Making Sense of the Response to Covid-19 in Higher Education
A Case Study of Crisis Communication in Two Universities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13074586 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giuseppe Palumbo (0000-0003-0829-9118, University of Trieste, corresponding author), Ann Hill Duin (0000-0003-1827-1450, University of Minnesota) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Lingue Culture Mediazioni - Languages Cultures Mediation (LCM Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2284-1881 • E-ISSN: 2421-0293 |
| Publisher | Led Edizioni Universitarie (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.7358/lcm-2022-002-gpad |
| OpenAlex | W4318473024 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
The COVID-19 pandemic brought extreme challenges and disruption to higher education, resulting in hurried adoption of online teaching. From the point of view of crisis communication, the COVID-19 pandemic as experienced in HE institutions represents an interesting case, because crisis management and communication were primarily, if not exclusively, directed at internal stakeholders (essentially, students and staff ). We present a case study that compares and contrasts the COVID-related responses of two different universities: the University of Minnesota, in the U.S., and the University of Trieste, in Italy. In particular, we look at the sets of documents issued by the leadership of these universities over a period of 23 months between February 2020 (the start of the health crisis) and December 2021. The analysis of the documents revealed that unexpected spaces of freedom empowered instructors. We identify four discursive traits associated with these spaces: definitional change, code glossing, and the use of engagement markers and permissives. However, this empowerment changed over time, as universities became eager to go back to “normal” and reinstate restrictions from pre-pandemic times
2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Academic freedom · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Crisis communication · Crisis management · Crisis response · Empowerment · Higher education · Pandemic · Political science · Public relations · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Sociology · Communication in Education and Healthcare · Law · Medicine · Public Relations and Crisis Communication
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |