The quality of COVID-19 communication is a test of social cohesion

Editor’s note: The language challenges of the COVID-19 crisis have held much of our attention this year. Here on Language on the Move, we have been running a series devoted to language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis since February, and readers will also have seen the special issue of Multilingua devoted to “Linguistic Diversity in a Time of Crisis”.

Additionally, multilingual crisis communication has been the focus of the research projects conducted by Master of Applied Linguistics students at Macquarie University as part of their “Literacies” unit. We close the year by sharing some of their findings.

Here, Peter O’Keefe uses media sources to explore the public health communication strategies employed during Melbourne’s COVID-19 outbreak in Brimbank, a highly linguistically diverse suburb and, at the time, a COVID-19 hot spot.

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Melbourne is a city that takes pride in being one of the most cosmopolitan in the world. Like the rest of Australia, it is home to many migrant communities and in some local government areas like Brimbank, the number of migrants exceeds that of those born in Australia. It seems then rather unfair that in this time of emergency, communicating vital information to residents who rely on a language other than English for day-to-day life has come in an ad hoc fashion. This piecemeal approach to public health communication has resulted in a delay that could arguably be claimed responsible for it becoming a “hotspot” for COVID-19 infections this past winter. I will argue that failure to communicate effectively about vital pandemic information leads to distrust; and distrust in the government not only fuels conspiracy theories but undermines social cohesion at a time when we need everyone to stand together.

Crisis communication in linguistically diverse societies

There is no doubt, COVID-19 has laid bare failure in policy for emergency communication delivered in minority languages by governments all over the world. Delivering pandemic information in linguistically diverse countries is a serious challenge and Australia is not alone in this regard. What is clear, though, is that some countries, most notably China, have taken the challenge a little more seriously and acted with greater speed in addressing it. From the outset of the New Corona Virus crisis in Hubei province, expert linguists were called upon to aid with not only dissemination of information but also with patient-doctor interaction in what is now known as ground zero for the COVID-19 pandemic (Li et al 2020).

Poor translation quality undermines trust

Compare this with the response in Australia, in particular in Brimbank. Although there were top-down efforts to deliver translations of pandemic information in various community languages, these were seemingly symbolic rather than serving a practical purpose.

All of these translations appear to have been simply machine done. The Japanese translation I examined contained pragmatic and discursive errors along with curious word choices.

Would the government seriously consider communicating with other governments in the world using Google Translate? Using poor translations is a sign of disrespect.

Deploying monolingual door knockers undermines trust

Perhaps in an effort to address the issue of communicating with non-internet users, the Victorian government dispatched door knockers to deliver in-person information about testing in hot spot suburbs. The private company to which this task was outsourced, employed poorly trained staff without proficiency in the main non-English languages of the area, whose communications reportedly caused further confusion.

Migrants cop the blame for public communication failures

This communication breakdown may also have contributed to stigmatizing migrants as unwilling to participate in the public health effort and get tested.

The chief health officer of Victoria at one point declared that conspiracy theories circulated by migrants on social media were perhaps “partially responsible” for people believing that COVID-19 wasn’t real. However, there actually was no evidence that anyone refused a COVID-19 test on the grounds of not believing that COVID-19 was real.

What is sadly ironic about this claim is that conspiracy theories rely on people’s distrust of government to be believed. Lack of effective communication with the community especially in times of emergency creates distrust, so surely the government must accept some responsibility for any conspiracy theories that may have been circulating.

COVID-19 crisis communication is a test of social cohesion

In this post I have attempted to argue that emergency pandemic communication is more than merely conveying information. It serves a purpose to also persuade and comfort. If it can be effective in comforting, then this will build trust. This is necessary to ultimately persuade people to change their behaviors in a spirit of cooperation. The Victorian government’s actions in this area have had the opposite effect.

Just as COVID-19 has exposed the injustices and inequities across societies, it has also shown the different levels of social cohesion in various countries around the world. It takes a team effort to beat a pandemic, where all members of the community stand together regardless of their language, their political and cultural beliefs, or their level of literacy.

Reference

Li,Y., Rao, G., Zhang, J., and Li, J. (2020). Conceptualizing national emergency language competence. Multilingua, 39(5): 617–623.