Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] To effectively respond to various unexpected public crises in modern society, we need to adhere to the basic concept of a community of shared future and achieve collaborative governance. Since the Corona Virus Disease 2019(COVID-19) erupted around the world, various disciplines such as the emerging discipline of digital humanities have actively responded which caused positive impact and gain effective experience. [Method/Process] This article takes the content research method as the main research method, systematically investigates the frontier trends of digital humanities in responding to COVID-19, and selects 12 representative digital humanities projects at home and abroad for analysis. Taking information space theory as the theoretical basis, it analyzes from the three dimensions of coding, abstraction and diffusion. [Results/Conclusions] The results show that the positive role of digital humanities can play in unexpected public crises includes raising awareness of all levels of society of the importance of public crisis data and taking active actions, promoting wider public dissemination of public crisis information to achieve public education, and promoting the production and dissemination of new knowledge in various subject areas.

Key words: unexpected public crises, digital humanities, COVID-19, i-space