The epidemic of swine flu is a double edged sword in terms of transmission. On one hand is the transmission of the virus from person to person, damaging those it comes into contact with. On the other, there is the viral reaction to this — panic.
It is here that PR can be used to help curb unnecessary panic, and it is why the government is currently searching for a PR agency to do exactly this.
Not that the government did much to help themselves in the first place, gushing out warnings with the intention of raising awareness, but the result being the media spreading it as fear. So now, the backpedalling must begin, and the government are asking PR agencies to help.
Of course it's difficult to be straight forward and matter of fact about a disease that actually does have the ability to cause harm, and even in some circumstances death. The public should be aware of the dangers of swine flu. So the balance it seems is somewhat delicate: Too much concern from authorities and people will be scared, too little and they won't take the necessary precautions.
Panic spread to authorities in parts of the world too. In April, it was reported that Egyptian authorities were unnecessarily confiscating and culling pigs as a precaution against swine flu, despite H1N1 being transmitted only by humans, and has not been found amongst pigs.
Maybe the name Swine Flu's a bit misleading then, since it's actually genetically a mix of pig, bird and human flu, and the H1N1 strain is not one that's actually been found in pigs. Because of this, the virus is increasingly being referred to as simply H1N1, or Influenza A.
The World Animal Health Foundation even said that "The virus has not been isolated in animals to date. Therefore it is not justified to name this disease swine influenza." What a difference a name makes.
So is the PR pandemic of Swi… Influenza A contained yet?
Well, just under 6 months since it was declared a pandemic, news stories of over-the-top knee jerk responses to the virus seem to have mostly dried up, as has the initial hysteria now that people have noticed that the streets aren't in fact littered with the poor under-prepared victims of H1N1 and, for the most part, recover well as they might with any other kind of flu. So perhaps the message finally got through to the world; but I suspect thge balance comes from first hand observation countering some over the top public relations.
In retrospect, I think we'll all take a step back and realise that this was a massive overreaction (but a justifiable one nevertheless)
ReplyDeleteJust looking at the American PR campaign for the flu, and the outlets they used to make the American people aware, using: 'text messages, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube' (http://www.newsweek.com/id/219830)
The panic has been whipped up immensely by the media, and by the online campaigns by the governments of the respective nations. to the point where every cough and every sneeze was assumed as Swine Flu.
The PR campaigns have been criticised by a Scientist, who stated that: 'I hope the temptation to put PR and public reassurance above truth will stop too.' She believes that the press and media are glossing over the 'containment' of the distribution of vaccines. (http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/07/swine-flu-containment-is-dange.html)
So there seems to be no balance, on the one hand, at the start, there was widespread panic caused by the desperate attempts to stop the spread of the virus, and now it has spread, the campaign for reporting on how well it is being contained is also being scrutinised negatively.
Boy oh boy PR cannot win sometimes.
Greetings Andy.
ReplyDeleteSwine flu was a classic case of runaway press. As you say the government wasn't careful enough in warning the population. However, one can't blame the newspapers for doing what they did with the story, because fear and death do sell newspapers. Just ask The Daily Mail. Anyway, now we are a year on, I wanted to have a look at the overall statistics of the '09 pandemic. Wikipedia, in it's immense knowledge, tells me that just 14,286 people died from swine flu, worldwide. when I first heard of swine flu, someone told me that it could wipe out half of the worlds population. People do like to exaggerate, it's always such fun. Perhaps our governments (globally) were misinformed themselves, although that seems unlikely. We shall see if any lessons have been learned from the fiasco when the next pandemic/alien invasion/potential tornado comes along.
in all serious, and to round off, if and when this occurs again, our government has to be much much more sensitive, and maybe should but a gagging order on the press in order to stop them running away with the story.