Crisis Communication and Resilience: Are Russian and Latvian Speakers in the Same Boat?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the ability of the national governments to manage a crisis by covering policy sectors, which are decisive for health, well-being, sustainability of individuals, and society at large. Communication plays a crucial role in situations when society is at risk. Communication is a source of prevention, action, mitigation, and empowerment. Therefore, the ways and means of how national governments and governmental institutions implement adopted strategies, and how they make their actions understandable and reasonable to their societies, become an important element of crisis management at large. Diversification of the modern information environment makes governments’ communication even more complex. The media landscape, especially social media, impact reality’s perception, including crisis and emergencies. As a result, governments are struggling with different forms of messaging and a choice of narratives to be shared with the broader public or societal groups. Considering the existing division in the perception of political realities between Latvian and Russian-speaking communities, Latvia is a case of particular interest for analysis. The article aims to explore how the society has been led through the current crisis communication-wise by the government and what strategies are used for the particular linguistic groups. The article looks at the main factors influencing the perceptions of the Russian-speaking community in Latvia and the main reasons for the existing divergence between perceptions of Latvian and Russian-speaking representatives. The study is based on focus group interviews organized authors.