Managing COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis: The Case of Greece

Abstract

This qualitative study analyzes the Greek government’s crisis management practice and public communication efforts during two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Integrating both crisis management theories and the World Health Organization’s pandemic control plans, discourse analysis and case study approaches were taken to analyze how Greek’s key government and public health authorities communicated with the public using different frames and crisis response strategies. Evaluations were conducted to assess the Greek government’s crisis communication procedures and the effectiveness of different rhetorical strategies used as evidenced in public briefings and public speeches.

Learning From the Past: The Role of Social and Behavior Change Programming in Public Health Emergencies

“… 96 To communicate these risks, the government of Greece featured 2 leaders during COVID-19 press briefings, a professor focused on the medical developments and a secretary who communicated governmental decisions and crisis management measures. 97 This approach resembled the way that Singaporean officials “spoke with one voice” during the SARS epidemic 48 and contributed to similar public satisfaction with governmental leadership during these epidemics. 98 , 99 These examples suggest that political will and commitments are foundational for the actions necessary to facilitate social and behavioral change.…”

“…96 To communicate these risks, the government of Greece featured 2 leaders during COVID-19 press briefings, a professor focused on the medical developments and a secretary who communicated governmental decisions and crisis management measures. 97 This approach resembled the way that Singaporean officials "spoke with one voice" during the SARS epidemic 48 and contributed to similar public satisfaction…”

Discursive construction in multilingual crisis risk communication: An analysis of ‘A letter to foreign nationals’ messages in China’s COVID-19 fight

“…By calculating the speech acts and modality features of the texts, they revealed the institutional power and the social relationships underlying the SARS notice discourse (Zhang and Pan, 2015). In a qualitative study of Greece’s response to COVID-19 during two waves of infections, Aspriadis (2021) analysed the Greek government’s official website pages using methods from political discourse analysis. The study identified coherent strategies among three leading authoritative figures who rhetorically framed national response to the crisis as war and individual social responsibility in the earlier wave of the pandemic (Aspriadis, 2021).…”

“…In a qualitative study of Greece’s response to COVID-19 during two waves of infections, Aspriadis (2021) analysed the Greek government’s official website pages using methods from political discourse analysis. The study identified coherent strategies among three leading authoritative figures who rhetorically framed national response to the crisis as war and individual social responsibility in the earlier wave of the pandemic (Aspriadis, 2021). Such framing strategies were slightly altered in the second wave with greater prominence of the individual social responsibility frame and a hope frame adopted alongside risk-heightening and image-bolstering strategies (ibid.…”

“…crisis communication aims to raise awareness of a specific threat and motivate responsive actions among the intended group (Reynolds and Seeger, 2005). Critical analysis of crisis discourse has been made around business (Peng et al, 2021) and bureaucratic (Hansson, 2015(Hansson, , 2017(Hansson, , 2018Yan, 2016) organisations, covering genre types including newspaper articles (Glascock, 2004), statements and apology letters (Peng et al, 2021), as well as governmental argumentation (Yan, 2016) and official addresses and speeches (Aspriadis, 2021). For example, Peng et al (2021) compared the discursive strategies in crisis communication statements made by Google and Apple and found substantial differences in the companies' responses to reverse the legitimacy crisis.…”