Are citizens willing to compromise on transparency in governmental crisis communication?

Transparency is one of the most important ideals for governmental risk and crisis communication. In public discourse, however, transparency is sometimes discussed as potentially alarmist. Currently, little is known about citizens’ views of this supposed dilemma. Would citizens prefer for governmental communication to compromise on transparency if the alternative were to cause public distress? The present study investigated this question by surveying citizens in seven countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States (N = 7,212). To this end, we assessed whether citizens accept compromising on transparency to ensure that crisis communication is reassuring in each country, relevant antecedents of this compromise acceptance, and related digital communication preferences. While transparent communication was generally favored, most citizens did accept some degree of compromise. These preferences were associated with socio-demographic (e.g., age) and psychological factors (e.g., risk propensity), but perceptions of past governmental crisis communication (e.g., satisfaction with provided information) explained the most variance. Furthermore, distinct communication profiles emerged: non-compromisers significantly favored governmental websites, scientific sources, and interactive, multimodal content. In contrast, those more open to compromising on transparency preferred governmental apps or AI chatbots. Thus, our results can help practitioners understand public expectations regarding transparency in crisis communication and tailor their communication accordingly using different digital media.