Cultural and Political Dimensions of Crisis Management: The Chinese Government's Information Governance and Response to COVID‐19 Rumors

ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 infodemic posed unprecedented challenges to public governance and governmental crisis management. This study examines the Chinese government's response to social media rumors to test and extend the applicability of Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) within a non‐Western, centralized political context. Through a content analysis of 278 rumor‐response posts from ten key governmental Weibo accounts and a textual analysis of over 22,000 public comments, this research investigates the government's approach and its reception. The analysis reveals a distinct crisis management model favoring denial and refutation. Significantly, legal punishment was identified as a primary tool for information control, a practice that represents a significant extension of the traditional SCCT framework. While this top‐down, multi‐modal response demonstrated effectiveness in controlling information, analysis of public comments revealed complex stakeholder reactions, including widespread skepticism that raises concerns about the erosion of long‐term public trust. Ultimately, the findings reveal a unique crisis management paradigm shaped by China's political culture, which prioritizes social stability over dialogic communication. This study contributes to the crisis management literature by providing critical lessons for crisis managers on the strategic trade‐offs of authoritative crisis response and highlighting the imperative to contextualize crisis theories within diverse political environments.