Words matter: political and gender analysis of speeches made by heads of government during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Sara Dada
  2. Henry Charles Ashworth
  3. Marlene Joannie Bewa
  4. Roopa Dhatt

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on political leadership around the world. Differences in how leaders address the pandemic through public messages have practical implications for building trust and an effective response within a country.

Methods

We analysed the speeches made by 20 heads of government around the world (Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Scotland, Sint Maarten, United Kingdom, United States and Taiwan) to highlight the differences between men and women leaders in discussing COVID-19. We used an inductive analytical approach, coding speeches for specific themes based on language and content.

Findings

Five primary themes emerged across a total of 122 speeches on COVID-19, made by heads of government: economics and financial relief, social welfare and vulnerable populations, nationalism, responsibility and paternalism, and emotional appeals. While all leaders described the economic impact of the pandemic, women spoke more frequently about the impact on the individual scale. Women leaders were also more often found describing a wider range of social welfare services, including: mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence. Both men and women from lower-resource settings described detailed financial relief and social welfare support that would impact the majority of their populations. While 17 of the 20 leaders used war metaphors to describe COVID-19 and the response, men largely used these with greater volume and frequency.

Conclusion

While this analysis does not attempt to answer whether men or women are more effective leaders in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, it does provide insight into the rhetorical tools and types of language used by different leaders during a national and international crisis. This analysis provides additional evidence on the differences in political leaders’ messages and priorities to inspire citizens’ adhesion to the social contract in the adoption of response and recovery measures. However, it does not consider the influence of contexts, such as the public audience, on leaders’ strategic communication approaches.

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  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003910
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.10.20187427: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Ethical considerations: This research did not require an institutional board review approval.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableSetting: We set out to analyze official statements made by heads of government of the United Nations Security Council (Belgium, China, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Niger, Russian Federation, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and nation-states with women heads of government (Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland,

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Analysis: Speech transcripts were uploaded and analyzed into NVivo.
    NVivo
    suggested: (NVivo, RRID:SCR_014802)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: There are several limitations to this study. As with qualitative research, there is a limit to the comparability and generalizability of the data analyzed. This study relied on publicly available data that could be transcribed or translated to English with limited resources, which also made some speeches subject to errors in transcription and translation. Due to this and other differences amongst countries, the number of speeches from each country varies greatly. However, it is worth noting that there were roughly the same amount of speeches from men (n=59) and women (n=61) included. In identifying gender we did not directly ask heads of government for their gender identity, but instead relied upon gender identities reported in the news and through pronouns in speeches. We acknowledge, however, that gender is complex, self-identified, non-binary, and socially produced. Finally, countries have been impacted differently by the pandemic (incidence, prevalence, mortality rate) and have had different experiences with managing public health emergencies, which can affect their response, priorities, political and risk communication styles. This study did not consider this historical context nor the societal and political ideals and values that influence individual leaders, the language they use, and political priorities.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.10.20187427v1 on medRxiv