Assessing the use of explanatory journalistic texts for crisis communication education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brings both challenges and opportunities to crisis communication education. This article reports on student perceptions of an upper-level undergraduate course on risk and crisis communication that was taught in the fall 2020 semester. The course syllabus was redesigned to assist students in better understanding pandemic-related communication challenges. For this purpose, I adopted explanatory journalistic texts published by The Conversation Canada as supplementary readings for weekly in-class discussions. I subsequently conducted a survey near the semester end to explore how the course attendees perceived the revised syllabus. According to the survey results, the course attendees overwhelmingly welcomed a crisis communication syllabus built around an ongoing crisis. They also expressed a strong preference for the adoption of explanatory journalistic texts as supplementary readings. Overall, this classroom assessment demonstrates the advantages of teaching crisis communication theories and principles through the combination of explanatory journalistic texts and real-world cases, which other communication courses may adopt in the future.