TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, COVID-19, AND POINT- OF-VIEW LANGUAGE: A Case for Public Diplomacy

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency that has resulted in nearly 7 million deaths worldwide as of September 2, 2022. Trinidad and Tobago (T & T) recorded 180,549 cases and 4,166 deaths as of September 7, 2022. Trinidad and Tobago held weekly virtual press conferences to keep the public abreast of current COVID statistics, precautionary measures, and public health guidelines. The language used by the government can influence public sentiment and perception, resulting in either public engagement or public cynicism, which impacted the number of COVID cases and deaths. During the virtual media conferences, the Trinidad and Tobago government used first-, second-, and third-person point-of-view (POV) language to convey information regarding the COVID pandemic to the general public. Our work aims to determine whether there is an association between the use of first-, second-, or third-person language by Trinidad and Tobago government officials during their regular virtual media conferences and COVID cases and deaths. We reviewed 228 video transcripts from the Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) Limited YouTube channel posted from March 2020 to September 2022. The total number of first-, second-, and third-person POV words per transcript were the main independent variables, and new COVID cases and deaths were the main dependent variables. We observed that increased first-person language use was a weak predictor of decreased new COVID deaths. Conversely, we observed that increased second-person language use was a weak predictor of increased new COVID deaths. Our research demonstrates that applying rhetorical mastery enhances communication, connection, and introduction of effective precautionary measures, resulting in reduced COVID cases and deaths.