Communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

The paper analyses the media representation of Covid-19 related issues and the attitudes of population to the information about Covid-19 as well as the government policies during the first wave of pandemic.  National representative survey in September 2020, N=1003. Content analysis or seven news portals (March-June 2020).Content analysis of television evening newscasts (October-November 2020). Factor analysis of the National representative survey data reveals various responses to the Covid-19 pandemic depending on the personal experience of the pandemic and socio- demographic and socio-economic parameters of respondents. Acceptance of the government policies correlates with higher institutional trust and trust to news media.  Trust to the news media has considerably decreased since the October 2019 survey however. Lack of diversity in the media content suggests that the underrepresentation of private experience is among the reason of declining trust and opposition to he government policies. All the media relied heavily on the official sources of information; civic society was not invited to share the experience of the crisis, first-hand testimonies were underrepresented as a journalism genre. Television news content suggests that during the second wave the practice of representation had not changed.   A credit of trust to the government issued during the first way of pandemic permitted Latvia to pass through the problems smoothly. However the misrepresentation of private experience constrained the communication feedback and consequently the government decisions were actively opposed by the population by the end of 2020.