Institutional Communication Concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Critical Discourse Analysis of WHO Director-General’s Speeches

Abstract

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, institutional communication has been playing a crucial role. For instance, WHO (World Health Organization) has been involved in criticism concerning information related to the origins of the pandemic delivered or not in due time.1 Starting from this assumption, the study is aimed at investigating the WHO Director-General communication concerning news related to the pandemic through the analysis of speeches delivered by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, from 22nd January to 29th May 2020. From a methodological perspective, the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis will be adopted with particular emphasis on semantic / syntactic relations. Furthermore, the representation of social actors will be explored in order to better understand the roles played by both WHO and China in the news concerning the pandemic. In short, this work will try to explore the processes involved in the communication concerning the pandemic and the representations of the roles played by both WHO and China in order to understand legitimation strategies enacted by these two social actors.