The Role of the Communication Discipline to Tackle COVID-19: Interrogating Positive Deviations and Critical Discourses

The COVID-19 pandemic descended on us in an unexpected, uncontrollable, and unpredictable manner, disrupting the world order and affecting all sectors of human society. The world had little time to prepare for the ravages of a novel and highly infectious coronavirus. By February 2021, some 112 million people had contracted COVID-19 globally, and 2.5 million had died. Even with the availability of vaccines at warp speed, and vaccination efforts rolling out in early 2021, it is still uncertain how the pandemic—with all its highly infectious mutant variants—would play out. No one knows with any certainty what the endpoint will be, and what lies ahead.

Since the spread of the COVID-19 was uncontrollable from the beginning, and little was known about the novel virus, the pandemic response has varied greatly at the global, national, and regional levels. Remarkably, several scientifically advanced countries had dismal pandemic responses, notably the USA and the UK. The U.S. arguably had the worst response, accounting for 25% (28 million) of the global COVID-19 cases, and 20% (500,000) of the deaths. In contrast, several developing countries of Asia and Africa have done a remarkable job of controlling COVID-19 with scant resources. For instance, to date, Bhutan has recorded only one death among its population, and Vietnam, Rwanda, and Senegal have, respectively, recorded 35, 226, and 700 deaths (Drexler, 2021).

While the reasons for pandemic success vary from country-to-country, the key reasons for success centre around various communicative functions—the exercise of political will through the setting of media and public agendas (Dearing & Rogers, 1996), attentive and compassionate leadership with safety nets for the most vulnerable (Singhal & Rogers, 2003), clear cut public-health guidance (Kim et al., 2014), early and relentless contact-tracing of people’s social networks, and a shared understanding of the value of preventive practices such as quarantining, social distancing, masking, and hand hygiene (Kim, 2020; Kim & Kreps, 2020).

Unlike the disastrous leadership of Donald Trump in the USA, in Bhutan, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck set the policy, media, and public agenda for COVID-19 right off the bat by telling government officials that even one death was too many, that detailed plans be made, implemented, and adapted to cover all pandemic scenarios, and that safety nets be in place for those who had lost livelihoods, were over the age of 60, and were especially vulnerable (Drexler, 2021). King Wangchuck inspired government officials, public health workers, and university students, mobilising all segments of society to work for the well-being of each Bhutanese citizen (Ongmo & Parikh, 2020). Even the opposition party in the Bhutanese Parliament joined hands with the ruling party against a common viral foe.

From the standpoint of the discipline of communication, there is much to learn from the pandemic success of countries such as Bhutan, Vietnam, Rwanda, and Senegal and failures of countries such as the USA. The Bhutanese response represents what one would call a ‘positive deviant’ case: Positive because they were able to successfully protect their citizens, and Deviant as their early, comprehensive, and relentless response was non-normative, especially considering their resource-poor status (Dearing & Singhal, 2020; Singhal, 2021; Singhal & Svenkerud, 2018; 2019). In contrast, the pandemic failure of the USA is an extreme case of negative deviance. Most countries fall somewhere on the continuum.

While the Bhutanese government moved quickly to create an online country-wide registry for its most vulnerable citizens, and sent care packages containing hand sanitisers, nutritional supplements, and food packages to some 51,000 Bhutanese over the age of 60, in most western countries, COVID-19 took the heaviest toll on senior citizens (Drexler, 2021). In the USA and most Western European countries, between 35 to 40% of all deaths occurred among nursing home residents. This was not unexpected. Nursing homes have older and sicker residents with various underlying comorbidities who are physically packed together in close quarters—a perfect tinderbox for a raging infectious agent. However, even in such precarious settings, there were examples of positively deviant communicative practices that allowed some nursing homes to protect their residents against overwhelming odds.

Consider the case of Vilanova Nursing Home just outside Lyon, France. It had zero COVID-19 infection among its 106 residents with an average age of 87 years. This is a remarkable pandemic success story in the country of France where 37% of all COVID-19 occurred in nursing homes (Singhal, 2021). What did Vilanova do—that is, its uncommon positively deviant communicative practices—that other nursing homes did not?

In mid-March 2020, a day before France went into ‘lockdown’, Valerie Martin, the manager of Vilanova called a meeting of her 50 staff members. She emphasised how Vilanova believed in the health and well-being of its residents and asked for volunteers—that is, whether some would be able to ‘happily confine’ themselves with the 106 residents for the next several weeks. As opposed to positioning the task as a long-lasting ordeal, her ask was genuinely invitational and the task was framed as participation in an ‘adventure camp’ (Leicester & Cerrone, 2020). The epidemiological purpose—communicated with deep sincerity, clarity, and empathy—was to stop the transmission of the virus by creating a protective bubble around the caregivers and the nursing home residents. Some 29 of Vilanova’s 50 staff members enthusiastically agreed to stay with the residents for three weeks, and many subsequently extended their stay to a full 47 days until the nationwide lockdown was lifted. While the protective bubble was scrupulously maintained, other staff came from outside to serve but were kept apart from residents and wore masks and gloves and followed all protocols to prevent infections. While family visitation was stopped, mobile devices with large screens allowed nursing home residents to keep in regular contact with family and friends—often several times a day. Remarkably, from a communicative perspective, Vilanova did not confine its residents to their rooms—that is, social isolation–as was the recommended practice in other nursing homes. With the safety bubble in place, staff and residents continued to mingle, spend time in the open for fresh air, celebrate birthdays, play bingo and other group games (Leicester & Cerrone, 2020). They were spared the loneliness that other residents in other nursing homes experienced. Vilanova provides evidence of how a variety of compassionate communicative practices between management and staff, between staff and residents, and between residents and their family members can provide protection from an otherwise deadly virus, maintain health and well-being, and build stronger relationships. Vilanova demonstrated that innovative communicative practices—anchored on invitation and compassion—could create and sustain ‘protective bubbles’, saving lives and spreading joy. Such communicative practices hold wide implications for responding proactively and judiciously to current and future pandemics.

The Bhutan and Vilanova cases exemplify for us that, in battling against a biological enemy, the discipline of communication can be at the frontlines to communicate political will, mobilise the media and the public, disseminate scientific information about the virus, convey compassion and support, and motivate and persuade people to act for the common good—that is, follow precautions such as wearing masks, keeping social distance, and washing hands. While the discipline of communication can offer much, it also humbly recognises the complexities of human nature and acknowledges that any communicative solutions worth their salt should not be prescriptive, but rather shaped by the local, cultural, and political exigencies. The discipline recognises that every society will have its dominant ideologies, structural inequities, and critical discourses, and that every community will also have its share of ‘covidiots’, ‘quarantine dodgers’, ‘anti-vaxxers’, and sceptics. Even here, a deep communicative understanding of these counter-cultural discourses–and the implications they hold (or not hold) for ‘public health’ and ‘public good’—can inform and instruct response to unprecedented pandemics.

As we deal with the complexities of this global health calamity and prepare for a post-COVID-19 world order, we believe that the discipline of communication is making, and will make, an invaluable contribution. In this spirit, as editors of this special issue of Journal of Creative Communications devoted to COVID-19, we are delighted to present this disciplinary offering that is rich in scope, international in nature, and theoretically and conceptually insightful in its tapestry.

We invite you to read this insightful volume. We hope you find it as compelling as we discovered in editing it.