Macao, a special administrative region of China, has been able to maintain the records of zero deaths and keep confirmed cases under 50 since the outbreak of COVID-19 for more than half a year as of July 2020, despite being the world’s most densely populated city. The current paper utilizes the dialogic public relations theory to analyze the situation using both literature review on how the various government actions and strategies during the pandemic were corresponding to the theory, and a quantitative random digital dialing (RDD) telephone survey, with a sample of 502 Macao residents aged 18 or above, to study the public reactions towards the government pandemic prevention actions. Survey results show a high level of public satisfaction towards epidemic prevention performance, as well as some forms of collaborative information re-dissemination behavior in social media platforms. Literature review and analysis from dialogic theory found that spirit of mutual equality, collaboration with local community, immediacy of presence in crisis time, engagements with stakeholders through maximum media channels and networks, supportiveness to public with both useful information and practical social support like subsidy program, as well as commitment to transparent and genuine communication, are all the dialogic communications strategies that describe what the Macao government has done in the crisis of COVID-19. The dialogic strategies that could be learned from the Macao government may be used as a reference for similar urbanized and densely populated cities in other territories.

The number of cultural festivals organised globally has increased primarily due to their significance in celebrating and promoting community values, ideologies, identity and continuity. This mixed-method study aims to understand the role national identity and the associated emotions play in cultural festivals. It first investigates the rationale of organising festivals to celebrate postcolonial hybrid identities via a qualitative approach in Study 1, specifically regarding the ‘Macao International Parade’. It further tests a proposed framework via a quantitative approach in Study 2, which investigates the relationships between national identity, festivalscapes, festival satisfaction, hedonic value and re-patronising intention. This study implies that the cultural festival in Macao not only recognises a unique moment in history, but also contributes to strengthening the hybrid identity in postcolonial Macao. Based on these findings, both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.