The Impact of Mental Models on the Effectiveness of Crisis Communication

The next speaker at ANZCA 2023 is Sky Marsen, whose interest is in health communication during crisis. This involves matters of personal and social identity and high levels of scientific uncertainty that motivate many to look to opposing discourses from religious and other sources. The present project explored culturally diverse contexts in developing nations, and focusses here on a case study of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16. Here, a combination of mental models and crisis communication approaches might have mitigated risks in health communication during crisis.

The project engaged in some 20 interviews with health professionals from the WHO, MSF, and West African NGOs, and also reviewed local and international media coverage during the Ebola epidemic. Crisis management involves pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis stages, and the pre and post stages are just as important as the actual crisis management itself; during these stages, issues management and renewal discourses are especially important. Mental models and mental scripts are also crucial here: these affect how we focus attention, identify important items, and determine the use of objects in interacting with information.

The Ebola crisis in Liberia, Guinea, and Siena Leone in 2014-16 caused some 20,000 infections and 15,000 deaths, and cultural and economic factors affected the spread of the disease. Initial messaging came from the ministers of information, which caused immediate distrust; as other bodies – including NGOs and tribal chiefs – became involved, trust improved (though government payments to tribal chiefs for their help also undermined trust). Trust was mainly placed in those who understood and shared affected individuals’ personal values; conversely, many aid and health workers were killed because of a lack of trust in their activities. In Sierra Leone, ambulances carrying patients were attacked (as symbols of disease, death, and otherness), while in Guinea, pregnant women avoided hospitals even after the area was declared Ebola-free.

Hospitals and other elements of the health system thus played conflicting roles in the mental models of local citizens, therefore – with broader effects on other areas of healthcare. This points to a broader problem when diverse stakeholders in a crisis have diverse worldviews and narratives, each with a different mental script. What results is a lack of trust between these stakeholders; when people have to trust people because they depend on them, this can lead to the spread of disinformation and an abuse of power.

The use of survivors as signs that with the help of health professionals it is possible to survive the disease can help here in instilling hope and reducing uncertainty. In the present case, this helped the villagers themselves to work out what was going on – the solution to the crisis came from the grassroots, rather than through the crisis communication efforts of authorities.