Communicating uncertainty to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review of the literature

ABSTRACT

Pandemics are characterized by extreme uncertainty and effective communication is critical to help the public manage this uncertainty. We summarized scholarship on public communication related to uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, synthesizing insights published from January 2020–February 2022. We reviewed key findings and arguments from 39 empirical papers and 21 nonempirical papers with a particular focus on the theories and concepts that underpinned them. While this work shed light on elements of effective communication, conceptual and operational treatments of uncertainty varied considerably, and less than half of papers used a theory to analyze or discuss uncertainty-related communication. In all, this review highlights opportunities to strengthen our field’s theoretical and practical contributions to public communication in uncertain situations.

KEYWORDS:

• Public communication
• media
• uncertainty
• uncertain science
• transparency
• COVID-19
• theory

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Glen Nowak and Jakob D. Jensen for insights that shaped our research questions and coding framework. We greatly appreciate the thoughtful and constructive comments from the special issue guest editors and reviewers. Any errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

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