Public Relations and Information in the Age of Pandemic

Abstract

This article aims to understand how communication and public relations campaigns undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic by different social groups in Brazil (governments, companies, and social organizations) disseminated different discourses to people, which are sometimes contradictory. The research hypothesis was campaigns showed interest in themselves in relation to their informative role or if they disseminated such proposals as proposals and views of the contents on the subject in question, distancing themselves from their informative role, common interest intrinsic to the field of public communication. The theoretical foundation contemplates the approach of the political function of public relations and its interfaces with the perspective of citizenship, as well as its strategic and transforming nature. The research presented is qualitative, whose methodology consists of the sociological analysis of the discourse in audiovisual materials. The results indicate that the campaigns emulated the positions and worldviews of their issuers, oscillating market interests, and the organizations' visibility. At the end of the article, paths of action and possible fields of research for public relations are proposed, adopting an approach to the activity of resignification brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and in the light of social commitment.