Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Communication and COVID-2019: A Review of Transdisciplinary Communication Scholarship

During a crisis event, communication is crucial to the safety and survival of the people who are directly impacted. Global disaster events such as earthquakes, epidemics, and nuclear meltdowns require the swift and efficient spread of accurate information for the purposes of awareness, aid, and safety. Scholars of technical communication and intercultural rhetorics, such as Huiling Ding and Jingwen Zhang, have studied how cultural backgrounds impact the informational narratives. Others have conducted research on the usage of digital media platforms such as Twitter and how hashtags and other tools affect the spread of information in an international environment. Scholars recognize the important role of social media and online discourse in an international crisis event. Through this literature review, it is intended to illustrate the role of digital media in the international and intercultural circulation of information during global crisis events. This project will review literature from a breadth of scholarship from transnational technical and professional communication, risk communication, health communication, and rhetorical studies. It argues that this review of the existing transdisciplinary literature is crucial to the current understanding of how communication has been and continues to be conducted in regard to the current COVID-19 epidemic. Events like the current outbreak provide a chance to critically analyze the digital cultural discourse in a global crisis context, which is vital to social justice and advocacy.