Committed to Health: Key Factors to Improve Users’ Online Engagement through Facebook

Alonso-Cañadas, Juana; Galán-Valdivieso, Federico; Saraite-Sariene, Laura; Caba-Pérez, Carmen

doi:10.3390/ijerph17061814

Cited by 14 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Concerning the former, research has shown that a higher intensity of government communication via social media positively influences citizens’ adherence to preventive measures [ 55 ]. Previous crisis-related research indicates that health organisations rely more often on traditional media than social media when framing a health crisis [ 56 , 57 ]. In the context of Covid-19, recent research shows that the tweets of politicians generated the most attention, while those of celebrities attracted the most engagement overall, thereby indicating the value of personal versus official communication channels [ 58 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative analysis of visual risk communication on twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic

Sleigh¹,

Amann²,

Schneider³

et al. 2021

BMC Public Health

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Background The Covid-19 pandemic is characterized by uncertainty and constant change, forcing governments and health authorities to ramp up risk communication efforts. Consequently, visuality and social media platforms like Twitter have come to play a vital role in disseminating prevention messages widely. Yet to date, only little is known about what characterizes visual risk communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. To address this gap in the literature, this study’s objective was to determine how visual risk communication was used on Twitter to promote the World Health Organisations (WHO) recommended preventative behaviours and how this communication changed over time. Methods We sourced Twitter’s 500 most retweeted Covid-19 messages for each month from January–October 2020 using Crowdbreaks. For inclusion, tweets had to have visuals, be in English, come from verified accounts, and contain one of the keywords ‘covid19’, ‘coronavirus’, ‘corona’, or ‘covid’. Following a retrospective approach, we then performed a qualitative content analysis of the 616 tweets meeting inclusion criteria. Results Our results show communication dynamics changed over the course of the pandemic. At the start, most retweeted preventative messages came from the media and health and government institutions, but overall, personal accounts with many followers (51.3%) predominated, and their tweets had the highest spread (10.0%, i.e., retweet count divided by followers). Messages used mostly photographs and images were found to be rich with information. 78.1% of Tweets contained 1–2 preventative messages, whereby ‘stay home’ and ‘wear a mask’ frequented most. Although more tweets used health loss framing, health gain messages spread more. Conclusion Our findings can inform the didactics of future crisis communication. The results underscore the value of engaging individuals, particularly influencers, as advocates to spread health risk messages and promote solidarity. Further, our findings on the visual characteristic of the most retweeted tweets highlight factors that health and government organisations should consider when creating visual health messages for Twitter. However, that more tweets used the emotive medium of photographs often combined with health loss framing raises concerns about persuasive tactics. More research is needed to understand the implications of framing and its impact on public perceptions and behaviours.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative analysis of visual risk communication on twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic

Sleigh¹,

Amann²,

Schneider³

et al. 2021

BMC Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Research has shown that a higher intensity of government communication via social media positively in uences citizens' adherence to preventive measures (53). Previous crisis-related research indicates that health organisations rely more often on traditional media than social media when framing a health crisis (54,55). Our study results reveal that although dominated by individual voices ('in uencers' with many followers), both health/government institutions and the media also had a signi cant presence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 51%

Covid-19 on Twitter: an analysis of risk communication with visuals

Sleigh

Amann

Schneider

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Background: In a pandemic, when timely and clear communication is important, visuals on social media can help citizens quickly find and understand health risk information. In recognition of visuality and social media’s value during a crisis, we investigated popular Covid-19 risk communication with visuals posted on the platform Twitter. Looking at tweet authors, their use of graphics, the preventative messages, and risk framing, our objective was to determine how visual communication on Twitter promoted WHO Covid-19 health recommendations.Methods: We sourced Twitter’s 500 most retweeted Covid-19 messages for each month from January - October 2020 using Crowdbreaks. Included tweets had to have visuals, be in English, come from verified accounts, and contain at least one of the keywords ‘covid19', 'coronavirus', 'corona', or 'covid’. Following a retrospective approach, we then performed a qualitative content analysis of the tweets’ text and visuals. Results: Most of the tweets analysed came from influencers - individuals with many followers (51%), followed by media companies (30%), and health and government institutions (15%). At the start of the pandemic, the latter two were most prevalent. Analysis of visual formats showed that photographs were most common, and the majority of tweets combined them with other graphic types (55%). 68% of tweets had text in their visual, 42% of all visuals were animated, and 26% included a URL. ‘Stay home’ and ‘wear a mask’ were the most frequently communicated Covid-19 preventative measures. 70% of tweets used risk framing (emphasising health gains or loss), and 32% had tones of critique.Conclusion: This study found that the most retweeted Covid-19 preventative measures with visuals mostly came from individuals, showing that health and government organisations were not alone in promoting preventative measures on Twitter. This stresses the important role individuals play in the dissemination of information using social media during a health crisis. The finding that more tweets used health loss framing, often combined with the emotive medium of photographs, raises concerns about persuasive tactics feeding on fear. Future research is needed to better understand this approach's consequences and its impact on public perceptions and behaviours.

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“…One of the main takeaways from these studies is that the message format affects the level of users’ web-based commitment to health organizations via social media [ 51 ]. Other studies (2/35, 6%) were tied to the assessment of the effectiveness of different types of posts on Facebook.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Internet-Based Communication for Public Health: Systematic Review

et al. 2022

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Background Communicating strategically is a key issue for health organizations. Over the past decade, health care communication via social media and websites has generated a great deal of studies examining different realities of communication strategies. However, when it comes to systematic reviews, there is fragmentary evidence on this type of communication. Objective The aim of this systematic review was to summarize the evidence on web institutional health communication for public health authorities to evaluate possible aim-specific key points based on these existing studies. Methods Guided by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement, we conducted a comprehensive review across 2 electronic databases (PubMed and Web of Science) from January 1, 2011, to October 7, 2021, searching for studies investigating institutional health communication. In total, 2 independent researchers (AN and SS) reviewed the articles for inclusion, and the assessment of methodological quality was based on the Kmet appraisal checklist. Results A total of 78 articles were selected. Most studies (35/78, 45%) targeted health promotion and disease prevention, followed by crisis communication (24/78, 31%), general health (13/78, 17%), and misinformation correction and health promotion (6/78, 8%). Engagement and message framing were the most analyzed aspects. Few studies (14/78, 18%) focused on campaign effectiveness. Only 23% (18/78) of the studies had an experimental design. The Kmet evaluation was used to distinguish studies presenting a solid structure from lacking studies. In particular, considering the 0.75-point threshold, 36% (28/78) of the studies were excluded. Studies above this threshold were used to identify a series of aim-specific and medium-specific suggestions as the communication strategies used differed greatly. Conclusions Overall, the findings suggest that no single strategy works best in the case of web-based health care communication. The extreme variability of outcomes and the lack of a unitary measure for assessing the end points of a specific campaign or study lead us to reconsider the tools we use to evaluate the efficacy of web-based health communication.

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Committed to Health: Key Factors to Improve Users’ Online Engagement through Facebook

Cited by 14 publications

References 58 publications

Qualitative analysis of visual risk communication on twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic

Qualitative analysis of visual risk communication on twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic

Covid-19 on Twitter: an analysis of risk communication with visuals

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Internet-Based Communication for Public Health: Systematic Review

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