Foreign Experience of Public Sector Communications in the context of Global COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Communication in the public sector is a key tool for responding to sudden crises. It allows to check the interpretation of what is happening in accordance with changing circumstances and prevent the risks of irreversible obligations, when the authorities make management decisions in conditions of the pandemic crisis, which has raised the bar of their responsibility to protect citizens. COVID-19 is considered by the author as a starting point in the transformation of traditional communication schemes and the institutional consolidation of new communication practices and models of crisis communication. Public sector organizations face different challenges in comparison to private ones, because they are influenced by social structures, power dynamics and a higher level of media control. The pandemic accelerated the processes of media convergence and defined in it a communication collaborative strategy for the development of crisis communications in the public sector. The beginning institutionalization of crisis communications makes it possible to systematize communication strategies and increase the effectiveness of the tools and means used for the proper organization of crisis communication in the public sector. The core of modern crisis communications is social media, which, in fact, is equated with traditional media and entered into direct competition with them, primarily due to the ability to monitor crisis problems and decentralized rapid communications. To keep control over the process of informing the citizens in a crisis, the authorities must act in accordance with a certain communication scenario. The model of crisis communication for the public sector is still being formed. It needs to be re-conceptualized in an increasingly personalized, emotional, and hybrid media landscape.