How Experts React: The World Health Organization's Appraisal of COVID-19 via Communication Patterns. (March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Markowitz, David M.
• Is Part Of: Journal of language and social psychology. Volume 41:Number 2(2022)
• Page Start: 209
• Page End: 218
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Subjects: communication patterns -- language -- pandemic -- COVID-19 -- automated text analysis; Sociolinguistics -- Periodicals; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; 401.905
• DOI: 10.1177/0261927X211026346
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-927X

Abstract

How do COVID-19 experts psychologically manage the pandemic and its effects? Using a full year of press briefings (January 2020–January 2021) from the World Health Organization ( N = 126), this paper evaluated the relationship between communication patterns and COVID-19 cases and deaths. The data suggest as COVID-19 cases and deaths increased, health experts tended to think about the virus in a more formal and analytic manner. Experts also communicated with fewer cognitive processing terms, which typically indicate people "working through" a crisis. This report offers a lens into the internal states of COVID-19 experts and their organization as they gradually learned about the virus and its daily impact.