THE RHETORIC OF CRISIS: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION ON SOCIAL NETWORKS DURING THE 2020 CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

Abstract

The present paper analyses political communication on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the 2020 coronavirus crisis. We are looking into the discourse of important political actors in the USA, Canada, France, the UK, the EU and Romania, attempting to highlight the rhetorical strategies they use to communicate with their audiences, to reassure them, to convince them that the crisis will be eventually overcome, to motivate and persuade them to comply with official regulations and to gain credibility and legitimacy for the policies enforced. The paper also provides an outline of the main advantages of using social platforms to reach the public, as well as of the most commonly used concepts and buzz-words that rhetors resort to in order to achieve their goals.