Press conferences and COVID-19: exploring the Mexican government response from health communication

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the capacity of governments –and political and health systems– to handle exceptional situations, where communication plays a fundamental role. This demands the deployment of coordinated, coherent, assertive, and efficient communication processes. Objective: The purpose of this article is to characterize the press conferences of the Ministry of Health of Mexico during the second phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, for being the main communication space to deal with the crisis. Methodology: The 28 conferences corresponding to the second phase of the pandemic were analyzed through content analysis in the FileMaker program, version 18. Results: The analysis shows that in addition to technical information, information on government crisis management occupies a privileged place within the conference. Conclusion: This official communication space took into account the structural elements of vulnerability that intervene in the spread of the pandemic, which is closely related to the call to individual and collective responsibility made by the State.