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This paper aims to revisit the theme of fiscal-monetary coordination in a general equilibrium setup that allows for unconventional monetary policy, monetary policy transmission and developing country characteristics.

This paper uses a calibrated new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to study fiscal-monetary interaction.

Debt sits at the center of monetary-fiscal interaction. Under high-debt conditions, the inflation-output trade-off rises with an increase in the strictness with which monetary policy targets inflation, undermining the standard prescription of strict inflation targeting. At the same time, the transmission of monetary policy is also impeded, due to which unconventional monetary policy becomes more appropriate. The need for coordination among the policies gets enhanced in the presence of borrowing cost channel. While the presence of borrowing cost channel increases the need for policy coordination regardless of the debt situation, features like higher share of non-Ricardian households and weaker monetary policy transmission affect monetary-fiscal interaction to a greater extent under high-debt environment.

First, this paper uses inflation-output trade-off as a metric, to analyze fiscal-monetary interaction. Second, this paper considers the impact of developing country characteristics (such as a higher share of non-Ricardian households, impeded monetary policy transmission and supply constraints/borrowing cost channel) on fiscal-monetary interaction. Third, the DSGE model developed in this paper incorporates open market operations that could shed light on the role of unconventional monetary policy in the presence of high fiscal deficit and debt, which is particularly relevant in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fourth, the model also permits an investigation into monetary policy transmission under different debt regimes.

The Coronavirus pandemic in South Africa resulted in negative effects with high infection rates, health care shortages, increases in death rates, plus a collapsing economy. There was an urgent need for precautionary health promotional campaigns to educate populations about the virus. However, with South Africa’s diverse population cultural beliefs, socio-cultural aspects needed to be catered for. Health literacy also had to be considered for effective positive behaviour change patterns to occur. Social barriers such as misinformation, stigma, myths, anxiety and prejudice resulted into infodemics emerging in the population. Media representation about the pandemic needed to ensure truthful and authentic information reached target audiences. Specific examples related to religious beliefs (the Chief Justice Mogeng Mogeng) and cultural remedies (Madagascar’s artemisia or “green gold”) are included in this chapter, to elaborate examples of such cases in South Africa, with no audience engagement analysed. Two health promotional campaigns, Count Me In and We will beat this are analysed via a qualitative multimodal analysis. Behaviour change communication theories are included to triangulate and validate the findings. Findings indicated that health campaigns need to cater for socio-cultural diversities and be audience specific in order for adequate behaviour change to occur, via clear health messages.

This paper aims to explore articulations of how individuals internalise official demands on handling COVID-19 and the function of social media in this process, and further to discuss this from a human rights’ perspective.

A thematic analysis of qualitative data from an international survey on COVID-19 and social media. The analysis was inspired by Berger and Luckmann's theory of reality as a social construction.

Articulations expressed an instant internalisation and externalisation of the officially defined “new normal”. However, negotiations of this “new normal” were articulated, whereby everyday life activities could proceed. Resistance to the “new normal” appeared, as routines and common sense understandings of everyday life were threatened. Health-care professionals were put in a paradoxical situation, living in accordance with the “new normal” outside work and legitimately deviating from it at work. The “new normal” calls for individuals’ “oughtonomy” rather than autonomy. Social media were used to push individual’s re-socialisation into the “new normal”. The latter both promoted and challenged human rights as the individual's right to self-determination extends beyond the self as it risks threatening other people's right to life.

With the means of a theoretically based thematic analysis inspired by Berger and Luckmann, the current study shows how articulations on COVID-19 and social media can both support and challenge human rights and reality as a facticity as dictated by dominant organisations and discourses in society.