Making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of the dynamics of citizen sensemaking practices across Europe

The aim of this report is to explore how European citizens make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inorder to do so, we conducted 81 in-depth interviews with citizens, during the first wave of the pandemic. Participants came from eight European countries: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Following the Sensemaking Methodology (SMM) developed by Dervin (2008), during these interviews we explored how citizens made sense of so-called micromoments: specific moments in which they stumbled upon questions and uncertainties relating to the pandemic.