The Communicative Strategies of Public Relations Utilized in the Palestinian Ministry of Health Website during the Corona Virus Pandemic

By

Dr. Abdulkareem Sarhan/An-Najah National University

Rasha Ahmad Najeh Khuffash/An-Najah National University

 

Abstract

This study aims to introduce the communicative strategies used by public relations through the website of the Palestinian Ministry of Health to face the emerging Corona pandemic crisis (Covid-19). In addition to identifying the role of the Palestinian Ministry of Health website in facing the Pandemic. It also aims to identify the most prominent contents and forms of communication covered in the website, and the persuasive appeals employed by the public relations in its messages during the crisis.

To achieve that and to answer the study's main question; which is, what are the communicative strategies that the public relations adopted in facing the Corona Virus Pandemic (Covid-19), through the Palestinian Ministry of Health website? This is done through the Situational theory of crisis control. The researcher adopted the analytical descriptive approach in the quantitative technique. Accordingly, the researcher utilized questionnaires as the main tool of collecting data from the respondents, as it was distributed electronically to the study sample of 383 Palestinian Ministry of Health website followers who reside in the West Bank. 

The study concluded with a set of results, the most important of which is the use of public relations in the Ministry of Health for several strategies. The most used strategy was the reinforcement strategy which manifested in two methods (reminding, praising, and approximation). It was also found that it did not use the strategies of rejection and denial of the crisis. The Ministry employed the website moderately and in a good way. Regarding the contents, the contents of a statistical and educational nature were largely used. News and statistics were used in the highest degree according to the respondents of the communication forms used.  

In light of the results of the study, the researcher came up with a set of recommendations, most notably of which are, the necessity for public relations to choose appropriate communication strategies to deal with the crisis in proportion to the institution's situation, reputation, and crisis history, and the extent of its responsibility for causing the crisis, in addition to the need to increase the Ministry of Health's interest in its website as an official and important communication tool by the ministry's public relations, and the establishment of public relations and communication experts designing and creating more professional content that attracts audiences in terms of form and content.

Title

مجلة جامعة اب رشد

Publisher

جامعة ابن رشد

Publisher Country

Netherlands

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Prtinted only

Volume

43

Year

2021

Pages

150-194