and economic levels. Of 1,332 demographically weighted cases, we analyze the information channels, credible sources, types of messages and their effectiveness comparatively. The most relevant conclusion lies in confirming that the strategic factor model in the public sector is conditioned by the ideological profile of who governs and this determines the decisions and effectiveness of the management.
{"title":"Strategic Communication and Political Ideologies in South America. COVID-19 Crisis Management in the Cases of the Populist Governments of Argentina and Brazil","authors":"Alejandro Álvarez-Nobell, Andrea Oliveira, Andréia Athaydes, B. Barroso","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2056040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2056040","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT With regard to strategic communication, there is a set of additive factors driving the strategic complexity that determines the magnitude of an issue and the path to follow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, different governments worldwide have played a variety of roles and their impact has been conclusive. In Latin America, current political and ideological antagonism has configured a diversity of contexts and scenarios that have conditioned public communication management, setting out from the assumption that they have variously weighted the different driving factors of the strategic complexity. Within the framework of the EUPRERA COM-COVID network, we present the cases of strategic communication management of the national governments of Brazil and Argentina during the second half of 2020 and their impact on the population from the sanitary, social and economic levels. Of 1,332 demographically weighted cases, we analyze the information channels, credible sources, types of messages and their effectiveness comparatively. The most relevant conclusion lies in confirming that the strategic factor model in the public sector is conditioned by the ideological profile of who governs and this determines the decisions and effectiveness of the management.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"403 - 425"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47100499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039666
Glen J. Nowak, M. Cacciatore
ABSTRACT Widely accepted public health actions and recommendations, particularly those related to vaccines, are critical to U.S. and global responses to infectious disease pandemics, such as COVID-19. For vaccination-related efforts like those involving COVID-19 vaccines, high national compliance is needed. While initial COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the U.S. has been quite high, it quickly became apparent that demographic characteristics, political ideology, and potentially news/information sources used were associated with COVID-19 vaccination acceptance, hesitancy, and resistance. Drawing from nationally published COVID-19 public opinion polls as well as social and behavioral science related to vaccination acceptance, this study used a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults 18 years-old and older, undertaken in November–December 2020, to examine how four key demographic characteristics (sex, age, race/ethnicity, education), political ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative), and news/information source preference (liberal, conservative, balanced) were related to COVID-19 vaccination intentions, COVID-19 risk-benefit perceptions, interest and attention to COVID-19 information, self-reported level of being informed on key COVID-19 items, and trust and use of common COVID-19 information sources. Multiple associations were found, with most having important implications for strategic communication efforts related to COVID-19 vaccination and other preventive health recommendations.
{"title":"COVID-19 Vaccination and Public Health Communication Strategies: An In-depth Look at How Demographics, Political Ideology, and News/Information Source Preference Matter","authors":"Glen J. Nowak, M. Cacciatore","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039666","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Widely accepted public health actions and recommendations, particularly those related to vaccines, are critical to U.S. and global responses to infectious disease pandemics, such as COVID-19. For vaccination-related efforts like those involving COVID-19 vaccines, high national compliance is needed. While initial COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the U.S. has been quite high, it quickly became apparent that demographic characteristics, political ideology, and potentially news/information sources used were associated with COVID-19 vaccination acceptance, hesitancy, and resistance. Drawing from nationally published COVID-19 public opinion polls as well as social and behavioral science related to vaccination acceptance, this study used a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults 18 years-old and older, undertaken in November–December 2020, to examine how four key demographic characteristics (sex, age, race/ethnicity, education), political ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative), and news/information source preference (liberal, conservative, balanced) were related to COVID-19 vaccination intentions, COVID-19 risk-benefit perceptions, interest and attention to COVID-19 information, self-reported level of being informed on key COVID-19 items, and trust and use of common COVID-19 information sources. Multiple associations were found, with most having important implications for strategic communication efforts related to COVID-19 vaccination and other preventive health recommendations.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"516 - 538"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41811373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039664
M. Mazzoni, Sofia Verza, Roberto Mincigrucci, Susanna Pagiotti, Anna Stanziano
ABSTRACT Emergency situations like the COVID-19 pandemic are key drivers of strategic communication. Governments must implement communication strategies for ensuring the well-being of citizens, to enforce social control policies responding to a health emergency. Choosing Italy as case study, this analysis focuses on the press coverage of the government’s strategic communication of such policies, during two different pandemic waves in 2020, evaluating if the press supported or hindered it. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, we identified which criteria of newsworthiness have influenced news media coverage. In other words, our focus will not be strategic communication per se, but on agenda setting. By understanding the COVID-19-related agenda of newspaper discussions, we will be able to assess whether and how “news values” have influenced the media coverage of the government’s strategic communication, and how this has influenced the perception of citizens. Our results offer a contrasting picture: during the first wave, a sort of “honeymoon” between the institutions and the press emerges. During the second wave instead, the journalistic routines of the Italian media system- partisanship and conflictual narrations- influenced the narration of the pandemic, undermining the effectiveness of the strategic communication of Covid-19 social control policies.
{"title":"A Short Honeymoon. The Italian Press and the Coverage of the Government’s Strategic Communication on COVID-19","authors":"M. Mazzoni, Sofia Verza, Roberto Mincigrucci, Susanna Pagiotti, Anna Stanziano","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2039664","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Emergency situations like the COVID-19 pandemic are key drivers of strategic communication. Governments must implement communication strategies for ensuring the well-being of citizens, to enforce social control policies responding to a health emergency. Choosing Italy as case study, this analysis focuses on the press coverage of the government’s strategic communication of such policies, during two different pandemic waves in 2020, evaluating if the press supported or hindered it. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, we identified which criteria of newsworthiness have influenced news media coverage. In other words, our focus will not be strategic communication per se, but on agenda setting. By understanding the COVID-19-related agenda of newspaper discussions, we will be able to assess whether and how “news values” have influenced the media coverage of the government’s strategic communication, and how this has influenced the perception of citizens. Our results offer a contrasting picture: during the first wave, a sort of “honeymoon” between the institutions and the press emerges. During the second wave instead, the journalistic routines of the Italian media system- partisanship and conflictual narrations- influenced the narration of the pandemic, undermining the effectiveness of the strategic communication of Covid-19 social control policies.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"386 - 402"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48602607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2045297
Jiangmeng Liu, Cheng Hong, B. Yook
ABSTRACT This study seeks to explore how business leaders should respond to COVID-19. In advancing theoretical development of strategic crisis communication, we incorporated theoretical frameworks of organizational resilience, social support, and values-centered communication to make sense of CEO’s COVID-19 responses. Using structural topic modeling, this study analyzed 192 CEO open letters from 152 multinational corporations that are listed on the 2020 Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies. Fourteen valid topics and four general themes were identified and discussed. Results suggested that in those letters, CEOs demonstrated organizational resilience by giving sense to current crisis situations and expressing their self-efficacy and response efficacy in handling challenges, which supported the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational resilience in this new crisis context. Additionally, both emotional and instrumental support provisions were found in CEOs’ letters. A values-centered and care ethics communication approach was widely taken in CEOs’ messages, highlighting the importance of social solidarity in facing a public health crisis. This study also explored how topic prevalence varied by business sectors and CEOs’ genders and associated with companies’ financial performance. These summarized communication strategies and narrative topics shed light on crisis communication practice and theory, especially in the context of a global public health crisis.
{"title":"CEO as “Chief Crisis Officer” under COVID-19: A Content Analysis of CEO Open Letters Using Structural Topic Modeling","authors":"Jiangmeng Liu, Cheng Hong, B. Yook","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2045297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2045297","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study seeks to explore how business leaders should respond to COVID-19. In advancing theoretical development of strategic crisis communication, we incorporated theoretical frameworks of organizational resilience, social support, and values-centered communication to make sense of CEO’s COVID-19 responses. Using structural topic modeling, this study analyzed 192 CEO open letters from 152 multinational corporations that are listed on the 2020 Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies. Fourteen valid topics and four general themes were identified and discussed. Results suggested that in those letters, CEOs demonstrated organizational resilience by giving sense to current crisis situations and expressing their self-efficacy and response efficacy in handling challenges, which supported the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational resilience in this new crisis context. Additionally, both emotional and instrumental support provisions were found in CEOs’ letters. A values-centered and care ethics communication approach was widely taken in CEOs’ messages, highlighting the importance of social solidarity in facing a public health crisis. This study also explored how topic prevalence varied by business sectors and CEOs’ genders and associated with companies’ financial performance. These summarized communication strategies and narrative topics shed light on crisis communication practice and theory, especially in the context of a global public health crisis.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"444 - 468"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46419572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2041021
T. Offerdal, S. Just, Joel Rasmussen, Øyvind Ihlen
ABSTRACT During the COVID-19 pandemic, communication with the public has been a central concern for state actors. One important question has been how to best use social media to ensure the sufficient uptake of their advice and recommendations to the public. With regard to such strategic communicative aims, a significant amount of attention has been previously devoted to the engagement, interaction, and dialogic forms of strategic communication on social media. This paper, however, focuses on an aspect that has not been discussed much in the literature: the need an organization might have to disengage due to a lack of resources or when a conversation has stalled. Using the communication that Scandinavian public health authorities carried out through their Facebook pages as cases, this paper employs a thematic analysis of the associated posts and qualitative interviews with employees to argue that these institutions use three disengagement strategies: 1) contradiction, 2) meta-discursive disengagement, and 3) disengagement through sympathy/empathy. Based on this, we consider the strategic potential of disengagement and discuss whether disengagement strategies can be considered legitimate tools for public health organizations’ crisis communication that can allow them to achieve the dual aim of ensuring citizens’ support for and compliance with authorities’ recommendations.
{"title":"“We Do Not Have Any Further Info to Add, Unfortunately” – Strategic Disengagement on Public Health Facebook Pages","authors":"T. Offerdal, S. Just, Joel Rasmussen, Øyvind Ihlen","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2041021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2041021","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During the COVID-19 pandemic, communication with the public has been a central concern for state actors. One important question has been how to best use social media to ensure the sufficient uptake of their advice and recommendations to the public. With regard to such strategic communicative aims, a significant amount of attention has been previously devoted to the engagement, interaction, and dialogic forms of strategic communication on social media. This paper, however, focuses on an aspect that has not been discussed much in the literature: the need an organization might have to disengage due to a lack of resources or when a conversation has stalled. Using the communication that Scandinavian public health authorities carried out through their Facebook pages as cases, this paper employs a thematic analysis of the associated posts and qualitative interviews with employees to argue that these institutions use three disengagement strategies: 1) contradiction, 2) meta-discursive disengagement, and 3) disengagement through sympathy/empathy. Based on this, we consider the strategic potential of disengagement and discuss whether disengagement strategies can be considered legitimate tools for public health organizations’ crisis communication that can allow them to achieve the dual aim of ensuring citizens’ support for and compliance with authorities’ recommendations.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"499 - 515"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41656977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2050239
Y. Qin, Marcia W. DiStaso, A. Fitzsimmons, Eve R. Heffron, L. Men
ABSTRACT The COVID-19 global pandemic drove many companies to reevaluate their approach to business and, as a result, some focused their efforts on leading with purpose. Purpose is an organization's fundamental goal that goes beyond profit maximization. It is an all-encompassing principle that guides everything the organization does and determines its strategies. Effective strategic communication is an essential element of purpose as it can empower employees to align their personal goals with organizational values and thus more closely identify with their organization. However, while the benefits of purpose are frequently proclaimed in practical literature, the impact of communicating purpose on employee outcomes remains unexplored in strategic communication research. To address this critical research gap, this study examined why and how communicating purpose could be an effective tactic in strategic communication. Specifically, this study introduced the concept of purpose and examined how purpose directed organizations’ actions in response to COVID-19 as well as the impact of purpose on employees’ organizational identification and trust. The findings offer practical implications regarding the importance of strategic communication about purpose in terms of building employee organizational identification and trust during times of change.
{"title":"How Purpose-Driven Organizations Influenced Corporate Actions and Employee Trust during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Y. Qin, Marcia W. DiStaso, A. Fitzsimmons, Eve R. Heffron, L. Men","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2050239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2050239","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The COVID-19 global pandemic drove many companies to reevaluate their approach to business and, as a result, some focused their efforts on leading with purpose. Purpose is an organization's fundamental goal that goes beyond profit maximization. It is an all-encompassing principle that guides everything the organization does and determines its strategies. Effective strategic communication is an essential element of purpose as it can empower employees to align their personal goals with organizational values and thus more closely identify with their organization. However, while the benefits of purpose are frequently proclaimed in practical literature, the impact of communicating purpose on employee outcomes remains unexplored in strategic communication research. To address this critical research gap, this study examined why and how communicating purpose could be an effective tactic in strategic communication. Specifically, this study introduced the concept of purpose and examined how purpose directed organizations’ actions in response to COVID-19 as well as the impact of purpose on employees’ organizational identification and trust. The findings offer practical implications regarding the importance of strategic communication about purpose in terms of building employee organizational identification and trust during times of change.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"426 - 443"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46099554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2036742
S. Yeo, D. Phua, Ying-yi Hong
ABSTRACT This research purposes to examine the role of strategic communication, specifically the effectiveness of government's crisis communication messages at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, on disease preventive behaviors. It employed a mixed method research approach by first carrying out a content analysis of 7128 news headlines on COVID-19 to confirm our presupposition that the media may be communicating messages that the world order is being threatened. Informed by our findings that 90% of news reports were framed to suggest a dangerous world, we surveyed 453 respondents in the main study, and tested if people's beliefs in a dangerous world (BDW) were linked to their disease preventive behaviors (DPB), and whether such a link was modulated by how effective they perceived the government's pandemic communication. As predicted, results revealed that the perceived effectiveness of the government's pandemic communication trumped the effects of beliefs in a dangerous world such that the link between BDW and DPB was significant only when the perceived effectiveness was low. Further analysis of the effects of specific communication dimensions on disease preventive behaviors suggests that public health communication needs to be strategically calibrated to offer personally relevant messages that are informative and objective. (199 words)
{"title":"The Effects of Dangerous World Beliefs on COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors in Singapore: The Moderating Role of Public Health Communication","authors":"S. Yeo, D. Phua, Ying-yi Hong","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2036742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2036742","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This research purposes to examine the role of strategic communication, specifically the effectiveness of government's crisis communication messages at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, on disease preventive behaviors. It employed a mixed method research approach by first carrying out a content analysis of 7128 news headlines on COVID-19 to confirm our presupposition that the media may be communicating messages that the world order is being threatened. Informed by our findings that 90% of news reports were framed to suggest a dangerous world, we surveyed 453 respondents in the main study, and tested if people's beliefs in a dangerous world (BDW) were linked to their disease preventive behaviors (DPB), and whether such a link was modulated by how effective they perceived the government's pandemic communication. As predicted, results revealed that the perceived effectiveness of the government's pandemic communication trumped the effects of beliefs in a dangerous world such that the link between BDW and DPB was significant only when the perceived effectiveness was low. Further analysis of the effects of specific communication dimensions on disease preventive behaviors suggests that public health communication needs to be strategically calibrated to offer personally relevant messages that are informative and objective. (199 words)","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"485 - 498"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44638474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2042694
Essi Pöyry, Hanna Reinikainen, Vilma Luoma-aho
ABSTRACT During public health crises, public organizations face a variety of strategic communication challenges, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an extreme example. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office initiated a communication campaign that utilized social media influencers to communicate timely instructions regarding the pandemic. However, it is uncertain how social media influencers adapt to briefings of public organizations given that they typically work with brands that align with their own interests and expertise, which rarely is epidemiology. We use the two-step flow of communication model and social influence theory to analyze research data that consisted of 96 Instagram posts, 108 Instagram Stories and 1097 comments. Qualitative content analysis was used to see how the influencers communicated about the pandemic and how their followers reacted. The results suggest that the influencers tried to adapt the messages to their own style, and, instead of committing to the wordings of the campaign, they shared general guidelines and, with their own example, showed how to behave during the pandemic. Their participation in the campaign helped affect social norms during the time of the crisis, which in the case of public health communication is a substantial, strategic goal.
{"title":"The Role of Social Media Influencers in Public Health Communication: Case COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Essi Pöyry, Hanna Reinikainen, Vilma Luoma-aho","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2042694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2042694","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During public health crises, public organizations face a variety of strategic communication challenges, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an extreme example. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office initiated a communication campaign that utilized social media influencers to communicate timely instructions regarding the pandemic. However, it is uncertain how social media influencers adapt to briefings of public organizations given that they typically work with brands that align with their own interests and expertise, which rarely is epidemiology. We use the two-step flow of communication model and social influence theory to analyze research data that consisted of 96 Instagram posts, 108 Instagram Stories and 1097 comments. Qualitative content analysis was used to see how the influencers communicated about the pandemic and how their followers reacted. The results suggest that the influencers tried to adapt the messages to their own style, and, instead of committing to the wordings of the campaign, they shared general guidelines and, with their own example, showed how to behave during the pandemic. Their participation in the campaign helped affect social norms during the time of the crisis, which in the case of public health communication is a substantial, strategic goal.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"469 - 484"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48883379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-27DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2022.2075750
Juan Meng, Ralph Tench
ABSTRACT This article serves as the introduction article of the special issue, titled Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic. This special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication (IJSC) has one primary purpose – to stimulate serious scholarly research on strategic communication and its management and execution during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. To achieve this purpose, the special issue is organized into three sections covering many dimensions of strategic communication as it relates to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first section includes research addressing how the messages are developed and constructed through governmental communication, traditional mass media, and social media. The second section focuses on exploring the contingencies that leaders and influencers at various levels need to address in this novel global crisis, as well as the practical, organizational, and societal challenges leaders face. The last section collects research reflecting on how effective public health responses and communication shall be developed. By providing a range of strategic communication scholarship grounded in different academic disciplines and cultural and political contexts, we believe this volume offers an international perspective for scholars and educators to understand the complexity of the topic itself.
{"title":"Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic: Leading through Unprecedented Times","authors":"Juan Meng, Ralph Tench","doi":"10.1080/1553118X.2022.2075750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2022.2075750","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article serves as the introduction article of the special issue, titled Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic. This special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication (IJSC) has one primary purpose – to stimulate serious scholarly research on strategic communication and its management and execution during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. To achieve this purpose, the special issue is organized into three sections covering many dimensions of strategic communication as it relates to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first section includes research addressing how the messages are developed and constructed through governmental communication, traditional mass media, and social media. The second section focuses on exploring the contingencies that leaders and influencers at various levels need to address in this novel global crisis, as well as the practical, organizational, and societal challenges leaders face. The last section collects research reflecting on how effective public health responses and communication shall be developed. By providing a range of strategic communication scholarship grounded in different academic disciplines and cultural and political contexts, we believe this volume offers an international perspective for scholars and educators to understand the complexity of the topic itself.","PeriodicalId":39017,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Strategic Communication","volume":"16 1","pages":"357 - 363"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49371070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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