Literature Overview and Basic Information
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Hung, Shih-Chang, Chang, Shu-Chen, & Huang, Ting-Yun. (2022). “Facing It, Accepting It, Managing It, Letting It Go: How Taiwanese Society Responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic” Management Review, 41(4), 43–65.
I. Research Background and Core Concept: The Framing Perspective
The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a global health crisis but also poses significant threats to human society and industrial economies, giving rise to social issues such as polarization and anti-government sentiments. Therefore, understanding the pandemic and managing the crisis should not be approached solely from a biomedical perspective but also through the lens of social cognition to grasp public opinion and societal behavior. The core theoretical foundation of this study is the concept of framing, which argues that issues or events do not possess inherent objective meanings; rather, different descriptions, definitions, and interpretations produce varying understandings. While prior management research has primarily focused on how organizational leaders shape external perceptions, recent scholarships increasingly recognize the powerful role of social media in shaping and reflecting public opinion, especially as social media can reveal more implicit and diverse grassroots voices within society.
II. Research Method and Context: Taiwan’s Handling of COVID-19
To address the research question:
“How does the general public in Taiwan perceive and respond to the crisis brought about by the COVID- 19 pandemic.”
the research team selected Dcard, one of Taiwan’s most popular anonymous social platforms, as the data source.
Dcard was chosen because users on anonymous forums are believed to express their thoughts more candidly compared with users on real-name platforms, thereby better reflecting the authentic voices of the broader society.
The study adopts a qualitative research approach using topic modeling, specifically the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm, to analyze nearly 20,000 posts in the COVID-19 section on Dcard. Topic modeling identifies the co-occurrence patterns of words to extract latent “topics,” which are then used to infer and develop underlying framing structures of the text.
The empirical context is Taiwan’s experience with COVID-19. Taiwan initially managed to successfully contain the pandemic in early 2020, maintaining zero local cases for approximately eight months and earning the reputation of a “model student” in pandemic control. However, following the “3+11” quarantine policy incident in late April 2021, the pandemic quickly escalated. This dramatic shift provides a valuable opportunity for observing how the public’s perceptions and responses to the pandemic evolve across different stages of crisis development.
III. Main Findings: From Active Defense to Submissive Acceptance
The study categorizes Taiwan society’s perceptions of and responses to the pandemic into four consecutive framing stages:
1. Control (January 2020 – November 2020): Active Defense and Resistance
The dominant frames during this stage are “policy responses,” “domestic and international developments,” and “everyday impact.” Most citizens believed that as long as they complied with government measures (such as mask-wearing and real- name registration), and with concerted efforts from the entire population and “pandemic heroes,” they would be able to “triumph over nature” —that is, defeat the virus and maintain control over the course of the pandemic. This stage corresponds to a proactive, defensive resistance strategy within the broader category of institutional response strategies.
2. Questioning (November 2020 – May 2021): Emotional Arousal and Dissatisfaction
The dominant frames during this stage shift to “emotional expression” and “social safety.” Due to policy relaxation or imported cases that led to breaches in pandemic prevention (such as hospital cluster infections and infections among flight crews), the public exhibited strong emotional reactions. Citizens began to express dissatisfaction with and question government measures, and voiced concern about the potential breakdown of social safety. This stage remains within the scope of active, defensive resistance strategies, but attention shifts toward attacking government policies and highlighting breaches in pandemic control.
3. Compromise (May 2021 – October 2021): Powerlessness and Adaptation to Reality
In May 2021, Taiwan experienced a major outbreak of local cases and entered a nationwide Level 3 alert. During this stage, dominant frames include “doubts and uncertainty,” “policy implementation,” and “vaccine demand.” Facing a pandemic that appeared out of control and a situation in which governmental authority was heavily concentrated around vaccine-related decisions, the public began to express disappointment and a sense of powerlessness. Although they continued to raise questions, they shifted their mindset, compromising with and submitting to reality,
4. Acceptance (July 2021 – November 2021): Calm Acceptance and Coexistence
This stage is dominated by frames related to “collective health” and “vaccine side effects.” As vaccination coverage increased, Dcard users actively shared and discussed their vaccination experiences. More importantly, voices calling for “coexistence with the virus” began to emerge in society. The view that a purely defensive strategy was not sustainable gained traction, and people started to accept that the virus would not disappear in the short term. This stage marks a transition from “compromising with reality” to “calm acceptance and coexistence.”
Taken together, these four stages of response vividly embody the meaning of the article’s title—moving from initial active engagement to a final stance of “face it, accept it, deal with it, and let it go”, reflecting a more natural, letting-go mentality toward the crisis.
IV. Theoretical and Practical Implications: Crisis Controllability and Emotion as a Driver
This study offers important insights for both management scholarship and practice.
Theoretical Contributions
First, the study extends theories of crisis response strategies, by incorporating the notion of institutional response strategies, it demonstrates that actors’ crisis responses are contingent on perceived crisis controllability:
- When crisis controllability is high (e.g., during stable periods of the pandemic), society tends to adopt active defensive strategies,
- When the environment becomes highly uncertain or uncontrollable (e.g., during large-scale outbreaks), society shifts toward submissive, accommodative responses,
Second, the study proposes that emotion is a latent driving force behind changes in framing, when sudden events that strongly arouse public emotions occur (such as a rapid increase in local confirmed cases), voices that diverge from the prevailing social frame emerge on social media. These alternative voices can generate self- reinforcing dynamics, leading to shifts in dominant frames.
This finding resonates with a growing body of organizational and management research emphasizing the role of emotion and affect in triggering change, suggesting that scholars should further incorporate emotional dynamics into theories of framing and crisis response.
Practical Implications
This study highlights that public perceptions of crises are context-dependent, implying that governments and organizations should adopt contingent strategies in crisis management. When the pandemic is mild, citizens are willing to delegate authority to officials to resolve the crisis. When the pandemic becomes severe and people increasingly believe that “fate cannot be overcome,” it becomes inappropriate for the government to heavily emphasize the heroic role of “pandemic fighters.” Instead, authorities should place greater emphasis on public communication, education, and a more low-profile, composed stance, thereby working with citizens to endure and navigate the crisis. Moreover, managers and government officials should recognize that public views and responses to social issues are shaped by two framing mechanisms:
- Top-down framing via traditional media
- Bottom-up framing via social media.
Especially during crisis outbreaks, decision-makers should not rely solely on traditional news channels but should also pay close attention to how the public is framing issues on social media. Only by monitoring multiple channels can they accurately grasp the directions of grassroots public opinion and thereby conduct more effective crisis management and control.
V. Conclusion: Dynamic Framing and Humanistic Management Insight
In summary, through an in-depth analysis of data from an anonymous social media platform, this study unveils the dynamic evolution of Taiwan’s social-psychological and behavioral framing under a public crisis. It demonstrates that public reactions to crises are not static, Rather, they resemble a chameleon, adjusting their posture for survival according to the perceived controllability of the crisis, When people realize they cannot control their environment, they learn to relinquish their attachment to control and instead seek to coexist with uncertainty, This is the core, deeply humanistic managerial insight at the heart of the study: effective crisis management is not only about control, but also about understanding when societies shift from fighting against reality to living with it, and how institutions can respond thoughtfully to this collective psychological journey.
Note: For detailed references, please consult the original article.
*The financial support of the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Science and Technology Council, is gratefully acknowledged.