Coronavirus Pandemic: How National Leaders Framed Their Speeches to Fellow Citizens

Sangeeta Shrivastava,Pradeep Krishnatray

doi:10.1177/1326365x211048589

Sangeeta Shrivastava, Pradeep Krishnatray

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1326365x211048589

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Abstract

It has perhaps never happened before that presidents or prime ministers of almost all countries have spoken to their citizens in so short a time on the same topic—COVID-19. When the scientific community did not have correct answers or adequate explanations for the questions that people and patients were asking, world leaders took up the gauntlet and spoke to their citizens. What did they tell them? What facts did they choose to dwell on, and how did they present them? How did they provide comfort and support? What offer did they make? We selected the speeches of leaders from five countries with the highest (nominal) GDP—the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India, and analysed it using a qualitative method—framing analysis. All the speeches except that of China’s were relatively short and contained four dominant frames: prevention-protection, the other, solidarity and hope and comfort. However, each leader’s address had a unique frame. The manner in which the leaders framed their arguments and announcements shows how they understand and construct the identity of their fellow citizens.

Highlights

It has perhaps never happened before that presidents or prime ministers of almost all countries have spoken to their citizens in so short a time on the same topic—COVID-19
We are more than 6 months into the Coronavirus pandemic, but doctors and specialists continue to speak in different voices
They have appeared on television and have spoken directly to their citizens. They have explained the risks due to the virus, proposed dramatic and unheard-of ways of controlling it and offered hope and confidence. How did they do it? What did they tell the people? Were they responsive to public opinion? What did they have to offer? We turned to their speeches to address these questions

Summary

Literature Review

Our exposure to media coverage of COVID-19 pandemic leads us to assume that it was perhaps one issue where the media, public and executive agendas were almost similar for a certain period of time. The third group of scholars traces back to the beginnings of framing study to Goffman (1974), who suggested that people build broad schema to understand and interpret events and information This relates to telling the story in ways to make the audience think and feel about it in a certain manner For our purpose, this means how the pandemic narrative was constructed, packaged and presented in speeches and how some attributes or aspects of the issue were made salient. Our secondary motivation was to find out how similar (or dissimilar) were Covid frames when leaders of the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India spoke on the same topic and the salience they assigned to the frames This led us to ask three specific questions: RQ1: What frames do the national leaders use to construct the Coronavirus pandemic narrative?. RQ3: What aspects of the Coronavirus pandemic were ascribed most salient in leaders’ speeches?

Methodology

February 7 April

Conclusion