Search

Background: Municipal governments have played an important but underappreciated role in crisis communication for community resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis: This study analyzes the Niagara Region municipal webpage communication from web archives over the first two years of the pandemic, employing computational research methods and close reading to understand the strengths and deficiencies of municipal COVID-19 communication. Conclusion and implications: This study finds that the communication of the upper-tier municipality Niagara Region addressed the needs of citizens; however, the communication of the lower-tier municipalities varied and showed deficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered extreme preventive measures, including economic and social lockdowns. Many experts and commentators, however, have argued in favor of a harm reduction approach, giving individuals the liberty to assess their risk and potentially engage in risky behavior more safely. Drawing on concepts from harm reduction literature we examine how Canadians interpreted messages intended to mitigate harm during the 2020 end-of-year holiday season. We conducted 12 focus groups in four Canadian cities to discuss public health guidance to reduce the spread of COVID-19, how these messages influenced their holiday celebration plans, and how they interpreted harm mitigation messages. Focus group participants (n = 82) described COVID-19 public health guidance as confusing and difficult to follow. Participants considered that messages intended to mitigate harm from official sources would contribute to deepening confusion and uncertainty, allow for personal interpretation of guidelines, and discourage those who follow guidelines diligently. Official public health messaging intended to mitigate harm in rapidly evolving crisis situations can be ineffective in reducing risky behaviors because it may instead encourage people to not abide the recommended guidelines. In these situations, harm reduction messaging should be limited to specific groups who cannot otherwise avoid risk exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a large proportion of the Canadian population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, millions of eligible individuals remain unvaccinated. Trust in public health and government impacts the effectiveness of crisis communication and the public's willingness to follow health recommendations. This qualitative study involved semistructured interviews with 12 COVID-19 vaccine-hesitant adults in Canada. Using thematic analysis, four themes were generated, including (1) perceived low use of crisis communication guiding principles contributes to distrust in officials; (2) risk perception and decisions are influenced by a range of sources; (3) concerns regarding vaccine safety, the industry, and politicization of efforts are impacting trust; and (4) stigma around vaccine status further entrenches views and erodes trust. This study highlights the importance of trust and how vaccine hesitancy is fueled by perceived ineffective crisis communication by officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article reverses the conventional logic of moral panics. COVID-19 precrisis risk communication is conceptualized as a form of implicatory denial that underreacted to COVID-19 in the three months leading up to the acute phase of the crisis. Analysis: Connections are established among denial theory; infectious disease crisis communication; and the social, economic, and political implications of underreacting to realworld threats over three phases of pre-crisis risk communication. Conclusions and implications: Linking the analysis to the broader literature on the social organization of denial highlights the dialectical relationship between the rhetoric of panic and conditions of implicatory denial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To foster trust on social media during a crisis, messages should implement key guiding principles, including call to action, clarity, conversational tone, compassion and empathy, correction of misinformation, and transparency. This study describes how crisis actors used guiding principles in COVID-19 tweets, and how the use of these guiding principles relates to tweet engagement. Original, English language tweets from 10 federal level government, politician, and public health Twitter accounts were collected between 11 March 2020 and 25 January 2021 ( n = 6053). A 60% random sample was taken ( n = 3633), and the tweets were analyzed for guiding principles. A tweet engagement score was calculated for each tweet and logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the relationship between guiding principles and tweet engagement. Overall, the use of guiding principles was low and inconsistent. Tweets that were written with compassion and empathy, or conversational tone were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Across all guiding principles, tweets from politicians and public health were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Using a combination of guiding principles was associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Crisis actors should consistently use relevant guiding principles in crisis communication messages to improve message engagement.

Successful mitigation of emerging infectious disease requires that the public adopt recommended behaviours, which is directly influenced by effective crisis communication. Social media has become an important communication channel during COVID-19 where official actors, influencers, and the public are co-creating crisis messages. Our research examined COVID-19-related crisis messages across Canadian influencer accounts within news media, politicians, public health and government, science communicators, and brand influencer and celebrities, posted on Instagram between December 2019 and March 2021 for Health Belief Model and Extended Parallel Processing Model constructs and the corresponding public comment sentiment and engagement. Thirty-three influencer accounts resulted in a total of 2,642 Instagram posts collected, along with 461,436 comments, which showed overall low use of constructs in both captions and images. Further, most posts used no combinations (n = 0 or 1 construct per post) of constructs in captions and images and very infrequently used captions that combined threat (severity and susceptibility) with cues to action and efficacy. Brand influencers and celebrities, politicians, and science communicators had above average post engagement while public health and government and news media had lower. Finally, most influencers saw the largest proportion of neutral sentiment comments. Crisis messages must be designed to include combinations of constructs that increase message acceptance and influence risk perception and efficacy to increase the adoption of recommended and mandated behaviours., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Globalisation has increased our awareness of crises and their impact on our lives. It is, therefore, more important than ever for governments to respond to crises and to communicate with target groups and the public at large. This article examines the theoretical bases of decision-making in organisations to consider the requirements of an effective crisis communication decision-making process in an evolving public sector organisation such as the Government of Canada. It begins with an overview of the scope of crises, followed by an examination of the management issues that crises raise, specifically in relation to organisational decision-making. The new public organisation as defined by Kernaghan, Marson and Borins (2000) represents the organisational outcome of the trends that are forcing public sector organisations to change from a hierarchical to a more horizontal form of management. An analysis of their model is undertaken to assess whether the leadership/decision-maker competencies that are required for decision-making in this environment meet the management and governance challenges of the evolving Westminster bureaucratic organisation. It also analyses Rosenthal and Kouzmin's (1997) five-step heuristic model to determine whether it reflects the governance challenges and the leadership competencies required for effective decision-making in the Canadian public sector. Building on the analyses of these two models, it is proposed here that, as a result of the Government of Canada's ongoing evolution towards the new public organisation, three core interrelated competencies (the abilities to manage information, to think horizontally in a changing management environment, and to deal with authoritative ambiguity) are required by managers to facilitate effective crisis communication decision-making. It is against these three core interrelated competencies that the Government of Canada document Government of Canada Framework for Public Communications Management of National Security Threats, which outlines a public sector crisis communication decision-making process, is assessed to determine their applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As health systems in the Northern Hemisphere brace themselves for the second wave of pandemic influenza (pH1N1), there are crisis communications lessons that can be drawn from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) situation from 2003.This crisis led to a change in organisational communication, from an emphasis on external relations to a focus on internal communications. This paper proposes a model for internal communication in a crisis sitsituation. The model was developed using a qualitative, case-study paradigm, using one-on-one interviews with front-line staff and leaders at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Sunnybrook cared for one of the largest numbers of SARS patients in Canada, making it an excellent unit of analysis for this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2008, one of the worst cases of food contamination in Canadian history was confirmed when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Maple Leaf Foods issued a "health hazard alert" warning the public not to serve or consumer Sure Slice brand cold cuts. This localized warning quickly spiralled into a major listeriosis epidemic. More than 200 Maple Leaf Foods products were recalled, but not in time to prevent 20 deaths, the illness of thousands more and a class action lawsuit. This article explores Maple Leaf's crisis response strategy. Locating our analysis in relation to theorizing about the legitimacy problems that corporations and other powerful actors face in late modernity, it demonstrates that Maple Leaf's apology was effective in terms of restoring consumer trust and confidence to the extent that it addressed the uncertainties and anxieties that are endemic to contemporary risk society; and, more broadly, it 'worked' by disrupting the distribution of risk and blame to other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 29 January 2006, 72 miners were trapped in a potash mine operated by Mosaic more than one kilometre below the surface in Esterhazy (Canada). Within hours, media from around the globe was in Esterhazy to cover the story. Mosaic-Esterhazy did not have a designated external communication spokesperson or a comprehensive crisis communication plan to deal with such a predicament. Nonetheless, actions taken during and after the crisis were considered by many to be nearly faultless, and the Mosaic-Esterhazy incident is now recognized as a model in mine safety around the world. This paper's intent is to understand why Mosaic-Esterhazy was successful in assembling an effective crisis communication strategy. A conceptual model and managerial implications are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Success in navigating through a crisis situation requires good planning, sound judgment, and swift reaction. Some organizations, however, do not plan and are still able to successfully communicate in times of uncertainty. On January 29, 2006, 72 miners were trapped in a potash mine operated by Mosaic more than 1km below the surface in Esterhazy (Canada). Within hours, media from around the globe was in Esterhazy to cover the story. Mosaic-Esterhazy did not have a designated external communication spokesperson or a comprehensive crisis communication plan to deal with such a predicament. Nonetheless, actions taken during and after the crisis were considered by many to be nearly faultless, and the Mosaic-Esterhazy incident is now recognized as a model in mine safety around the world. This paper''s intent is to understand why Mosaic-Esterhazy was successful in assembling an effective crisis communication strategy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the key legitimating role of communication and the media, and the role of taming-labour, in constructing the Ontario neo-liberal hegemonic project in 1995. Media-content analysis and examination of the communication strategies of the Ontario government in the 1996 public-service strike show that the government relied on constructing the perception of a hegemonic crisis and framing labour as oppositional to the public interest of resolving the crisis. The government's general strategy of quick-attack communications offensives curtailed media and opposition scrutiny, increasing the likelihood of policy success and media dependence on its framing of issues. A strong challenge to the government led by labour and social justice groups failed in the face of state public relations, media silence, and internal dissension. Examination of a second strike in 2002 suggests that even without a crisis, the government continued its attack on labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising COVID-19 cases in Canada in early 2021, coupled with pervasive mis- and disinformation, demonstrate the critical relationship between effective crisis communication, trust, and risk protective measure adherence by the public. Trust in crisis communication is affected by the communication's characteristics including transparency, timeliness, empathy, and clarity, as well as the source and communication channels used. Crisis communication occurs in a rhetorical arena where various actors, including public health, news media, and the public, are co-producing and responding to messages. Rhetorical arenas must be monitored to assess the acceptance of messaging. The quality and content of Canadian public health and news media crisis communication on Facebook were evaluated to understand the use of key guiding principles of effective crisis communication, the focus of the communication, and subsequent public emotional response to included posts. Four hundred and thirty-eight posts and 26,774 anonymized comments were collected and analyzed. Overall, the guiding principles for effective crisis communication were inconsistently applied and combined. A limited combination of guiding principles, especially those that demonstrate trustworthiness, was likely driving the negative sentiment uncovered in the comments. Public health and news media should use the guiding principles consistently to increase positive sentiment and build trust among followers.