TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethos in COVID-19 crisis communication
T2 - evidence from Oman
AU - Al-Rubai’ey, Fatema
AU - Al-Sharafi, Abdul Gabbar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/7/6
Y1 - 2023/7/6
N2 - There is little research on the effectiveness of the rhetorical strategies adopted by governments in COVID-19 crisis communication. This study aimed to answer the following two questions: (1) What are the ethos-related rhetorical strategies used in the official Arabic discourse of COVID-19 crisis communication in Oman? (2) Aligned with Seeger’s model of best practice in crisis communication, to what extent are these ethos-related rhetorical strategies effective in delivering a successful crisis response communication? The data came from Oman’s COVID-19 Supreme Committee press conference. The data included the first six press conferences covering the period from April 2, 2020 to May 7, 2020. The study showed that Oman’s COVID-19 crisis communication exhibits a variety of ethos-related rhetorical strategies, mainly to establish, reinforce and restore speaker’s credibility. The study also showed that Oman’s COVID-19 crisis communication was effective from a rhetorical perspective because it made use of rhetorical strategies that aligned well with Seeger’s best practice of honesty, candor and openness. One of the key recommendations of this paper is to call for Seeger’s model to be expanded to cover areas that this model does not currently address, namely speaker’s competence and message believability.
AB - There is little research on the effectiveness of the rhetorical strategies adopted by governments in COVID-19 crisis communication. This study aimed to answer the following two questions: (1) What are the ethos-related rhetorical strategies used in the official Arabic discourse of COVID-19 crisis communication in Oman? (2) Aligned with Seeger’s model of best practice in crisis communication, to what extent are these ethos-related rhetorical strategies effective in delivering a successful crisis response communication? The data came from Oman’s COVID-19 Supreme Committee press conference. The data included the first six press conferences covering the period from April 2, 2020 to May 7, 2020. The study showed that Oman’s COVID-19 crisis communication exhibits a variety of ethos-related rhetorical strategies, mainly to establish, reinforce and restore speaker’s credibility. The study also showed that Oman’s COVID-19 crisis communication was effective from a rhetorical perspective because it made use of rhetorical strategies that aligned well with Seeger’s best practice of honesty, candor and openness. One of the key recommendations of this paper is to call for Seeger’s model to be expanded to cover areas that this model does not currently address, namely speaker’s competence and message believability.
KW - COVID-19
KW - crisis communication
KW - crisis discourse
KW - ethos-rhetorical strategies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85164734884&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85164734884&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/da906821-1c29-31d8-a08c-047393e8fb38/
U2 - 10.1080/13669877.2023.2230983
DO - 10.1080/13669877.2023.2230983
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85164734884
SN - 1366-9877
VL - 26
SP - 931
EP - 946
JO - Journal of Risk Research
JF - Journal of Risk Research
IS - 9
ER -