Communication in the COVID-19 crisis: unique story, epic framework and missing stories

Abstract

On December 31, 2019, Wuhan alerted about severe cases of pneumonia related to a new coronavirus. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Ever since, the disease associated with this virus, called COVID-19, has invaded all the media covers day after day. Both the enormous media impact and the errors in the response to this crisis have shown, once again, that information management in crisis situations cannot be improvised. Even more so in health crises that can be a serious public health threat. We analyze the communication strategy followed during the first weeks of the pandemic in Spain through the stories that have been present and those that have been missed, to criticize the communication model used and to propose improvement areas.

Keywords

• medios de comunicación
• covid-19
• gestión de crisis
• salud pública
• marketing político
• relatos