Keywords
authentic communication
strategic communication
government
pandemic
How to Cite
Abstract
The public’s trust in government at the national level is always a subject that arouses interest and debate among researchers as well as politicians, even more so when it comes to the response to a pandemic. COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of trust in governments and its impact on public compliance with health and safety guidelines. Many polls have found that trust in the government’s communications about COVID-19 has not experienced the same highs among countries (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2020). This article discusses different political leaders’ approaches to public communication and response to the crisis and how these led to different levels of public trust in China, the UK and Italy.
References
Benson, R. (2009). Shaping the public sphere: Habermas and beyond. The American Sociologist, 40(3), 175-197.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Harvard Univ Pr.
Birdsell, D. S., & Groarke, L. (2007). Outlines of a theory of visual argument. Argumentation and advocacy, 43(3-4), 103-113.
Bohman, J., & Rehg, W. (2014). Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: Jurgen Habermas.
Cook, G. (1997). Language play, language learning. ELT journal, 51(3), 224-231.
Drylie-Carey, L., Sánchez-Castillo, S., & Galán-Cubillo, E. (2020). European leaders unmasked: Covid-19 communication strategy through Twitter. El Profesional de la Información,29(5).
Edelman, (2020). The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer Spring Update: Trust and the Covid-19 Pandemic. Retrieved from <https://www.edelman.com/research/trust-2020-spring-update#top>.
Firpo, E. (2020). Italy’s inspirasing response to covid-19. BBC. Retrieved from: <http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200325-italys-inspiring-response-to-the-coronavirus>.
Fancourt, D., Steptoe, A., & Wright, L. (2020). The Cummings effect: politics, trust, and behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet, 396(10249), 464-465.
Fletcher, Kalogeropoulos and Nielsen, (2020). Trust in UK government and news media COVID-19 information down, concerns over misinformation from government and politicians up. Monday 1 June 2020. Retrieved from: <https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/trust-uk-government-and-news-media-covid-19-information-down-concerns-over-misinformation>.
Fillmore, H. (2018). A Mask for Every Occasion: How the Face Mask Connects Medicine, Fashion, and Politics in Chinese Narratives (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University).
Gov.UK (2020), The official UK Government website for data and insights on Coronavirus (COVID-19). Retrieved from: <https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/>.
Giuliano, P., & Rasul, M. (2020). Compliance with social distancing during the Covid-19 crisis. IZA Discussion Papers, 13114.
Holdo, M. (2019). Cooptation and non-cooptation: elite strategies in response to social protest. Social Movement Studies, 18(4), 444-462.
Holdo, M. (2020). How can we trust a political leader? Ethics, institutions, and relational theory. International Political Science Review, 0192512120913572.
Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Vol. 2, pp. 1049-1054). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Italian Government and Administrative Adviser (2020), Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced new government measures to combat and prevent the spread of the Covid-19. 12 March 2020. Retrieved from: <http://www.governo.it/node/14296>.
Italian Government and Administrative Adviser (2020), Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced new government measures to combat and prevent the spread of the Covid-19. 10 April 2020. Retrieved from: <http://www.governo.it/it/media/conferenza-stampa-del-presidente-conte/14451>.
Llewellyn, S. (2020). Covid-19: how to be careful with trust and expertise on social media. Retrieved from <https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1160.long>.
Lovari, A. (2020). Spreading (dis) trust: Covid-19 misinformation and government intervention in Italy. Media and Communication, 8(2), 458-461.
Lalancette, M., & Raynauld, V. (2019). The power of political image: Justin Trudeau, Instagram, and celebrity politics. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(7), 888-924.
López-Meri, A., Alonso-Muñoz, L., & Casero-Ripollés, A. (2020). What is behind the entrepreneurship intention in journalism? Entrepreneur typologies based on student perceptions. Journalism Practice, 1-18.
National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (2020), COVID-19 cases update in China. Retrieved from: <http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/list_gzbd.shtml>.
Ng, R. M. (2000). The influence of Confucianism on Chinese conceptions of power, authority, and the rule of law. Chinese perspectives in rhetoric and communication, (1), 45.
Ojha, H. R., & Ojha, B. H. R. (2006). Engaging Bourdieu and Habermas to reframe forest governance in Nepalese Terai (Doctoral dissertation, University of East Anglia).
Pandemic for public health (2020), COVID-19 integrated surveillance data in Italy. Retrieved from: <https://www.epicentro.iss.it/en/coronavirus/sars-cov-2-dashboard>.
Prime Minister’s Office (2020), Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 03 March 2020. Retrieved from: <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-at-coronavirus-press-conference-3-march-2020>.
Prime Minister’s Office (2020), Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 12 March 2020. Retrieved from: <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-12-march-2020>.
Prime Minister’s Office (2020), Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 25 March 2020. Retrieved from: <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-25-march-2020>.
Prime Minister’s Office (2020), Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 12 March 2020. 27 April 2020. Retrieved from: <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-in-downing-street-27-april-2020>.
Prime Minister’s office, (2020). Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 12 March 2020. Retrieved from <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-12-march-2020>.
Robbins, D. (2020). The work of Pierre Bourdieu: recognizing society. Routledge.
Rino Falcone, Elisa Colì, Silvia Felletti, Alessandro Sapienza, Cristiano Castelfranchi and Fabio Paglieri. (2020). All We Need Is Trust: How the COVID-19 Outbreak Reconfigured Trust in Italian Public Institutions. Frontiers in Psycology. Retrieved from: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.561747/full>.
Staff, R. (2020). First two coronavirus cases confirmed in Italy - prime minister. 2 January 2020. Retrieved from: <https://fr.reuters.com/article/uk-china-health-italy-conte-idUKKBN1ZT31M>.
Sibley, C. G., Greaves, L. M., Satherley, N., Wilson, M. S., Overall, N. C., Lee, C. H., ... & Houkamau, C. A. (2020). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown on trust, attitudes toward government, and well-being. American Psychologist.
Wang, K.Y & Chang, X.M (2015).We should not change the way we work from the masses to the masses. CPC news. Retrieved from: <http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n1/2018/1106/c117092-30383709.html>.
World Health Organization, (2020). Impact of economic crises on mental health. Retrieved from: <https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/134999/e94837.pdf>.
Xinhua News Agency (2020), Wuhan COVID-19 outbreak”. 10 March 2020. Retrieved from:<http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-03/10/content_5489651.htm>.
Xinhua News Agency (2020), Speech on the deployment of resumption of economic after the pandemic. 07 April 2020. Retrieved from: <http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-04/08/content_5500346.htm>.
Zheng, S (2020). Xi Jinping says China ‘determined to defeat invaders’ in Korean war anniversary speech. Yahoo news. 23 October 2020. Retrieved from: <https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-ready-fight-xi-jinping-040747397.html>.
At the moment of the article submission, it is required to the author(s) declare to agree with the conditions and norms of Political Observer - Revista Portuguesa de Ciência Política, as well as guaranteeing the inedited and original character of the text submitted to scientific evolution. Thus, the author(s) declare to accept the instructions and conditions of publication of the journal, sharing with this the author’s rights, respecting the duties of copyright and ceding to the journal the rights over the first publication of the text in its printed and digital version.
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. The partial or integral publication and sharing of the text (in institutional repositories, book chapters, periodical publications, social media and professional platforms in the areas of science and research, among others) determines the quotation of the initial publication in the journal and the hyperlinking to the website of Political Observer - Revista Portuguesa de Ciência Política, resorting, to that effect, to the available information in the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) system.
Political Observer incentives the sharing and distribution of the work published by the authors in the journal, raising the impact factors and the number of registered quotes, this way contributing to an open (https://www.ciencia-aberta.pt/) and accessible science (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/open-science-movement/). Published works are under a Creative Commons License - Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International .
