Abstract

Social media, the pandemic, and environmental hazards have all played a role in shifting the landscape of risk communication. This paper takes a retroactive risk approach to study how COVID-19 messaging was shaped in the first 2 years of the pandemic. Using a corpus of 764 news releases from five health departments, I combine corpus analysis with coding based on government capacities to show that health departments highlighted public health data (surveillance) and risk guidance (governance), while downplaying enforcement (coercion). This process of revisiting communication from an acute risk phase can help us recalibrate how public health roles are constituted through language to prepare for future events.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2025-07-01
DOI
10.1177/00472816241262237
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Cites in this index (17)

  1. Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Show all 17 →
  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  6. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  8. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  9. Poroi
  10. Technical Communication Quarterly
  11. Technical Communication Quarterly
  12. Technical Communication Quarterly
Also cites 19 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1108/JHOM-05-2017-0116
  2. 10.5744/rhm.2022.5021
  3. 10.37514/TPC-B.2023.2104
  4. 10.1177/1075547018792572
  5. 10.1109/47.108666
  6. 10.7551/mitpress/10114.001.0001
  7. 10.5744/rhm.2018.1002
  8. 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.001.0001
  9. 10.3998/mpub.11927713
  10. 10.5744/rhm.2020.1004
  11. 10.1177/0002716296545001009
  12. 10.5744/rhm.2019.1010
  13. 10.1111/joms.12657
  14. 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2011.01386.x
  15. 10.4324/9781410606815
  16. 10.1177/23780231221093158
  17. 10.4324/9781003266549
  18. 10.1080/1461670X.2021.2021104
  19. 10.3390/healthcare8010064
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network →