Introduction: This study aims to understand how the Chilean Ministry of Health communicated with its audience on social media during the early stages of the COVID19 crisis, in a context of national instability and a lack of trust among citizens in the government due to a previous social crisis. Methodology. Employing the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the integrative model of risk and emergency communication (CERC), we conducted a content analysis of 3,306 Tweets posted by the Ministry of Health and its spokespersons during a 37 -day period between February and March 2020. Results: The analysis revealed a prevalence of sender -oriented messages over audience -oriented posts. Bolstering emerged as the most common crisis communication strategy in the messages, overshadowing the less prevalent strategies of instructing and adjusting. Multivariate analysis revealed that bolstering messages were more likely to be sender -centered, while instructive messages tended to be direct appeals to the audience. Discussion: The findings indicate that in the early weeks of the pandemic, the Chilean Ministry of Health and its authority figures opted for a reputational protective strategy on Twitter. This approach relegated the goal of providing citizens with essential information to protect themselves from the health emergency to a lower priority. This study is unique in characterizing the communication of a Latin American governmental agency on social media during the COVID-19 crisis within the broader context of a significant social and political crisis, utilizing a risk and crisis communication approach.
