The new special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication on Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic (Vol. 16, Issue 3) has just been published.

The genesis of the special issue was inspired by the COM-COVID network research project initiated within EUPRERA. The collection of the articles encompasses lots of contributors/scholars affiliated with EUPRERA, including editors Juan Meng and Ralph Tench and research teams from Italy, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in Europe. The ad hoc editorial review board also includes some scholars affiliated with EUPRERA, such as Jesper Falkheimer, Vilma Luoma-aho, Sophia Volk, and Ana Tkalac Verčič.

The special issue is organized into three sections, where the first section includes research addressing how messages are developed and constructed through governmental communication, traditional mass media, and social media. The second section focuses on exploring the contingencies that leaders and influencers at various levels need to address in this novel global crisis, as well as the practical, organizational, and societal challenges leaders face. The last section collects research reflecting on how effective public health responses and communication shall be developed.

Angeles Moreno, leader researcher of the EUPRERA Strategic Health Communication network and outgoing President of EUPRERA, says:

The EUPRERA COM-COVID Project and Network (today rebranded EUPRERA Strategic Health Communication network) was the wider international range of scholars of Strategic Communication researching together about the communication challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020. Twenty-seven scholars from seventeen countries have been intensely and empirically working together on diverse topic related to the international pandemic during the last three years. Some of their findings, along with other international scholars’ insights, are presented in this special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication: Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic, edited by two of prominent scholars of our network, Prof. Ralph Tench, and Ass. Prof. Juan Meng.

We are proud to invite you to reflect on this appealing issue. It will encourage to continue the discussion in the next planned activity of our network, the panel One Global Pandemic, Many Divergent Citizens’ Responses: Public Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination at the EUPRERA Annual Congress in Wien September 21-24.

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IJCS special issue