Crisis Communication in Croatia in 2020: Sources of Information, Trust in Institutions and the Soft Power of Countries

Abstract

In Croatia, it is completely justified to brand 2020 as a crisis year. Besides the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the entire world, Croatia faced a number of strong earthquakes, which further increased the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty among its citizens. Therefore, the communication of the Government, as well as the key public institution handling the crisis, can undoubtedly be seen as, dominantly, crisis communication. This paper is based on the assumption that efficient crisis communication needs to establish the trust of the endangered publics into the sources that provide them with key information about the crisis, as well as the trust into the institutions and organizations that manage the crisis and communicate different information. Considering the fact that citizens are exposed to various global sources of information, which enabled them to perceive different ways and models of handling the pandemic throughout Europe and the world, they were able to differentiate and compare Croatian efforts to tackle the pandemic with those of different countries. This paper analyzes the stated fields of crisis communication; preferred sources of information during crises, as well as confidence in institutions and organizations that were involved in handling the crisis situations. The authors use elements of the soft power concept to analyze how Croatian citizens perceive the management of the pandemic in other countries around the world, revealing their models and role models, and comparing the behavior of Croatian institutions during the crisis with those of other European countries and countries around the world. The results of the conducted research can help individuals and organizations in Croatia that handle crisis situations to direct and plan communication activities, as well as to channel messages to preferred channels, and to provide valuable insight into the level of confidence that Croatian citizens have in Croatian institutions and those of other countries in Europe and around the world.