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.

摘要

大流行病的特点是极端的不确定性，有效的沟通对于帮助公众应对这种不确定性至关重要。我们总结了 COVID-19 大流行期间与不确定性相关的公共传播学术成果，综合了 2020 年 1 月至 2022 年 2 月发表的见解。我们回顾了 39 篇实证论文和 21 篇非实证论文的主要发现和论点，特别侧重于理论和概念支撑了他们。虽然这项工作阐明了有效沟通的要素，但对不确定性的概念和操作处理差异很大，只有不到一半的论文使用理论来分析或讨论与不确定性相关的沟通。在所有，