Our existence has been marked by great social and political changes following the global spread of COVID-19 over the past two years. As the concerns over the widespread disease grew, so did the use of social media by almost people and officials from diverse walk of life seeking to promote healthy and secure environment. In the wake of emerging challenges, countries with unique economic and political attributes adopted disputable approaches towards the use and function of new media. This paper seeks to address this conflictual space, as the central problem of study, through case studies of two different economic and political systems in the Oceania and eastern Asia, namely in Australia and Vietnam, to show that under particular condition of COVID-19 pandemic, social media technologies played pivotal roles in appropriating communication structures to respond to the viral urgencies. It is argued that normative classical theories, either singularly or integrated and still on the curriculum agenda of academic circles, are problematic and of less descriptive capacity to account for the communication policies adopted by authorities and rulers of distinct political structures at the time of risk management. The study concludes that normative media theories, with their limits and rigid definitions, fail to explain the complexities of emerging conditions.

Keywords : Australia, Covid-19, Social Media, Theory, Vietnam.