The coronavirus crisis—crisis communication, meaning-making, and reputation management
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: This article addresses the Norwegian government’s meaning-making, crises communication and reputation management during the Corona pandemic crisis. It argues that reputation management can be seen as a combination of governance capacity and legitimacy reflected in a well performing crisis communication and meaning-making. Under the slogan “working together” the government emphasized the need for a supportive and cohesive culture in order to to balance efforts at increasing governance capacity as well as governance legitimacy, through shaping a common understanding and broad consensus on what the crisis was about and what needed to be done to deal with it. A main lesson learned from the Norwegian case is that the effectiveness of the government in controlling the pandemic was enhanced by successful meaning-making and communication with the public, and to the high level of citizens’ trust in government.
Authors: Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid
Institutions: University of Oslo, University of Bergen
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3082058735