Communicating the COVID-19 Crisis: A Comparative Analysis

Televised speeches by politicians have rarely gained as much attention as in spring 2020: citizens around the globe attentively followed government announcements about the COVID-19 outbreack and its countermeasures, which eventually resulted in an (almost) world-wide lockdown. For example, the Austrian governments press conference on March 13, 2020, reached a market share of 69 % and is one of the Top 10 TV events of 2020, along with the Vienna Opera Ball and several ski races. The global occurrence and high frequency of these press conferences present an unprecedented opportunity for the comparative analysis of political crisis communication. For one, in democratic countries, governments and heads of state rarely get allocated as much live airtime as in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. For another, never before have such live speeches taken place in as many countries at the same time. In this context, the project seeks to answer two research questions: (1) Which strategies of crisis communication did governments and heads of state choose in the immediate phase of the COVID-19 crisis? (2) Which factors influence the crisis communication strategies of governments and heads of state? We analyze videos of speeches and press conferences that were broadcast live between February and summer 2020. We include 17 OECD countries in our analysis, ranging from Austria and Germany to Iceland, Sweden, South Korea and New Zealand. Using quantitative and qualitative social research methods, we will explain how and how often governments and heads of state held press conferences during the pandemic, which contents they conveyed, and which factors influenced these settings. At the end of the project, we will gain new insights in to the political dimensions of the COVID-19 crisis from a comparative perspective, and we will contribute to a better overall understanding of political crisis communication.

Communicating the COVID-19 crisis When a crisis erupts, governments are required not only to take protective action but also to communicate under intense time pressure in multiple directions: they must inform to public to show competence in addressing a crisis and thus to (re)build trust, and they must simultaneously manage relations with other countries and the media. This research project systematically examined how governments met that challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on more than 1,100 press conferences from 18 countries and three US states during the spring of 2020 - a unique dataset now available open access at AUSSDA. The central finding is that political crisis communication follows clear patterns - and those patterns are remarkably consistent across countries as different as Germany, France, New Zealand, or Canada. Governments make deliberate choices about who speaks and when: heads of government stepped forward most visibly when major decisions were being made, not when the health situation was at its worst. Threat language was deployed strategically, above all when discussing the health system and public administration. Blame directed at other countries followed a structural logic: neighbouring states and those with different political values were accused more often than distant partners, and countries hit hard by the pandemic were frequently used by other countries as cautionary examples. This communication has real effects. It shapes which topics the media pick up, how citizens perceive risks, and - at least in the short term - how much trust people place in their government. Clear, accessible messages penetrate public debate more deeply than complex ones: in digital spaces such as Twitter, simple government messages were reflected more strongly in public discussion than those that were harder to understand. At the same time, the project reveals the limits of this influence. Crisis communication is powerful, but not all-powerful. Public risk perception is shaped by many factors, and government messaging is only one. Media retain their own voice even as governments set the agenda. And countries that begin a crisis with a coherent communication strategy often struggle to maintain it as the crisis evolves, becomes multi-dimensional, and resists the simple framing that worked at the outset. These findings carry academic as well as practical significance. They can help governments communicate more effectively in future crises - whether pandemic, climate emergency, or economic disruption. And they give the public a clearer framework for understanding how crisis communication works: what drives it, what it achieves, and where its limits lie.