REGIONAL PRESIDENTS AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION ON COVID-19

This research focuses on the communication of 18 Italian regional presidents in the first 2 months of COVID-19 crisis. The regions are autonomous in the management of health services in the territory and their communication to citizens is crucial. We study presidents’ Facebook messages with content and lexical analysis, to understand how much space was dedicated to the pandemic, what content the presidents offered and in what formats. We also show how the presidents represented their relationship with the government or with citizens, and how they reinforced credibility and trust in crisis leadership. The regional presidents prioritized the informative and the educational/ awareness functions of public communication. They also enhanced the emotional and symbolic aspects of communication in crisis; and they personalised the relationship with citizens. In some cases, a disagreement/contrast with the national institutions was useful to redefine the presidents’ positioning in terms of centre-periphery dialectic and to strengthen their leadership on the territory.