Public Ethos in the Pandemic Rhetorical Situation:Strategies for Building Trust in Authorities’ Risk Communication

As illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, risk and crisis communication are crucial responsibilities of modern governments. Existing research on risk and crisis communication points to the importance of trust, both as a resource in and an end goal of communicative activities. In this paper, we argue that revisiting the classical rhetorical concept of ethos in combination with the modern concept of the rhetorical situation can contribute to fitting responses in risk and crisis communication. The paper examines how appeals to ethos may build trust in health authorities’ public communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through interviews and participant observation in public health institutions that handle the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway, the paper finds that understanding the rhetorical situation of the pandemic allows for a better understanding of the available means of persuasion. For instance, through the active communication of transparency and independence when faced by uncertainty and rapidly changing information

Vinne eller dø - Konkurrerende tolkningsrammer under havnearbeiderkonflikten 2013-2016

Denne oppgaven er ett case-studie av arbeidslivskonflikten på norske havner i perioden fra 2013-2016, en langvarig konflikt og streik som var gjenstand for utstrakt mediedekning og som siden har dannet grunnlag for mange av de viktige diskusjonene i fagbevegelsen. Gjennom bruk av teorier rundt tolkningsrammer, strategisk kommunikasjon, makt og påvirkning analyserer jeg hvordan aktørene i konflikten gjennom sin kommunikasjon forsøkte å oppnå sine strategiske mål. Datamaterialet i oppgaven består av en medieanalyse av artikler i fem norske aviser og av kvalitative intervjuer med sentrale aktører. Artiklene i utvalget har blitt kodet basert på en datadrevet induktiv tilnærming. Basert på kodingen identifiseres og analyseres de mest utbredte tolkningsrammene i kodingen. Disse drøftes videre i lys av teorier om tolkningsrammer og deres styrke som en faktor av blant annet makt og hegemoni i samfunnet og det konkurrerende landskapet av tolkningsrammer i media. Videre drøftes andre aspekter av strategisk kommunikasjon slik som relasjonen mellom streiker og media og relasjonen mellom aksjoner og mediedekning i streiker. Ut over funn og kunnskap om strategisk kommunikasjon i den konkrete konflikten som inngår i case-studiet bidrar oppgaven med økt kunnskap rundt tolkningsrammer i streiker og arbeidslivskonflikter og presenterer noen tolkningsrammer som potensielt kan være gyldige også i andre arbeidslivskonflikter

“We Do Not Have Any Further Info to Add, Unfortunately”–Strategic Disengagement on Public Health Facebook Pages

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

Transparency beyond information disclosure : strategies of the Scandinavian public health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The concept of transparency has been problematized in risk research. This exploratory study contributes to the risk literature by considering an established three-dimensional transparency framework (information substantiality, accountability, and participation) and discussing the opportunities for and challenges to risk communication in relation to the framework. Furthermore, we examine the strategies of Scandinavian health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the different levels of public trust in these authorities. In general, Norwegian authorities received higher levels of trust than their Swedish and Danish counterparts. We argue that this was partly due to differences in transparency management. Our findings support the importance of the three transparency dimensions and indicate that transparency regarding uncertainties positively impacts levels of trust

Transparency beyond information disclosure: strategies of the Scandinavian public health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The concept of transparency has been problematized in risk research. This exploratory study contributes to the risk literature by considering an established three-dimensional transparency framework (information substantiality, accountability, and participation) and discussing the opportunities for and challenges to risk communication in relation to the framework. Furthermore, we examine the strategies of Scandinavian health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the different levels of public trust in these authorities. In general, Norwegian authorities received higher levels of trust than their Swedish and Danish counterparts. We argue that this was partly due to differences in transparency management. Our findings support the importance of the three transparency dimensions and indicate that transparency regarding uncertainties positively impacts levels of trust