Essachess. Public Relations and Communications during the Covid-19 Pandemic
 

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided rich learning opportunities for public communicators: from positive, and unfortunately too often, also from negative examples. From the difficulties of relaying scientific information to publics and political partisanship colliding with public health interests, to the "misinfodemic" (in particular, but not only, on social media) exacerbating the pandemic, to HR departments and managers struggling with the work-from-home dynamic: communicators around the globe were affected by, as well as affecting the repercussions of the pandemic. In this special edition, researchers from Belgium, Estonia, France, Morocco, Portugal and the UK explore impacts of the pandemic on media communication, internal and external communication of public as well as private sector organisations. They present studies and findings on the mediatization of science, the evolving role of institutional communication, organisational spirituality, the stakeholder perspective of internal publics, the role of solidarity communication and third places in urban centers. Together, they provide a fascinating and diverse view of academic engagement with an evolving topic of local as well as global significance.