Communicating COVID-19 in multiple languages: a maturity model assessment of Ireland’s crisis communication practice

Abstract

Timely, accurate and clear communication is essential in crisis response. Given the multilingual and multicultural nature of many parts of today’s populated world, it should be evident that translation is key to enabling crisis communication. Although receiving little attention previously, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role of translation in responding to crises. Nevertheless, how prepared are jurisdictions for crisis translation? One way of measuring this is to use a maturity model assessment. In this article, we apply the Organisational Maturity for Disaster Preparedness (OMDP) model Mohamed & Qu, (2018) to the Republic of Ireland, assessing the level of response through documentary and interview-based evidence. All considered, we place the response between June and November 2020 at Level 2 on the OMDP. Recommendations for moving up in the maturity model are provided and could be applied to many more jurisdictions.

Keywords

• crisis translation
• covid-19
• maturity model assessment
• crisis response
• ireland