Literatur zur Krisenkommunikation

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic puts countries and their governments in an unprecedented situation never experienced before. Strong countermeasures have been implemented in most places, but how much do people trust their governments in handling this crisis? Using data from a worldwide survey, conducted between March 20th, 2020 and April 22nd, 2020, with more than 100,000 participants, we study people’s perceptions on government reactions in 57 countries. We find that trust in how governments handle the crisis is mostly related to the amount of action taken (stronger measures leading on average to more trust) and the outcome (number of deaths in the country). Another important factor is freedom of press: it reduces the trust in governments. Perceptions of the amount of actions (too much and particularly too little) are the main explanatory factors for government trust. The perception of too much government reaction, however, is not related to the factual amount of actions or the outcome (number of deaths), but to personal characteristics, particularly education. In a separate, smaller survey, we also find that this perception is related to beliefs in conspiracy theories.

2020

Krisenwahrnehmung
Pandemiebezogene Maßnahmen

Rieger, Marc Oliver
Wang, Mei