Chris Liebold
In a new publication in the Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Martin Löffelholz, Kathrin Schleicher and Johanna Radechovsky, together with researchers from an interdisciplinary research group from the fields of media, communication and law, outline the potential for optimizing multimodal crisis communication and how it can be implemented for governments, public authorities and health care organizations.
The article entitled "Optimizing Risk and Crisis Communication of Governments, Authorities and Health Care Organizations - Challenges in protracted crises using the example of the COVID-19 pandemic" describes the challenges of governmental crisis communication during the pandemic, specifically examines the role of multimodal arrangements, and emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary research to understand the complex nature of communicative measures in crisis situations.
Within the scope of the MIRKKOMM Research Network (https://mirkkomm.de/), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for three years, the Research Group Crisis Communication, under the direction of Martin Löffelholz, is investigating the crisis communication of state actors on the occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on interviews with representatives of governmental institutions at the federal, state and local levels as well as a representative survey of local governments and public health authorities in Germany, the research group analyzes the challenges of governmental communication in coping with the COVID 19 pandemic as well as potentials how future crises can be managed better in terms of communication.
The findings will be presented in detail at the annual conference of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Lyon, France, in mid-July 2023 and at the "Crisis7" conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) in Gothenburg, Sweden, in October.
Contact Prof. Dr. Martin Löffelholz (martin.loeffelholz@tu-ilmenau.de)
Kathrin Schleicher, M.A. (kathrin.schleicher@tu-ilmenau.de)
Johanna Radechovsky, M.A. (johanna.radechovsky@tu-ilmenau.de)
Publication Schulze, A., Brand, F., Leschzyk, D. K., Beuthner, M., Biegert, A., Bomnüter, U., Boy, B., Bucher, H.-J., Frau, R., Hubig, M., Löffelholz, M., Mayer, J., Pliquet, C., Radechovsky, J., Schleicher, S., & Ulbrich, K. (2023). Optimierung der Risiko- und Krisenkommunikation von Regierungen, Behörden und Organisationen der Gesundheitssicherung – Herausforderungen in lang anhaltenden Krisen am Beispiel der COVID-19-Pandemie. Bundesgesundheitsblatt - Gesundheitsforschung – Gesundheitsschutz, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-023-03708-1.