Crisis communication and public perception in a health crisis

: the effectiveness of the Portuguese authorities’ communication strategy to fight Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The beginning of 2020 was marked by the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, an unprecedented health crisis that struck the whole world and forced governmental institutions to develop crisis communication strategies in order to deal with the virus and all its consequences. Considering the unfamiliarity with the virus and the disease among the scientific communityits fast spread and contagious rate led society to face new challenges such as harsh confinements, adoption of mitigation measures, and complex social, economic and political dynamics. Given this situation, Governments and Health authorities had to implement new ways of communicating, conveying preventive messages to the public, and carrying outcommunication strategies to manage the ongoing health crisis. In this context, the object of this research is related with the modus operandi of health authorities concerning the communication strategies performed to mitigate Covid-19 pandemic as well as the public perception, using Portugal as the geographic scope of theresearch. More specifically this investigation focuses on understanding how effective the Portuguese government and health authorities' communication strategy was in the combat of SARS-CoV-2, more specifically to capture how the Millennial and Z generations' sentimentsthroughout the pandemic were. As so, this theme has as its main objectives to analyze the communication strategy implemented by the Portuguese authorities, to understand the outcome of the implementation of the communication strategy on the commitment of the public to follow the rules established, and to access the Portuguese public emotional response towards the communication strategy as well as the virus, through traditional and modern media. The methodology outlined for this particular study implicated the use of a mix-method approach resorting to a qualitative analysis of the Portuguese Government’s communication strategy as well as an online survey to acquire the public’s perception of Millennial and Z generations about the course chosen to fight the Covid-19 outbreak, in Portugal. In view ofthe study carried out it was feasible to verify that the communication strategy was overall effective in its purpose and that the Portuguese public, within the range that was underanalysis, trusted the authorities to handle the health crisis in the best way possible.

Date of Award	10 May 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Mariana Victorino (Supervisor)