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Communicating Mobility Restrictions During the COVID‐19 Crisis on Twitter: The Legitimacy Challenge
Author(s) -
Bélanger MarieEve,
Lavenex Sandra
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1111/spsr.12494
Subject(s) - legitimacy , disengagement theory , crisis communication , social distance , social media , consistency (knowledge bases) , politics , congruence (geometry) , government (linguistics) , political science , covid-19 , public relations , political economy , business , social psychology , sociology , psychology , computer science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , medicine , gerontology , linguistics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law
Abstract In response to Covid‐19, governments have imposed substantial restrictions on people's mobility. To encourage compliance, political actors have deployed direct communication strategies on social media. In this paper, we evaluate the legitimacy of the Swiss government's crisis communication on Twitter during the first wave of the pandemic. We examine and compare tweets regarding international and domestic travel, as well as social distancing. Using content and network analysis, we analyze the legitimacy of crisis communication by measuring its timeliness, consistency and congruence. We find that communication on domestic mobility restrictions has enjoyed a higher level of consistency and congruence, but has suffered from a disengagement of political parties, while the communication of international travel restrictions has become increasingly politicized.