Nonverbal communication of Spain´s president Pedro Sánchez, during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The main objective of the research is to analyze the communication skills of Pedro Sánchez as spanish government spokesperson and assess whether they have contributed to effective crisis communication through his television speeches, in the specific context of the first State of Alarm caused by COVID -19. Content analysis is applied as a method, through the quantitative systematization of the kinesic language and the qualitative interpretation of nonverbal communication, taking as a sample the entire corpus of analysis, which includes all the presidential interventions in the indicated period. The president reveals great control of body tension and basic primary vocal qualities, and an excessive redundancy of identical bodily patterns. The political leader demonstrate gestural differences between the rising and falling phase of the virus contagion curve, although in both stages there is a frequent lack of intersystemic communicative coherence. It is concluded that the asynchronous behavior between verbal, paralinguistic and kinesic communication and gestural repetition influences the credibility of the speech and the persuasive power.