Pandemic Communication in Times of Populism: Building Resilient Media and Ensuring Effective Pandemic Communication in Divided Societies

媒体是健康信息的重要来源，在公共卫生危机期间，媒体的作用越来越大。媒体在危机期间选择和呈现信息的方式可以对公众的态度和行为产生重大影响；它可以鼓励社会凝聚力和遵守公共卫生措施，或者造成分裂和不信任。民粹主义领导人的存在阻碍了媒体组织进行有效的健康危机沟通的能力。它助长了反精英情绪，助长了分裂的媒体报道，从而鼓励公民之间的两极分化态度和不信任，使他们更容易受到通过社会数字网络传播的错误信息的影响。鉴于民粹主义在全球的吸引力越来越大，旨在使我们的社会在未来大流行面前更具弹性的活动迫切需要更好地了解民粹主义如何影响卫生危机传播。该项目将在民粹主义政治的背景下对健康危机传播进行第一次全面的比较研究，在政治传播和公共卫生的交叉点带来重大的知识进步。研究将考察民粹主义对新冠肺炎期间大流行传播回路的四个方面的影响：政府主导的健康危机传播、媒体政策、媒体报道和公众态度。第五条线索将以跨国的视角，分析中国和俄罗斯大流行地缘政治如何塑造民粹主义和大流行传播之间的互动。重点将放在四个在疫情期间由民粹主义领导人领导的国家，它们捕捉到了应对疫情的不同类型的民粹主义反应：巴西、波兰、塞尔维亚和美国。这项研究将为旨在建立更具弹性的媒体组织的建议提供参考，这些组织更有能力在分裂的社会中应对未来大流行的挑战。这些建议将与代表媒体监管机构、传播专业人员和公共服务媒体的主要组织合作制定和传播。

Media serve as important sources of information about health, and their role increases during public health crises. The way media select and present information during a crisis can have a significant impact on public attitudes and behaviour; it can encourage social cohesion and compliance with public health measures, or alternatively saw division and distrust. The presence of populist leaders obstructs the capacity of media organisations to engage in effective health crisis communication. It fosters anti-elite sentiments, contributes to divisive media coverage, and thereby encourages polarized attitudes and distrust among citizens, making them more vulnerable to misinformation spreading through socio-digital networks. Given the growing appeal of populism globally, activities aimed at making our societies more resilient in the face of future pandemics urgently need a better understanding of how populism affects health crisis communication. This project will develop the first comprehensive, comparative study of health crisis communication in the context of populist politics, bringing significant advances in knowledge at the intersection of political communication and public health. Research will examine the impact of populism on four aspects of the pandemic communication circuit during COVID-19: government-led health crisis communication, media policy, media coverage, and public attitudes. The fifth strand will take a transnational perspective and analyse how the interaction between populism and pandemic communication was shaped by China and Russia's pandemic geopolitics. The focus will be on four countries that were led by populist leaders during the pandemic, and which capture different types of populist responses to the pandemic: Brazil, Poland, Serbia, and the USA.This research will inform recommendations aimed at building more resilient media organisations that are better equipped to withstand the challenges of future pandemics in divided societies. The recommendations will be developed and disseminated in collaboration with key organisations representing media regulators, communication professionals, and public service media.