Government communication amid pandemic discussed at summit in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Top officials dealing with the communication strategies of governments around the world discussed the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising online disinformation on day one of the two-day Stratcom 2021 summit in Istanbul on Saturday.

In a panel titled “Rethinking Government Communication,” moderator Murat Karagoz, the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s information chief, said the pandemic had a huge global impact from healthcare systems to the economy, education, tourism, culture, and transportation, and had tested governments’ communication skills.

Telling how in the early days of the pandemic Turkey evacuated its citizens from abroad when many were stranded due to canceled flights, Karagoz said these operations definitely required “successful communication skills,” and this also required “very successful coordination.”

“Countries, individuals, institutions fall apart during this period, but diplomacy needs talk. We need to talk to each other,” he said.

Speakers at the panel were Kosovo government spokesperson Perparim Kryeziu; Eero Raun, former communications chief for Estonia; Rihards Bambals, head of Strategic Communications at Latvia’s State Chancellery; Lutz Gullner, head of Strategic Communications at EU diplomatic service EEAS; and Vladimir Gushchin, chief communications officer at the Center for Strategic Research in Russia.

On the challenges many countries faced during the pandemic’s first wave, Estonia’s Raun criticized conspiracy theories circulating on social media, saying: “We now have plenty of vaccines but not enough people willing to do the injections. So about 40% of the population is still not fully vaccinated.”

Engaging the public

Vladimir Gushchin, attending virtually from Moscow, said that as the world has been fighting coronavirus, digitalization has been going on at the same time.

A lot has been done by governments for vaccination, he said, but added: “We still have a long way to find this skepticism among people that is still being spread.”

On the importance of strategic communication, Lutz Gullner, taking part virtually from Brussels, said: “A lot of our political agenda will depend on how we how we build the information.”

On the role of social media, he said: “We need to have a clear set of the rules of the game.”

“But we need to be careful,” he added. “We should not regulate content, in particular, if it's not illegal; but we need to have more responsibility, more transparency, and more accountability.”

Bambals explained how Latvian government communications tackled the pandemic.

“The first principle is effective and timely communication between the state and citizens,” he said.

“The second is just as important, which is quality, independent, and safe environment and actively engaged civil society, treating journalists as our friends as our allies in the fight against the pandemic.”

Kryeziu of Kosovo underlined the importance of making the public feel they are “part of something that we're all in” regarding the pandemic.