The WHO’s communication strategies on social media during the early stage of the 2021 COVID vaccination campaign

Santana Lois  Poch-Butler; Ángeles  Moreno; Roberto Gelado-Marcos

doi:10.26441/RC22.1-2022-3102

Authors

Santana Lois Poch-Butler Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Ángeles Moreno Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Roberto Gelado-Marcos Universidad CEU San Pablo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26441/RC22.1-2022-3102

Keywords:

Crisis communication, risk communication, strategic communication, institutional communication, health communication, social media, public relations

Abstract

The crisis caused by COVID-19 forced public and private actors to deploy various strategies on social media to communicate effectively with their public. This research analyses the institutional communication of the World Health Organization’s Twitter account during the first quarter of 2021, with the aim of shedding light on their strategy and analyzing both its strengths and the areas with room for improvement in a crisis like the one studied. For this purpose, an ethnographic content analysis was run on the tweets published by the institutional account of the WHO and the responses issued by the public. A computer-assisted analysis was undertaken through two software programs (SPSS 27 and NVivo 11), and an online tool, Onodo – that helped us develop a sociogram with the different relationships between the actors involved in the crisis and risk communication of the WHO around the subject of vaccination. The main results show, on the one hand, that vaccination is not the focal point of the WHO’s discourse at a time when the public’s interest was centered on said thematic axis, and on the other, that the organization was not able to create an effective dialogic space. Considering these findings, a reflection is encouraged to optimize professional praxis in future risk and crisis communication strategies in digital environments, expanding the scope of this study towards other organizations and/or time frames.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biographies

Santana Lois Poch-Butler, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Máster de Investigación Aplicada a la Comunicación y Profesora asociada en el Departamento de Comunicación Audiovisual y Publicidad de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, donde imparte las aignaturas Crisis Communication, Public Opinion y Crisis Communication de forma bilingue. Es, además, miembro del Grupo de investigación Comunicancer. Líneas de investigación: comunicación estratégica de la sostenibilidad y la responsabilidad social, comunicación de crisis, trastornos informativos. santana.poch.butler@urjc.es, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2590-7795

Ángeles Moreno, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Doctora en Ciencias de la Información. Profesora titular de las asignaturas Dirección de Comunicación, Gestión de la Comunicación, y Técnicas y Recursos de las Relaciones Públicas en la Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Es investigadora del grupo de investigación de alto rendimiento Grupos de Estudios Avanzados en Comunicación y autora de alta productividad, cuyos trabajos han sido premiados por la PRSA, ICA, EUPRERA y AIRP. Es la inmediata Past-President de la European Public Relations Research and Education Association. mariaangeles.moreno@urjc.es, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0777-2957

Roberto Gelado-Marcos, Universidad CEU San Pablo

Doctor en Comunicación y Gestión Estratégica del Conocimiento. Profesor de las asignaturas Teoría de la Comunicación y de la Información y Narrativa Audiovisual en la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Comunicación de la Universidad CEU San Pablo. Líneas de investigación: Trastornos informativos, Comunicación política y responsabilidad social, Representaciones de los medios. En la actualidad es IP del nodo USPCEU integrado en el Hub IBERIFIER, financiado por la Comisión Europea para el estudio de la desinformación en el entorno ibérico. roberto.geladomarcos@ceu.es, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4387-5347

References

Anderson, M. & Vogels, E. A. (2020, March 31). Americans turn to technology during COVID-19 outbreak, say an outage would be a problem. Pew Research Center. http://pewrsr.ch/3E74cJ6

Austin, L., Liu, B. F. & Jin, Y. (2012). How audiences seek out crisis information: Exploring the social- mediated crisis communication model. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 40(2), 188– 207. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2012.654498 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2012.654498

Bari, A., Heymann, M., Cohen, R. J., Zhao, R., Szabo, L., Vasandani, S. A., Khubchandani, A., DiLorenzo, M., & Coffee, M. (2022). Exploring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine Hesitancy on Twitter Using Sentiment Analysis and Natural Language Processing Algorithms. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 74(S3), e4–e9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciac141

Benham, J. L., Lang, R., Kovacs Burns, K., MacKean, G., Léveillé, T., McCormack, B., Sheikh, H., Fullerton, M. M., Tang, T., Boucher, J-C., Constantinescu, C., Mourali, M., Oxoby, R. J., Manns, B. J., Hu, J. & Marshall, D. A. (2021). Attitudes, current behaviours and barriers to public health measures that reduce COVID-19 transmission: A qualitative study to inform public health messaging. PLoS ONE, 16(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246941 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246941

Boynton, M. H., O’Hara, R. E., Tennen, H. & Lee, J. G. L. (2020). The impact of public health organization and political figure message sources on reactions to coronavirus prevention messages. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 60(1), 136-138 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2020.08.001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2020.08.001

Castillo, A., Moreno, Á. & Capriotti, P. (2020). Relaciones públicas y comunicación institucional ante la crisis del COVID-19. Revista Internacional de Relaciones Públicas, 10(19), 1-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5783/RIRP-19-2020-13-247-250

Costa-Sánchez, C. & López-García, X. (2020). Comunicación y crisis del coronavirus en España. Primeras lecciones. El profesional de la información, 29(3), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.04 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.04

Diviu-Miñarro, C. & Cortiñas-Rovira, S. (2020). Cómo comunicar una pandemia a la sociedad: la visión de los profesionales. Estudio de caso de la Covid-19 en el sur de Europa. Profesional de la información, 29(5), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.12 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.12

Drylie-Carey, L.; Sánchez-Castillo, S.; Galán-Cubillo, E. (2020). European leaders unmasked: Covid-19 communication strategy through Twitter. Profesional de la información, 29(5), e290504. doi: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.04 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.04

Eldridge, C., Hampton, D. & Marfell, J. (2020). Communication during crisis. The importance of leadership, messaging, and overcoming barriers. Nursing Management, August, 50-53. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000688976.29383.dc DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000688976.29383.dc

European Commission (2018). A multi-dimensional approach to disinformation. Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation. Publications Office of the European Union. https://bit.ly/3y1zehp

Fieselmann, J., Annac, K., Erdsiek, F., Yilmaz-Aslan, Y. & Brzoska, P. (2022). What are the reasons for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine? A qualitative analysis of social media in Germany. BMC Public Health, 22, 846. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13265-y DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13265-y

GlobalWebIndex (2020). Coronavirus research series 4: Media consumption and sport. https://bit.ly/3Rq89LV

Guidry, J. P. D., Jin, Y., Orr, C.A., Messner, M. & Meganck, S. (2017). Ebola on Instagram and Twitter: How health organizations address the health crisis in their social media engagement. Public Relations Review, 43(3), 477-486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04.009 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04.009

Guo, J., Liu, N., Wu, Y. & Zhang, C. (2020). Why do citizens participate on government social media accounts during crises? A civic voluntarism perspective. Information & Management, 103286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103286 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103286

Houston, J. B., Hawthorne, J., Perreault, M. F., Park, E. H., Goldstein Hode, M., Halliwell, M. R., Turner McGowen, S. E., Davis, R., Vaid, S., McElderry, J. A. & Griffith, S. A. (2015). Social media and disasters: A functional framework for social media use in disaster planning, response, and research. Disasters, 39(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12092 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12092

Huang, W., Dove-Medows, E., Shealey, J., Sanchez, K., Benson, L., DawnSheska, D.S., Sullivan, P.S., Bradley, H.M. & Siegler, A.J. (2023) COVID-19 vaccine attitudes among a majority black sample in the Southern US: public health implications from a qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 23, 88. doi:10.1186/s12889-022-14905-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14905-z

Ipsos (2020). Coronavirus prompts increased use of video chat platforms for work, connection. https://bit.ly/3SPYuQ1

Jacobs, K. D., Zori, Z., Collins, S. L. & Wood, E. (2021). Exploration of the COVID-19 Content within a Vaccine Choice Social Media Platform: A Case Study. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet, 25(4), 366-382. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15398285.2021.1983713 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15398285.2021.1983713

Jin, Y., Austin, L., Vijaykumar, S., Jun, H. y Nowak, G. (2019). Communicating about infectious disease threats: Insights from public health information officers. Public Relations Review, 45(1), 167–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.12.003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.12.003

Jong, W. (2021). Evaluating Crisis Communication. A 30-item Checklist for Assessing Performance during COVID-19 and Other Pandemics. Journal of Health Communication, 25(12), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1871791 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1871791

Kent, M.L. & Taylor, M. (1998) Building dialogic relationships through the World Wide Web. Public Relations Review, 24, 321-334. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0363-8111(99)80143-X

Llano Guibarra, N. I. & Aguila Sánchez, J. C. (2020). Conferencias de prensa y COVID-19: explorando la respuesta gubernamental mexicana desde la comunicación en salud. Revista Española de Comunicación en Salud, Suplemento 1, 128-141. https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5451 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5451

Losada Díaz, J. C., Rodríguez Fernández, L. & Paniagua Rojano, F. J. (2020). Comunicación gubernamental y emociones en la crisis del Covid-19 en España. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 78, 23-40. https://www.doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1467 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1467

MacDonald, N.E. (2015). Vaccine hesitancy: definition, scope and determinants. Vaccine. 33(34), 4161–4164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.04.036 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.04.036

Majid, A., Reagu, S. M., Al-Khal, A., Elzain, M., Jones, R. M. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and attitudes in Qatar: A national cross-sectional survey of a migrant-majority population, Influenza and other respiratory viruses, 15(3), 361-370. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12847 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12847

Manpreet Kaur, R. V. & Kweku Otoo, F. N. (2021). Emotions in leader’s crisis communication: Twitter sentiment analysis during COVID-19 outbreak. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 31(1-4), 362-372. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2020.1829239 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2020.1829239

Martínez Estrella, E. C. (2020). Uso de personajes y metáforas en la gestión de la crisis sanitaria del COVID- 19. Revisión de la comunicación de sanidad pública en España y México. Revista Española de Comunicación en Salud, Suplemento 1, 319-327. https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5458 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5458

Mcguire, D., Cunningham, J. E., Reynolds, K. & Matthews-Smith, G. (2020). Beating the virus: An examination of the crisis communication approach taken by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during the Covid-19 pandemic. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), 361– 379. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2020.1779543 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2020.1779543

Mirbabaie, M., Bunker, D., Stieglitz, S., Marx, J. & Ehnis, C. (2020). Social media in times of crisis: Learning from Hurricane Harvey for the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic response. Journal of Information Technology, 35(3), 195–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396220929258 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396220929258

Moreno, A., Fuentes-Lara, C. & Navarro, C. (2020). Covid-19 communication management in Spain: Exploring the effect of information-seeking behavior and message reception in public’s evaluation. El profesional de la información, 29(4), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.02 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.02

Moreno, Á., Navarro, C., Tench, R., & Zerfass, A. (2015). Does social media usage matter? An analysis of online practices and digital media perceptions of communication practitioners in Europe. Public Relations Review, 41(2), 242-253. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.12.006

Noar, S. M. & Austin, L. (2020). (Mis)communicating about COVID-19: Insights from Health and Crisis Communication. Health Communication, 35(14), 1735-1739. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1838093 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1838093

Nyawa1, S., Tchuente, D. & Fosso-Wamba, S. (2022). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: a social media analysis using deep learning, Annals of Operations Research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-022-04792-3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-022-04792-3

Nguyen, M. H., Hargittai, E. & Marler, W. (2021). Digital inequality in communication during a time of physical distancing: The case of COVID-19. Computers in Human Behavior, 120(2021), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106717 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106717

Piller, I., Zhang, J. & Li, J. (2020). Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis: Language challenges of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Multilingua, 39(5), 503-515. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0136 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0136

Qiao, S., Friedman, D.B., Chi Tam, C., Zeng, C. & Li, X. (2022). COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among college students in South Carolina: do information sources and trust in information matter? Journal of American College Health. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2022.2059375 Rojo Martínez, J. M., Moreno Moreno, S. & Soler Contreras, A. (2020). La figura del portavoz en la comunicación de una crisis sanitaria: el caso del gobierno español durante la COVID-19. Revista De Comunicación Y Salud, 10(2), 397-416. https://doi.org/10.35669/rcys.2020.10(2).397-416 DOI: https://doi.org/10.35669/rcys.2020.10(2).397-416

Reno, C.; Maietti, E.; Di Valerio, Z.; Montalti, M.; Fantini, M.P.; Gori, D. (2021). Vaccine

Hesitancy towards COVID-19 Vaccination: Investigating the Role of Information Sources through a Mediation Analysis. Infectious Disease Report, 13, 712–723. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/idr13030066 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/idr13030066

Rodríguez-Orejuela, A., Montes-Mora, C. L. & Osorio-Andrade, C. F. (2022). Sentimientos hacia el vacunación contra la covid-19: panorama colombiano en Twitter. Palabra Clave, 25(1), e2514. doi: https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2022.25.1.4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2022.25.1.4

Rotolo, B., Dubé, E., Vivion, M., MacDonald, S.E. & Meyer, S.B. (2022). Hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines on social media in Canada. Vaccine, 40(2022), 2790-2796. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.03.024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.03.024

Rybalko, S. & Seltzer, T. (2010). Dialogic communication in 140 characters or less: How Fortune 500 companies engage stakeholders using Twitter. Public Relations Review, 36(4), 336–341. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.08.004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.08.004

Sadiq, A.-A., Kapucu, N. & Hu, Q. (2021). Crisis leadership during COVID-19: the role of governors in the United States. International Journal of Public Leadership, 17(1), 65-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-08-2020-0071 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-08-2020-0071

Scales, D., Gorman, J.M., DiCaprio, P., Hurth, L., Radhakrishnan, M., Windham, S., Akunne, A., Florman, J., Leininger, L. & Starks, T.J. (2022). Community-oriented Motivational Interviewing (MI): A novel framework extending MI to address COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in online social media platforms. Computers in Human Behavior, 141(2023), 107609. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107609

Shulman, H. & Bullock, O. (2020). Don’t dumb it down: The effects of jargon in COVID-19 crisis communication. PLoS ONE, 15(10), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239524 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239524

Sobral, F., Carvalho, J., Łagowska, U., Furtado, L. M. & Grobman, M. (2020). Better safe than sorry: leadership sensemaking in the time of COVID-19. Brazilian Journal of Public Administration, 54(4), 758-781. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220200262x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220200262x

Sutton J., Renshaw S. L., Butts, C. T. (2020). COVID-19: Retransmission of official communications in an emerging pandemic. PLoS ONE, 15(9), e0238491. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238491 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238491

Taylor, M., & Kent, M. L. (2014). Dialogic engagement: Clarifying foundational concepts. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26(5), 384-398. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2014.956106

Tench, R. Meng, J. & Moreno, A. (Ed.) (2022). Strategic Communication in a Global Crisis: National and International Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003184669

Tjaden, J., Haarmann, E. & Savaskan, N. (2022). Experimental evidence on improving COVID-19 vaccine outreach among migrant communities on social media. Scientific Reports, 12, 16256. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20340-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20340-2

Weber, M. A., Backer, T. E. & Palosky, S. (2020). Creating a Robust Digital Communications Strategy for the US Department of Health & Human Services. Journal of Health Communication, 25(10), 774- 779. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1871985 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1871985

Wilson, M. E. & Chen, L. H. (2020). Travelers Give Wings to Novel Coronavirus (2019- nCoV). Journal of Travel Medicine, 27(2), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa015 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa015

Woods, C.L. (2016). When more than reputation is at risk: How two hospitals responded to Ebola. Public Relations Review, 42(5), 893-902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.002 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.002

Wukin, C. (2016). Government social media messages across disaster phases. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 24(4), 230–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12119 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12119

Xifra, J. (2020). Comunicación corporativa, relaciones públicas y gestión del riesgo reputacional en tiempos del Covid-19. El profesional de la información, 29(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.mar.20 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.mar.20

Zhao, X., Zhan, M. & Liu, B. F. (2018). Disentangling social media influence in crises: Testing a four-factor model of social media influence with large data. Public Relations Review, 44(4), 549-561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.08 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.08.002