Public Relations Management After COVID-19 Lockdown: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

Abstract

The aim of the research study was to understand the effectiveness of the public relations strategies of crisis communication and how impactful they were for saving the image of Wuhan city after the pandemic. Wuhan was hailed as the epicentre of Corona virus infections as the initial infections have spread from this place. Thus, the image of this prominent city was maligned not only towards the local and national audience, but the international audience as well. Thus, the Wuhan government took up most of the necessary public relations strategies to restore the image of the city among the national and international audience. This paper has intrinsically dealt with the opinions from the different sample population on the effectiveness of the crisis communication done by the PR strategists of the Wuhan government. From most of the respondents it has been found out that Wuhan government and its public relations strategies were wholly operated through the digital medium and this has helped in restoring the image of the image to greater and effective extent. Through the disposition of information through different social media networking sites like Facebook and Sina Weibo, the PR strategists were able to provide information on the improvements in the city condition and the reduction of infection in Wuhan along with other positive news articles. However from the respondents it has been also found that, including lesser opinion from the public, decrease in the participation of the common mass in the information dissemination process by the Wuhan government has decreased the effectiveness of the image restoration PR strategy in the Wuhan city. The research study concludes that while the PR crisis communication and its strategies have been helpful towards restoring the image of the city, there are still some loop holes that needs to be fixed.