CRISIS COMMUNICATION IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA – BETWEEN HIPPOCRATES AND MACHIAVELI
Keywords:
crisis, crisis communication, pandemic, Serbia, COVID-19Abstract
Crisis communication is an important part of crisis management and can significantly affect the effectiveness of overall efforts to manage a crisis situation. This applies to all crises and disasters, especially those related to human health in general and epidemics and pandemics in particular. In this sense, there are examples of good practice and specially developed guidelines and protocols of the World Health Organization and other relevant organizations and bodies. The paper, since the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, gives the first evaluation of crisis communication of the expert team/doctors and political officials. On particular examples is shown that the most of the principles and rules of effective crisis communication were violated leading to conclusion that crisis communication in this crisis was untimely, inconsistent, incomplete and politicized, in the context of the just announced elections. At the end of the paper, the practical failure of crisis communication is pointed out in the sense that citizens did not take seriously the danger of virus and the need to take protection measures and that trust in key institutions and individuals in the health system was seriously damaged, which could have negative implications in the next phases of pandemic.
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