Does Politics Influence Crisis Communication? An Analysis of Health Minister Nelu Tătaru's Discourses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

. Crises are special instances in which leadership figures test their public communication skills. The COVID-19 pandemic represents one of these scenarios, in which responsible institutions are required to manage a communication process that provides information and builds trust amongst the public. To assess communication efficiency, it is essential to put under a lens the communication efforts of political leaders mandated to communicate with the public. This paper analyzes the communication of Romanian health minister Nelu T&acaron;taru, one of the critical voices managing pandemic communication in the country. To illustrate the communicationalprofile of the leader investigation, this research aims to investigate how the subject navigated between crisis communication and political communication throughout his public statements. Building on crisis communication research, this paper displays the discursive approaches of T&acaron;tarus COVID-19 rhetoric in 2020. The analysis of the Health Ministers discourses reveals an overview of the approach to crisis communication by main political actors. The results show a lack of accuracy, predictability, and clarity of the messages transmitted to the public. What is more, the results of the discourse analysis reflect a tendency of discourses in the Romanian public sphere towards populist messages, which intensely use elements of partisan, subjective or wooden language, to divert attention from the main issues.