Countering false information in the early days of the COVID-19 response

These were, as everyone was saying, ‘unprecedented times.’

When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world in early 2020, we knew our expertise could contribute to the response.

Supermarket shelves were stripped of toilet paper while some individuals were showing Facebook groups their private stashes. Essential workers were harried, most services were paused, streets were bare, and people were suddenly very vested in sourdough and banana bread. Many office workers were using Zoom for the first time and learning the perils of filters. The 1pm press stand ups from the Prime Minister were appointment viewing. (There were not a lot of competing invites). 

At The Workshop, we knew there were ways to talk about the pandemic (and eventual vaccinations) that would explain complex science in simple ways, and would meet the needs of people with low-trust in government and science. Specifically, we were thinking of many Māori and Pacific communities, who have reason to be distrustful.

COVID happened fast and the response did too.

For the many essential workers involved in the response, there simply was not time to do the research or reflect on how to best frame and explain COVID-19 and vaccinations.

They needed someone with an established reputation for producing evidence driven framing advice to work collaboratively and produce this.

This is where we came in

For those tasked with communicating with Māori communities, they knew a one-size fits all approach was not what was needed. However the enormous urgency within the system resulted in pressure to simply “get on board” with the communications developed for all New Zealanders.

We saw a need, which matched our expertise, and proactively began collective evidence to serve it.

Using our own funding and partnering with experts across the science, government, health, research and community sectors, The Workshop embarked on a research project to gather information and hear from Māori communities to better understand the barriers at play and find solutions. 

We needed to know what framing approaches would be most effective for the facts about covid and covid vaccinations to land.

The assumed barrier was lack of knowledge or information. 

We knew this wasn’t true, and the reality was more complex.

What our research proved

The reasons that people did not vaccinate were layered and often structural—lack of access, low trust, experiences of racism, complex lives

For Māori communities, the core issue was negative experiences of government and healthcare systems which created an opening for false information when presented by people (often peers) they had more trust in.

Another key finding was that vaccination communication traditionally used individual risk frames, which were unlikely to have people thinking about the protective benefits of community immunity, and of lesser impact to this key audience. Messages were also heavy on data and science and delivered by scientific, health or institutional messengers—which is a style that only lands with a small group of people.

What made our advice different was we didn't assume vaccination hesitation was due to lack of information, ignorance, or simply not caring enough.

Our work showed that communications needed to pivot from a focus on government and data, to the collective benefit of herd immunity (a term that we later gave advice to reframe).

To address lack of trust in institutions, especially for whānau Maori, framing strategies needed to repair and build trust by using trusted messengers from within the community and devolving communications. And rather than telling people to get vaccinated for their own health, framing the science of collective immunity through the values of caring for others was advised. 

We leapt into action

Throughout the pandemic we produced a number of insights on effective ways to frame COVID and Covid Vaccinations.

We worked with people across the health and communications workforce to run talks and trainings that would help those doing-the-doing to implement these framing insights.

This included advising on the Super Saturday vaccination drive and partnering with Dr Amanda Kvalivig and Daylight Creative to produce communications explaining the role of community immunity.

We began to see tangible instances of communicators feeling empowered by our work and their outputs seeing better outcomes as a result.

In interviews with key figures communicating directly with the public throughout the pandemic, we were frequently told that our work gave them confidence to communicate in the ways they instinctively knew best connected with their audiences.

“Seeing your stuff and going, yes this has been my gut feeling about what’s working and you're backing that up for me was super. Very validating. I don’t have time to follow the literature, and your resources helped people understand why I was talking about things the way I was. I always linked to your work wherever possible, saying ‘if you want to know more, this is the place to go to find resources that will guide you.” – Dr. Siouxsie Wiles. Prominent science communicator

“For a lot of Māori communicators and health providers they simply didn’t have the capability or capacity to do this kind of research so having a specialist organisation who were willing to share this with them had a positive impact on their work with communities [was invaluable]”. - Hinerangi Barr Communications Lead of Karawhiua - Māori COVID-19 campaign for whānau, hapū, iwi, and Māori communities

“[Your work] helped us internally have confidence in what we knew or … as close to knowing was the right thing to do.  And it meant that we fought even harder for it” - J, The marketing lead at Te Hiringa Hauora Health Promotion Agency during the pandemic

We gave social licence

For many Māori communicating in this space, our insights were not new to them, rather, they reflected their own knowledge and experiences. 

However, having our research provided social license to mainstream organizations to put aside one size fits all communications, and create strategies and campaigns that were a good fit for Māori.

“In a high-pressured time like the COVID-19 pandemic, your research provided iwi and Māori communication specialists and providers with the affirmation that the approach of connecting with whānau was critical to getting our vaccine-hesitant and anti-vax whānau over the line. Conversely telling people what to do when you don’t trust the people or the information you are receiving was never going to be effective for those who were vaccine hesitant or anti-vax.”— Hinerangi, Communications Lead of Karawhiua Māori COVID-19 campaign 

“When you released your document, it confirmed exactly all of the things that we had been told, or we had been sort of delivering on. It was nice for us to be able to point to that and be like ‘see?’” — J, Te Hiringa Hauora Health Promotion Agency 

Narratives and frames explain complex issues

When we interviewed people who drew on our work during the pandemic, and scanned frames that appeared in communications, we found people used our approach to framing to help them explain complex issues during COVID-19. 

“Given rangatahi Māori were among those last to be eligible to get the vaccine and were one of the hardest groups to activate, your findings on what activated rangatahi came at an important time…..I know it was used by those that produced the associated national rangatahi Māori campaign”  —  Hinerangi, Communications Lead of Karawhiua Māori COVID-19 campaign

Collective immunity protects the community images and materials were shared across social media and community settings, with the term community immunity spreading across conversations and communications.

Seeing this in practice

Matakaoa ‘community immunity’ video 

There was a video campaign run across TV, radio and social using whānau from Matakaoa in Tairāwhiti calling for whānau to work together to minimise the spread of COVID-19 through lockdowns and vaccination.Our work proved that this own-voices style of communication was thought to be most effective for this community, and the folks working on this project shared this belief. This approach is detailed in the 2022 Te Puni Kōkiri Annual Report.

We saw the phrasing evolve

We advised against using the word herd as it had dehumanising connotations, and instead use ‘community immunity’ or ‘collective immunity’ in communications. We consistently advised people to switch from individual to community frames of protection on vaccination, and we saw that happen.

The phrase was picked up and employed by many communicators, including the Taituara Website.

“I really liked when other campaigns, other mainstream campaigns started talking about community immunity and that concept.“  — J, Te Hiringa Hauora Health Promotion Agency 

As a result, we saw understanding grow

In a complex system like this, it’s difficult to quantify precisely the role our work played in the COVID response. But we could clearly see it, and see the impact in public understanding.

People who implemented our advice were effusive in noting the difference it made to public conversations, and our own observation is that community immunity is now a widely understood concept related to vaccinations.

Notably, the achieved vaccination rate for COVID-19 in Feb 2022 was 88% and 93% for people of European ethnicity, and 76% and 88% for Māori adults under and over 65 years old. Our collaborations played a role in this. 

Our key takeaways  

This experience reiterated the importance of relationship building and connection. This is a core value for us, expressed through manaakitanga. 

Collaborating with people and organisations we had existing relationships with increased the impact of the work. In parallel to this, building strong relationships with people working on the approach using our insights, saw our work used consistently and strategically.

“The workshops that you were able to hold with iwi groups and Hauora Māori Services and things like that …. we didn't have the language to articulate that well, nor did we have the evidence-based [approach], like you did. That theory of knowledge, and sharing information between Te Tauranga Ihu and Toi Ora and all of the other iwi groups … that was probably where the gold was.”  — J, Te Hiringa Hauora Health Promotion Agency 

Impact relies on implementing insights with practical advice and tools. The research is the foundation of the advice and what gives it credibility, but success relied on tangible training and direct advice that agencies and partners could implement.

“Other research [didn’t] necessarily convert into useful guidance.”  — Hinerangi, Communications Lead of Karawhiua Māori COVID-19 campaign

“We used a lot of the really clear indications that you had worked up, like ‘if people say this, then try that,’ you know? That was really useful for our social media moderation.”  — J, Te Hiringa Hauora Health Promotion Agency 

Supporting Māori goals benefits us all - Focussing on those needs led to better outcomes for Māori, and to insights that were beneficial to non-Māori too. This was critical to us as a Treaty | te Tiririt led organization, and we are clear that failing to fully implement COVID approaches that were a good fit for Māori and Pacific people leads to worse outcomes.

“We relied too much on conventional delivery and 'one size should fit everyone', and missed out on being able to better meet the needs of Māori communities and Pacific people.” — Professor Sir Collin Tukuitonga, co-director of Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa, the Centre for Pacific and Global Health at the University of Auckland in RNZ 2025 

Getting large systems to use evidence-based tactics is hard - While we predicted the role that false information would play early in the pandemic, it was difficult to convince those producing the communications to implement evidence-based strategies to counter false information early on. (link to false info training). As a country, we lost the opportunity to inoculate people against false information early, which was responsible in part for the later issues we faced with the parliament protests.

“Your work on disinformation and misinformation provided a useful analysis of how this counter-force was at play during the pandemic and the profound impact this had, particularly on whānau Māori.“ — Hinerangi, Communications Lead of Karawhiua Māori COVID-19 campaign

Contributors to this work:

Dr. Jess Berentson-Shaw, Director of Narrative Research and Strategy

The COVID-19 project team

• Jordan Green (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou)

• Dr. Sharon Bell

• Ellen Ozarka

Resources we produced to assist the COVID response

We produced a series of blogs with tips and hints for communicating about COVID-19.

How to talk about COVID-19. Message Guide and checklist
Self funded by The Workshop

How to talk about Covid 19 Vaccinations guide, tip sheet 

Community immunity Public communications

Funded by: IMAC, Department of Health in the Victorian State (via Common Cause). Created in conjunction with: Dr Eleanor Glenn, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Dr Anthony Jordan, Gemma Pitcher and Daylight Creative.

Talking about vaccination with Whānau Māori guide

Funded by The Workshop, informed by initial research funded by the Kia Kotahi Rā project from Te Punaha Matatini

Conversations with friends & whānau about COVID-19 vaccination: Connecting, not correcting, 2021

Other work

• Workshops and talks with: Counties manukau DHB, Canterbury DHD,  Māori Comms collective and HPA as part of Karawhiua campaign for whānau, hapū, iwi, and Māori communities to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, Victorian Department of Public Health

• A guide for How to talk about covid vaccinations developed for health professionals (not released publicly)