The study, published in the Professional Information magazine, shows that European political figures such as Pedro Sánchez, Conte, Macron or Johnson, failed to take advantage of their position of influence to spread messages that really reached the population and encouraged them to comply the rules established to avoid contagion. According to the authors, these politicians lost the opportunity to “show themselves using a mask, respecting social distance or proposing hygiene measures”.

In this sense, Sebastian Sánchez highlighted: “The European communication policy during the dramatic first forty days of the pandemic required a clear, forceful and coordinated speech from political leaders. But this did not happen. The communicative flow on Twitter of European leaders, responsible for the most affected countries, turned out to be individualistic and ineffective in the face of the health challenge. These leaders missed the opportunity to ‘lead by example’, which is a fundamental component of authentic leadership.

The research results show that the European leaders analysed barely showed any aspects of confinement in their daily lives. In addition, they highlight aspects such as that the length of the videos of the Spanish president was excessive and did not allow his followers to easily understand the most important issues. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron or Boris Johnson did not appear in any publication wearing a mask.

Esteban Galán, researcher at the Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and Art History at the Gandia campus of the UPV, assures that “the novelty of this research is that the analysis is mainly focused on the study of the image that the leaders projected through the photos and videos they posted on their personal accounts during the first weeks of the pandemic”. The international nature of the research has made it possible to have extensive coverage in the United Kingdom and has allowed us to find patterns that are repeated among the main leaders of the European countries most affected by the first wave of the pandemic. “The results of this study are being very useful to continue this line of research with a second work in which the role that the public media of Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom have played in the construction of the story about the pandemic”, adds Galán.

In this article, in which Lindsey Drylie Carey (Glasgow Caledonian University) participates, data on dissemination, topics, the presence of WHO recommendations or staging in publications are shown from Presidents Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Sánchez and Giuseppe Conte.

On the other hand, the case of Tedros Adhanom, president of the World Health Organisation, is also analysed, who according to the authors sometimes showed “a behaviour more typical of an Instagram influencer than of the director of a global health organisation in a of the worst health crises in decades”, for his posts citing celebrities and participating in discussions with other political figures.

The authors are aware of the importance for these figures to give an image of authority and leadership, and that the multidirectional communication offered by social networks can be essential to gain the trust of citizens. Despite this, the communication strategies used only consist of reproducing institutional messages and images, which barely manage to establish efficient communication with citizens.

Article:

Drylie-Carey, Lindsey; Sánchez-Castillo, Sebastián; Galán-Cubillo, Esteban (2020). “European leaders unmasked: COVID-19 communication strategy through Twitter”. Profesional de la información, v. 29, n. 5, e290504.

https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.04

Photo caption annex:

Sebastián Sánchez-Castillo (right) and Esteban Galan.