Strategic communication in the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the crucial importance of arguments in developing citizens’ trust and the social risks of manipulation. However, how to assess and describe the argumentative and manipulative strategies of institutional actors? In this paper, the institutional argumentation of the governing leaders and the Health Ministries of Brazil and Portugal are coded and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively through the use of argumentation profiles, which are used for classifying and capturing the types of arguments, the fallacies, and the emotive language of each speaker. The results show how the different approaches to the crisis of the two countries are mirrored by distinct argumentative strategies indicating distinct communicative goals, namely pandemic campaigning and joint decision-making.