Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Communicating chaos: New perspectives on VUCA, Jun 2023

The SARS-COV-2 pandemic typifies a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) situation. For a time, Aotearoa New Zealand’s government was lauded for its quick and effective elimination response and clear communication strategy, which saw the citizens of the country enjoy months free from the trappings of SARS-COV-2. This changed with the arrival of Delta, a new variant of concern. It is against this context that we sought to analyse the two main speeches delivered by the prime minister of that time – Jacinda Ardern. The first, delivered on 17 August 2021, maintained the messaging of the previous years – let us eliminate the virus. However, the second speech, delivered on 4 October 2021, shifted to an emphasis on vaccination and living with the virus. Not unsurprisingly, the change in messaging prompted some factions of the public to express frustration and hostility towards Ardern and her government because of perceived inconsistencies and ambiguities in the messaging. Our findings highlight that while crisis communication in a VUCA environment needs to maintain consistency to garner trust, it also needs to be adaptive to respond to uncertainties. However, in being adaptive and engaging with the public to adjust their expectations, leaders can often be faced with resistance and even be perceived as failures. This adds further responsibility to the leader to address the adaptive challenges as effectively as possible. Our findings are a cautionary tale for scholarship and education in crisis communication to avoid emphasis on fixed solutions.

This study introduces several political revolutions from the past and the present for a deeper understanding of the nature of protest communication. Previously, the protests’ success was ensured by the use of printing, telegraph and media innovations, which allowed the protest organizers to evade government control. Today, such technologies provide information and allow participants to communicate proactively in social networks, self-organizing into structures that strengthen and spread protest communication. Social networks enable the realization of the communication potential of each participant based on the organizational model of mass collaboration. This model is not characterized by a system-structural organization, which confounds predictions of the processes of social interaction. Each subsequent event depends on the previous one, complicating the establishment of a trend. This organizational model creates difficulties for the authorities in controlling protests, as it is prone to the stochastic formation of centres of activity, which can be explained from the perspective of field theory, provided in this study. Therefore, from the point of view of the authorities, the situation with the development of the protest acquires the characteristics of VUCA, moving beyond possible control.

Journalism faces increased uncertainty from an ever-shifting digital environment, fragmenting audiences and failing business models. Innovation has been touted as the only way to remain viable and the field now offers a range of professional awards for journalism innovation. This article investigates how the industry is navigating the uncertainty associated with innovation by analysing the judges’ comments from innovation awards. By analysing 45 judges’ comments from five Anglo-American award programmes and one international programme, this article finds that judges praised socially oriented themes, while technological and digital innovations are celebrated in relation to how well they support traditional journalism principles such as serving the public interest. This suggests that, in an uncertain environment, judges of innovation awards construct innovation in relation to traditional journalism principles.

The early stages of the global COVID-19 pandemic threw into relief the communication skills of governments and their leaders. Aotearoa New Zealand was known for its exceptional communication response and elimination of the virus in this initial phase. Much of the praise was attributed to the communication skills of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. However, this study focuses on the work of Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris, a science communication collaboration that aided public understanding in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. In March 2020, during the initial wave of COVID-19, microbiologist and science communicator Dr Siouxsie Wiles teamed up with cartoonist Toby Morris to help simplify her message and reach a wider audience. Work from their collaboration has been shared globally, translated into dozens of languages and used in press conferences by the prime minister of New Zealand. This case study uses a VUCA framework in a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with Morris and Wiles and the communications they produced. It asks what characteristics of this collaboration helped people navigate the global VUCA situation of COVID-19 and whether an appropriate counter-VUCA model exists for this communication context.

VUCA discourses often get stuck in describing VUCA phenomena and their effects. The experience of a nonlinear world characterized by unpredictability, uncertainty and unplanability is commonly foregrounded at the expense of contemplating VUCA as an opportunity for systemic change. Too little attention is paid to concrete action strategies that help to move from situational analysis to deep understanding and proactive change planning. In this context, especially in the management of companies but also in political as well as civil society organizations, there is a constant challenge of remaining capable of acting under maximum uncertainty. In my commentary here, I describe my own path as an organizational coach from knowledge and understanding of VUCA to developing practical approaches to action and behavioural choices. I introduce a conceptual model of VUCA as a positive facilitator that aims at delivering effective principles whose claim is to be practical. I do this from the lens of a professional advisor whose focus is on encouraging, enabling and empowering.

Complexity theory provides a framework for understanding intricate systems and their interactions. Its use in media and communication is relatively recent and has been used for examining, for instance, the spread of online communication, the formation of public opinions and the development of misinformation. Building on the concept of VUCA, this article outlines the emerging field of ‘complexity communication’. In a light-hearted experiment, we turned to the lately introduced artificial intelligence (AI) agent, ChatGPT, to ask what it knew about complexity thinking in contemporary communication practice. We found that the AI accepted the global environment was characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, and these had transformed the field of communication, both for academics and professionals. It identified a range of complexity-based concepts relevant to communication but not specifically designed for communication situations. It struggled to find any extant practical strategies for complexity communication. This relative lack of bespoke concepts and applied knowledge on managing unpredictable situations indicates an urgent need for the development of complexity thinking in communication.