ABSTRACT
The COM-COVID/EUPRERA project applied in Brazil in 2020 obtained a sample of 866 Brazilians. The investigation identifies the level of reliability in the sources and the main messages of the federal government about the pandemic, as well as the communication channels most used to search for information about the disease, contrasting them with the theoretical framework of crisis communication in the governmental context. The discussion in the Brazilian case focusses on confirming the hypotheses that converge to the theory of channel complementarity and to the infodemic scenario as an influencing factor for the search for complementary and reliable information channels. It draws on national and international literature on crisis communication, which explains the high level of distrust in the Brazilian government. In the figure of President Bolsonaro, it promotes contradictory and controversial messages, disrespecting the guidelines of the Brazilian scientific community and the World Health Organization. This attitude prevents communication from being based on the principles of trust, transparency, analysis and understanding of the public and on the planning of risk communication and public communication governance in the management of health crises. It also allows to infer that the Brazilian government used the denial and diminishment of the pandemic situation, considered as post-crisis image recovery and restructuring strategies, to make the implementation of certain political projects invisible.
