Sharing the cake: How public agencies use issue segmentation when talking to the public

Public agencies communicate strategically to protect and advance their reputations when representing themselves to the public via social media. Particularly during crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, an agency’s self-portrayal to the public can help to protect its jurisdictional turf and strengthen its reputational uniqueness. While prior reputational studies have shown that agencies are attentive to the media and political principals when crafting these communicational strategies, they have not assessed how inter-agency dynamics might shape their public outreach and message. This paper argues that if multiple public agencies are confronted with a shared salient issue, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, they engage in a strategy of ‘issue-segmentation’: mindful of each other’s distinct jurisdictional and reputational profiles, their communication centers around sub-issues that do not overlap with core missions of other agencies. We assess this expectation via a study of Twitter communication of 38 European Union agencies related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using an automated thematic analysis of tweets, we show that agencies engage in issue-segmentation and focus their communication on unique sub-issues. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of public outreach of agencies in times of crisis.