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Research Article

Predicting Public Cooperation with Face Covering at the Early Phases of COVID-19: Building Public Trust, Confidence, Knowledge Through Governmental Two-Way Symmetrical Communication

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Published online: 02 Jan 2024
 

ABSTRACT

Despite the agreement on the importance of two-way communication during governmental response to pandemics, few studies provided empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of such communication strategy in times of a public health crisis. Integrating the concept of two-way symmetrical communication and the Trust, Confidence, and Cooperation model (the TCC model), this study investigates how strategic communication practices, in particular two-way symmetrical communication, is related to public’s perceived trust and confidence in governments (i.e., CDC in this study), and how these perceptions may affect decisions to comply with the preventive behaviors (i.e., face covering in this study), while taking the moderating role of knowledge into consideration. An online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. The findings showed that two-way symmetrical communication may increase public trust and confidence in governments, and improve individuals’ knowledge about the pandemic, which all subsequently leads to compliance with recommended behaviors. The results contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should adopt two-way symmetrical communication practices in respond to public health emergencies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Based on the most recent U.S. census data (the United States Census Bureau, Citation2021), the U.S. population comprised 49.1% male and 50.9% female. The median age was 38.8. A majority (63.7%) were Caucasians, followed by The Hispanic population (16.3%).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

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