Everyone will know someone who died of Corona: Government threat language during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Threat language is an important, albeit ambivalent, element of political crisis communication. It raises public awareness and enhances compliance with emergency measures, but, if overused, it also carries the risk of making governments appear overwhelmed by a crisis. Research on political communication during the COVID-19 pandemic has so far only produced very limited insights into the use of threat language by governments. To address this gap in the literature, our article analyses which factors influence the likelihood of threat language in the crisis communication of governments. We argue that individual-level factors (politician vs. non-politician and gender) shape the odds of including threat language and that contextual factors (time and subject area) determine the probability with which speakers employ this communication tool.

Based on a unique dataset of 1108 press conferences with 433 speakers in 17 OECD countries and three US states, we demonstrate that men are slightly more prone to employ threat language than women. The most important determinant of its use, however, is the subject area that speakers are addressing. In particular, in the context of the health system and public management, speeches are likely to be associated with risks, dangers, and threats. Overall, our findings imply that crisis communication across countries is not as diverse as indicated by previous literature. Once countries are facing a comparable challenge, political actors largely communicate in a similar manner.