Abstract

GONCALVES, Gisela; PINEIRO-NAVAL, Valeriano  and  TONIOLO, Bianca Persici. Who Do the Portuguese Trust? Government Communication Management in the Covid-19 Pandemic. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2021, vol.40, pp.169-187.  Epub Dec 20, 2021. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.40(2021).3251.

In a health emergency situation, the degree of public compliance with orders from health authorities and governments can significantly affect the course of the pandemic. Based on the assumption that (non-)compliance with the authorities’ recommendations is directly linked to trust in the sources of information, in this article, we discuss the concrete case of the Portuguese government communication during the beginning of the second wave of the disease. In the context of an international investigation of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association Com-Covid network, an online survey was applied to 460 Portuguese citizens between October 7 and November 11, 2020. For this paper, we analyzed a section of the survey with questions regarding the sources of information that inspire greater confidence among the Portuguese population and their opinion on the management of government communication. The surveys were coded and entered in the SPSS statistical software. The study concluded a positive perception of government communication among respondents but that the Portuguese consider healthcare personnel to be more reliable sources of information than the media or government authorities. Regarding the gender issue, it was concluded that women trust the government more and have a better opinion about the authorities’ communication. Regarding age, it was found that young people are the ones who trust more the authorities and the media, while at the same time being the most critical of the government’s performance in managing the crisis. In general, respondents showed little confidence in digital social networks and digital influencers as a source of information about covid-19, and the higher the academic degree, the lesser confidence respondents have in influencers and digital social networks.

Keywords : communication; trust; covid-19; source of information; Portugal.

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