1st Edition
Communicating Effectively During a Health Crisis A Critical Examination of Communication Breakdowns During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Exploring how and why communication breakdowns occur during pandemics and world disasters, this book offers solutions for improving communication and managing future public health crises.
A compilation of evidence-based lessons learned, this book shows how to effectively convey critical lifesaving information during a pandemic. It assesses how trust in leaders and governments during a public health crisis is formed and the impact this has on how information is perceived by the public. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, the book demonstrates how informative policy decisions and health risk messages can be better communicated for the handling of future pandemics. At a macro-level, the book looks at issues concerning situational awareness, how different countries managed or mismanaged the pandemic, and the lessons readers can learn from those occurrences. At a micro-level it examines individual differences in public health message perceptions and corresponding actions taken or not taken.
An interdisciplinary critique of the delivery and reception of messages during global disasters, this text is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Studies, Health Communication, Risk Communication and Public Health, Psychology, Sociology, and Disaster Management.
Preface
1. Towards a Better Understanding of Communication Breakdowns During the Covid-19 Pandemic
2. The Dangers of the Infodemic: the Spreading of False Information About the Covid-19 Virus
3. Trust in the Government During the Covid-19 Pandemic & How to be a Good Leader
4. Pandemic Compliance, Non-Compliance: a Review of Theories and Empirical Studies
5. Cross-Cultural and Gender Differences in Crisis Management Styles: Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic
6. ‘Framing-Risk’: an In-Depth Exploration of the Role of Semiotic Analysis in Message Persuasion
7. Positive Psychology: Enhancing Well-Being During Covid-19
8. Moving Forward: Re-Thinking Communication During and Post Covid-19 With Special Consideration to Marginalized and Vulnerable Populations
9. Lessons Learned From Past Pandemics
Concluding Thoughts
Biography
Devjani Sen is an Instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at Algonquin College, Canada.
Rukhsana Ahmed is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA.
