Government messaging about COVID-19 vaccination in Canada and Australia: a Narrative Policy Framework study

BackgroundStorytelling and narratives are critical components to public policy and have been central to public policy communicators throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. AimThis study applied the Narrative Policy Framework to compare and contrast the policy narratives of the Canadian and Australian Prime Ministers regarding COVID-19 vaccination. MethodsOfficial media releases, transcripts and speeches published on the websites of Prime Minister Morrison and Prime Minister Trudeau between 31 August 2020 and 10 September 2021 relating to COVID-19 vaccines were thematically analysed according to the Narrative Policy Framework. ResultsThe policy narratives of Scott Morrison and Justin Trudeau tended towards describing both governments as heroes for securing and rolling out vaccines. Trudeau tended to focus on the villain of COVID-19 while Morrison regularly described other countries as victims of COVID-19 to position Australia as superior in its decision-making. These findings also demonstrate how narratives shifted over time due to changing COVID-19 case numbers, emergence of rare complications associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine and as new information arose. ConclusionThese findings offer lessons for COVID-19 times as well as future pandemics and disease outbreaks by providing insight into how policy narratives influenced policy processes in both Australia and Canada.