| dc.description.abstract | The global spread of COVID-19 has caused unprecedented social and economic disruption the
world over, forcing political leaders to act quickly and enact public policy that mitigated the impact
of the virus. Despite early intervention, the United States quickly became an epicenter of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Due to Federalism in the United States public health system, the
implementation and public communication of COVID-19 policy became the responsibility of state
Governors. Since March of 2020, state Governors have communicated heterogeneously through
press briefings that addressed the risks of the COVID-19 virus and their reactive public policy.
However, with no centralized federal response, the severity of restrictions, enforcement, and
language used to combat COVID-19 has differed substantially between states and with a wide
degree of variation in crisis communication effectiveness. By examining Governor press briefings
from March 2020 to December 2020, this research seeks to isolate the impact of Governor speech
sentiment in COVID-19 press briefings on their respective state social and economic outcomes
during the pandemic. In line with this initial inquiry, we investigate the role of Governor party
affiliation in altering the sentiment of Governor communication. Our analysis aims to provide
insight into the effect of language and party affiliation in crisis communication from political
leaders. In doing so, we seek to enable the fine-tuning of future mitigation policies and crisis
communications to reduce future crises' human and economic costs. Specifically, we find: (1) there
is no statistically significant relationship between an increase in negative language sentiment and
an increase in positive state social outcomes during the periods observed; (2) there is no
statistically significant relationship between an increase in negative language sentiment and a rise
in negative state economic outcomes during the periods observed; (3) there is no statistically
significant relationship between the political affiliation of Governors and the degree of positive or
negative sentiment used in COVID-19 press briefings during the periods observed. We conclude
with a discussion of research limitations and directions for future research. | en_US |
