Public Engagement with Science During and about COVID-19 via Twitter: Who, When, What, and How

• Published in: The Usage and Impact of ICTs During the Covid-19 Pandemic pp. 194 - 217
• Main Authors: Dedema, Meredith, Hara, Noriko
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2023; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: CoP Literature; Social Media Platforms; Public Health Organizations; Data Set; Health Information Behavior; Stacked Bar Graph; Individual Twitter Accounts; Low Health Literacy Group; Social Informatics; Vaccine Hesitancy; LIWC Lexicon; MMR Vaccine; Individual Twitter Users; ICT Consequence; Higher Favorites; LIWC; ICT Governance; Social Informatics Research; Public Engagement; Major Depression Group; Sociotechnical System; Tweet Topics; Virtual CoP; Retweets Count; Social Media Features
• ISBN: 9781032139746; 9781032139753; 1032139757; 1032139749
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003231769-11

This chapter presents a study that analyzed communication between scientists and laypeople via a social media platform, Twitter, during and about the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines ICT use in a unique context, the global pandemic, from a social informatics perspective. The objective of this study was to understand what and how scientists, medical professionals, and public health organizations communicated with the public on social media, in order to improve online public health communication in the future. We collected Twitter data from 15 scientists and medical professionals, two pseudo-experts, and six federal government-sponsored public health organizations. Using content analysis, we investigated social media features, content features, social cues, and topics shown in the tweets from these accounts over three different periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results showed that scientists and medical professionals, pseudo-experts, and public health organizations used different social media features and shared different content when communicating with the public about COVID-19 and other scientific topics. In addition, different topics appeared in the tweets over the three different periods. By examining the engagement level and content of tweets, we found that tweets with certain social media features and social cues received a higher count of favorites and retweets. The study informs the use of Twitter for online public engagement with science by applying a social informatics perspective. Moreover, the study contributes to the body of social informatics research by studying a sociotechnical system outside of organizational contexts. This chapter presents a study that analyzed communication between scientists and laypeople via a social media platform, Twitter, during and about the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective communication of scientific knowledge encourages the public to take a greater interest in science, value the contributions of scientists, and foster public support for the funding of scientific research. While journalists act as one of the gatekeepers of communicating science to the public through the news media in the past, scientists have more opportunities than ever before to communicate directly with the public, thanks to the development of social media platforms and mobile devices. COVID-19 created a force that changed the situation of social media use for PES by both scientists and the public. The global pandemic was a perfect storm to propel scientists to communicate directly to the public, and for the public to rely on social media to obtain the most current, and hopefully accurate, information related to COVID-19.