Policymakers' Presentation Strategy and Message Framing: Effects on Trust and Compliance in Public Crises

ABSTRACT During public crises, strategic communication plays a pivotal role in shaping public compliance by influencing how information is framed and presented. This study investigates how policymakers' communication strategies, specifically positive versus negative presentation approaches, affect public compliance during a public crisis. Drawing on collected panel data, this study conducted sentiment analysis of governors' press releases and linked these to behavioural indicators of compliance in a PLS‐SEM. The results identify approval‐based institutional trust as a mediating mechanism connecting communication tone to vaccination uptake. Useful information flow by vaccine information‐seeking intensity and positive presentation tone had limited direct associations with uptake but were positively associated with the institutional trust proxy. Negative presentation tone was also positively associated with institutional trust and uptake. Because transparency was not directly measured, these findings concern message valence and do not establish that transparent disclosure produced the observed relationships. Overall, the findings suggest that trust‐mediated communication, regardless of valence, can optimise compliance while maintaining institutional credibility, offering evidence‐based insights for effective crisis governance.