Pandemic video communication aimed at the general public tends to lack creativity and may fail to reach large audiences (Shortt et al., 2021). Creative and contemporary practises and techniques used by professional creative communicators are not yet reflected in online pandemic-related video and social media communication by health authorities (Li et al., 2020; Moon and Lee, 2020; Berg et al., 2021). More specifically, the use of professional communicators, narratives, humour, and advanced graphic visualisations is underexplored, yet might hold much potential for improving reach, as well as recall and learning (Hut et al., 2016; Erviti, 2018; García-Avilés and de Lara, 2018; León and Bourk, 2018; Davis et al., 2020; Shortt et al., 2021). Message framing, on the other hand, has been explored and identified as an important topic in studies on health risk communication (Berg et al., 2021). Public health messages, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, often rely on persuading people to change their attitudes and behaviours (Heffner et al., 2021; Oxman et al., 2022). Emotions, both positive (e.g., curiosity, wonder, awe, surprise, pleasure, and hope) and negative (e.g., fear, anger, anxiety, boredom, frustration, exclusion, and isolation), have had a central role in the production and consumption of both advertising (Poels and Dewitte, 2019) and science communication (Davies et al., 2019; Taddicken and Reif, 2020).

Previous studies of pandemic video communication have recommended a more interdisciplinary approach, combining trustworthy scientific content and expertise with creative contemporary visualisation and production techniques, for example through active collaboration between health experts and creative communicators to create high-quality content that will raise public awareness (Li et al., 2020, p. 5-6; Moon and Lee, 2020; Shortt et al., 2021). Health experts and professional communication creatives do however come from very different schools of thought, have different work processes, and may have different views on what constitutes a successful project. While collaboration between different professionals might be the key to increasing the reach of health science information to the general public, it is not obvious how such collaboration should proceed.

The construction of effective health communication videos aimed at the general public is a creative process. Creative processes have been studied for over a century, and models thereof have ranged from depicting a few distinguished stages, such as in Wallas' work in The Art of Thought from 1926 (Wallas, 2014) to encompassing complex and dynamic stages and sub-processes (Dewey, 1980; Glaveanu et al., 2013; Botella et al., 2018, 2019). While many models of the creative process focus on the cognitive perspective, Glaveanu et al. (2013) developed an action framework for analysing creative acts modelled from Dewey's work in Art of Experience from 1934 (Dewey, 1980), in which creativity is perceived as relational and inter-subjective (Glaveanu et al., 2013). The action framework has previously been used to visualise important actions and stages across various domains and to gain new insights into similarities and differences in creation approaches, such as regarding how much weight creators from different domains put on various stages in the creative process. Using this framework previous studies have found that similarities and differences across impulsion (why someone is doing a certain action), obstacle (difficulties/limitations experienced), doing (stages, tools, and procedures), undergoing (material and social environment and interactions), and emotion (experienced at any stage of the activity) have deviated from presupposed ones across domains such as art and science (Glaveanu et al., 2013).

The present study aims to identify how the development of pandemic video communication could benefit from an interdisciplinary collaboration between health professionals and creative communicators. The following research questions guided our study:

Applying the action framework of Glaveanu et al. (2013), we explore the creative action of professionals from six different professional domains already involved in, related to, or considered relevant for creating effective pandemic video communication. Further, we explore their views on how pandemic video communication can be improved both in relation to content and creativity. Lastly, the study explores what recommendations for interdisciplinary approaches between health experts and creative communicators can be made based on participants' experiences and comparisons of their creative processes.

This study has highlighted multiple similarities and differences between health professionals and creative communicators relating to the creative process and their approaches to pandemic video communication. Creative processes are dynamic and non-linear, often with interconnections between stages and the various actors involved in the process. This study has shown how this constitutes a challenge for public health professionals to know when to give their input or how to take part in the process of creating public health communication. The creative communication professionals, on the other hand, have their expertise in creativity, storytelling, audience reach, and communication strategies, and rely on the inputs of public health experts to deliver high-quality content. Creating communication that appeals to and triggers people's emotions and creates empathy, was highlighted as important among the creative communicators, yet was not mentioned by health experts in this study. This lack of focus on the emotional appeal in science communication has been highlighted numerous times before (Mooney, 2010; Davies and Horst, 2016). The way the two professional groups, the health and communication professionals, view the creation of public health communication is fundamentally different (Figure 1). A recent literature review on how science health video communication outcomes are shaped by recipients' characteristics also found that, and there has been limited focus on emotional outcomes in health video communication research (Lungu et al., 2021).

According to Moirano et al. (2020) diversity in expertise is beneficial to interdisciplinary collaboration because diverse perspectives can help with problem-solving, creativity, and innovation. Visually communicating risk information and concepts is deemed important in making risk information more accessible and understandable to the public, to attract more and longer attention, and is believed to be remembered better than text or diagrams (Eppler and Aeschimann, 2009). However, risk management often lacks the time, tools, or space needed to create, something which was also expressed by health professionals in this study. This present study found that participants from health domains assigned great importance to and efforts on content, but were unsure or lacked experience in how content is translated through form and creative choices such as presenters, narratives, and audio–visual means. A similar creative gap was identified also in a previous study on COVID-19 videos by health authorities (Shortt et al., 2021). Creative communicators, on the other hand, emphasise and specialise in form, yet depend on health professionals, experts, and scientists to provide and validate the content. In combination, these different approaches to communication cover a lot more ground than do the individual professional domains (Figure 8), and could potentially achieve a better balance between scientific rigour and high-quality evidence-based content on the one hand, and creative choices relating to large-scale reach and optimised communication on the other.

While diversity in expertise is considered positive for interdisciplinary collaboration, diverse thinking styles and perspectives can also lead to challenges, lack of consensus, us-vs.-them mentalities, misunderstanding, and conflict (Moirano et al., 2020). The fusion model of global team collaboration (Janssens and Brett, 2006) was developed for use in culturally diverse teams and focuses on coexistence of different cultural precepts of teamwork and values the distinct perspectives of all team members. It serves as a useful guide to interdisciplinary collaboration for pandemic video communication. In the present study, participants come from different professional cultures with different professional languages. In Janssen and Brett's model, native language and the power of team members' units within the organisation contribute to unequal power. In our study, professional language and media experience are identified as factors potentially contributing to unequal power when health experts and creative communicators engage in collaborative creative work (Figure 9). Public health professionals often lack the language and experience needed to place the best order for creative communication, resulting in a lot of trial and error when attempting to create communication. This lack of a common language could influence team members' contribution and how the information they do contribute with is integrated in the final decisions – represented here by the final video. Overcoming language differences is important for meaningful participation from individuals involved in interdisciplinary collaboration, and it could be useful to develop rules for clarification when something is not understood, repeating information using different vocabulary, or checking comprehension (Janssens and Brett, 2006).

There is a need for a shared common ground for talking about communication and creation processes. To outsiders, creative activity can seem “magical” or mystical, and creative communicators should thus also take an active role in de-mystifying the creative process by involving the client in creative workshops and feedback loops throughout the process.

Visualisations may also help to achieve shared common ground (Yusoff and Salim, 2015) by bringing forth critical themes related to content and form in creating video communication. This study has introduced the bubble chart, a novel graphical presentation of qualitative data. The bubble chart visualising the interview data in this study demonstrates how professionals highlight the overarching themes stemming from the interviews differently. The interactive version of the bubble chart for the study (https://covcom.org/interactive-charts/covcom_bubblechart1.html) also allows for bringing forth what, for example, two and two professional domains focus on, further emphasising differences and similarities which are useful to be aware of for participants from each domain. Seeing this clearly might aid the creation of the much-needed common ground for creating public health communication that is trustworthy, scientifically correct, and with the necessary simplification and creativity needed for large-scale public outreach. In relation to the fusion model applied to interdisciplinary collaboration, the bubble chart could be a useful tool to help illustrate important cultural precepts relating to the expertise and experience of participants' various professional domains involved in the collaboration.

Creative communication professionals often meet clients with a lack of knowledge of, or interest in, creativity and digital communication, hence spend considerable time educating their clients and trying to fill this knowledge gap. However, due to the time pressure during a pandemic, and the limited budgets generally available in the public sector, the clients, i.e., public health professionals, would benefit from knowing more about how creative communication processes work, and thereby how they can best get involved and be a valuable resource. This could potentially help save both time and money, as well as give the health professionals a stronger ownership of the creation process and the end communication result.

This research contributes to academic work related to creative processes, pandemic and public health communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The study informs public health communication theory by identifying factors related to content and form that are important when creating audio–visual pandemic public health communication, and identifies gaps between views and foci of health experts on the one hand, and professional creative communicators on the other. The study has theoretical and practical implications for both researchers of creative processes and experts/practitioners in health communication who wish to develop better health communication for future large-scale health challenges such as pandemics, even for better science communication more broadly. The study develops a new visualisation method for visually comparing and presenting qualitative interview data which has potential uses for researchers within and beyond the fields of health and pandemic-related communication.

We suggest future research carries out testing of creative factors in pandemic video communication to pinpoint what kind of balance between content and creativity works best. We also recommend studies that observe interdisciplinary creative processes and contribute to more in-depth understanding of what constitutes successful interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as to further develop the fusion model, specifically for interdisciplinary creative collaboration.

Lack of creativity and reach in health authorities' pandemic-related health videos call for more integrated interdisciplinary collaboration between health professionals and creative communicators. Similarities and differences relating to both the creative process – namely health experts' lack of experience across most stages of the process – and to content and form in pandemic video communication – particularly health experts' focus on quality control and translation of content, and creative communicators' focus on form, including audio-visual means, framing, and emotions – have been charted out. The key to improving pandemic-related video communication appears to lie in striking the right balance between high-quality and evidence-based content and creativity, creating content that is not uninteresting or too complicated, yet not too fancy or glossy so that it reminds viewers of advertisements or distracts from the core message. This study found that both health professionals and creative communicators play crucial roles in reaching a solid end result, and we suggest a fusion model approach to interdisciplinary collaboration.

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/Supplementary Material.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Norwegian Centre for Research Data (Ref Number 703372). The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

This study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers spanning the fields of health, science communication, risk communication, creative communication, and digital media. MTS and JR had the idea for the study. MTS and SHB read and discussed all the transcripts. MTS, SHB, and SW discussed the transcripts and initial coding and methodology approach. MTS analysed the data, developed the visualisations, and drafted the initial manuscript. SHB, JR, SW, DAL, IS, and HT provided critical feedback on the manuscript and approved the final manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The COVID Communication: Fighting a Pandemic Through Translating Science (COVCOM) Project has received funding from the Trond Mohn Foundation, under Grant Agreement Number TMS2020TMT10 and the University of Stavanger.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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