Public Health Communication and Engagement on Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Teichmann, Lisa; Nossek, Sean; Bridgman, Aengus; Loewen, Peter John; Owen, Taylor; Ruths, Derek; Zhilin, Oleg

doi:10.31219/osf.io/7hypj

Cited by 26 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This contrasts with marketing research which reports that video posts perform best on Facebook [ 23 ]. COVID-19-specific research in Canada found that the type of embedded media used in Facebook posts was a determinant of engagement with public health communications, and that posts with simple, concise messages and high-quality media embedded, such as animations or infographics, were especially well shared [ 24 ]. Conversely, this research found that that extensive policy-related messages and video and infographics of lower quality were associated with less engagement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locking down the Impact of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Level Changes on Pets

Esam¹,

Forrest

Waran

2021

Animals

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The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on human-pet interactions within New Zealand, particularly during lockdown, was investigated via two national surveys. In Survey 1, pet owners (n = 686) responded during the final week of the five-week Alert Level 4 lockdown (highest level of restrictions—April 2020), and survey 2 involved 498 respondents during July 2020 whilst at Alert Level 1 (lowest level of restrictions). During the lockdown, 54.7% of owners felt that their pets’ wellbeing was better than usual, while only 7.4% felt that it was worse. Most respondents (84.0%) could list at least one benefit of lockdown for their pets, and they noted pets were engaged with more play (61.7%) and exercise (49.7%) than pre-lockdown. Many respondents (40.3%) expressed that they were concerned about their pet’s wellbeing after lockdown, with pets missing company/attention and separation anxiety being major themes. In Survey 2, 27.9% of respondents reported that they continued to engage in increased rates of play with their pets after lockdown, however, the higher levels of pet exercise were not maintained. Just over one-third (35.9%) of owners took steps to prepare their pets to transition out of lockdown. The results indicate that pets may have enjoyed improved welfare during lockdown due to the possibility of increased human-pet interaction. The steps taken by owners to prepare animals for a return to normal life may enhance pet wellbeing long-term if maintained.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locking down the Impact of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Level Changes on Pets

Esam¹,

Forrest

Waran

2021

Animals

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“…Although some studies have examined the relationship between government agencies’ use of social media and citizen engagement during public health crises, there are several obvious gaps that deserve further investigation. First, existing studies have paid extensive attention to more traditional social media, including Sina Weibo [ 1 , 8 ], Twitter [ 4 , 14 ], and Facebook [ 7 ]. Chen and colleagues [ 14 ] identified the tweeting patterns of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during different phases of the Zika epidemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Driving Citizen Engagement With Government TikTok Accounts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Model Development and Analysis

Chen¹,

Chen²,

Wei³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

101

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Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, growth in citizen engagement with social media platforms has enabled public health departments to accelerate and improve health information dissemination, developing transparency and trust between governments and citizens. In light of these benefits, it is imperative to learn the antecedents and underlying mechanisms for this to maintain and enhance engagement. Objective The aim of this study is to determine the factors and influencing mechanisms related to citizen engagement with the TikTok account of the National Health Commission of China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Using a web crawler, 355 short videos were collected from the Healthy China account on TikTok (with more than 3 million followers throughout China), covering the period from January 21, 2020, to April 25, 2020. The title and video length, as well as the number of likes, shares, and comments were collected for each video. After classifying them using content analysis, a series of negative binomial regression analyses were completed. Results Among the 355 videos, 154 (43.4%) related to guidance for clinicians, patients, and ordinary citizens, followed by information concerning the government’s handling of the pandemic (n=100, 28.2%), the latest news about COVID-19 (n=61, 17.2%), and appreciation toward frontline emergency services (n=40, 11.3%). Video length, titles, dialogic loop, and content type all influenced the level of citizen engagement. Specifically, video length was negatively associated with the number of likes (incidence rate ratio [IRR]=0.19, P<.001) and comments (IRR=0.39, P<.001). Title length was positively related to the number of shares (IRR=24.25, P=.01), likes (IRR=8.50, P=.03), and comments (IRR=7.85, P=.02). Dialogic loop negatively predicted the number of shares (IRR=0.56, P=.03). In comparison to appreciative information, information about the government’s handling of the situation (IRR=5.16, P<.001) and guidelines information (IRR=7.31, P<.001) were positively correlated with the number of shares, while the latest news was negatively related to the number of likes received (IRR=0.46, P=.004). More importantly, the relationship between predictors and citizen engagement was moderated by the emotional valence of video titles. Longer videos with positive titles received a higher number of likes (IRR=21.72, P=.04) and comments (IRR=10.14, P=.047). Furthermore, for short videos related to government handling of the pandemic (IRR=14.48, P=.04) and guidance for stakeholders (IRR=7.59, P=.04), positive titles received a greater number of shares. Videos related to the latest news (IRR=66.69, P=.04) received more likes if the video title displayed higher levels of positive emotion. Conclusions During the COVID-19 pandemic, videos were frequently published on government social media platforms. Video length, title, dialogic loop, and content type significantly influenced the level of citizen engagement. These relationships were moderated by the emotional valence of the video’s title. Our findings have implications for maintaining and enhancing citizen engagement via government social media.

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“…In general, many world leaders have already adopted Twitter as a platform for communication with citizens (Barberá and Zeitzoff, 2018). In Canada, specifically, Teichmann et al (2020) show the importance of Canada's local and provincial authorities use of social media during the COVID-19 crisis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third theme is the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 on Twitter (Pérez-Dasilva et al, 2020;Rodríguez et al 2020). In Canada, Bridgman et al (2020) find a link between the dissemination of misinformation on social media and behaviours and attitudes that complicate managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Pulido et al (2020) show that even though false information about the pandemic is tweeted more than information based on scientific knowledge, it is retweeted less than science-based tweets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twitter Followers of Canadian Political and Health Authorities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Are Their Activity and Interests?

Haman

2021

Can J Pol Sci

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I examined the use of Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic to find out how many Twitter users started to follow relevant Canadian political and health authorities, and I investigated their activity and interests. To this end, I analyzed 398,037 Twitter accounts. The results reveal that the Twitter accounts of relevant authorities gained a significant number of new Twitter followers during the pandemic. The Twitter users who joined during the pandemic were rather passive; they tweeted and liked fewer tweets than Twitter users who registered in the months prior to the pandemic. They also chose to follow Twitter accounts predominantly related to news, politics and governmental agencies. These findings suggest that during the pandemic, numerous information-seeking citizens joined Twitter for the purpose of obtaining information about public health matters, which in turn suggests that authorities should incorporate Twitter into their information dissemination tools, especially during emergencies, to meet the public demand for information.

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Public Health Communication and Engagement on Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 26 publications

References 35 publications

Locking down the Impact of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Level Changes on Pets

Locking down the Impact of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Level Changes on Pets

Factors Driving Citizen Engagement With Government TikTok Accounts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Model Development and Analysis

Twitter Followers of Canadian Political and Health Authorities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Are Their Activity and Interests?

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