Abstract
BackgroundIn 2020 Spain launched an official campaign, #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos, aimed at uniting the entire country through citizen cooperation, in order to combat Covid-19. The objective of this research has been to analyse how this Twitter campaign revealed the feelings expressed by Spanish citizens. MethodsThe research is based on a composite design that triangulates, from a theoretical model, a quantitative analysis and a qualitative analysis. ResultsOf the 7,357 tweets in the sample, 72.32% were found to be retweets. Four content families were extracted which relate to politics, education, messages to society and the defence of occupational groups. The feelings expressed ranged from those of unity, admiration and support to those of discontent and criticism of issues regarding the health situation. ConclusionsThe development of networked socio-political and technical measures, which enabled citizen participation, facilitated the development of new patterns of interaction between national or regional governments and digital citizens. This increased citizens’ possibilities of influencing the public agenda and, therefore, strengthening citizen engagement regarding specific situations.
Highlights
In 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic affected society worldwide and had a direct impact on governments and citizens alike
In the ‘Health and Science’ category we find messages supporting public health initiatives, defending the belief that the quality of the Spanish health system is due to the professionalism of its members (‘The secret: good professionals, good attitude ...’ [T1306]; ‘Thanks for taking care of us...’ [T2952])
There were many messages of a marked negative nature. These are seen to convey feelings of discontent and anger at the pernicious consequences which citizens experienced at a professional level, and messages which criticise the management of the crisis by both national or regional governments
Summary
In 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic affected society worldwide and had a direct impact on governments and citizens alike. In our increasingly high-tech digital society governments everywhere have been implementing socio-technical measures [1] to deal with the various socio-political and economic challenges facing them [2] This is facilitating the creation of new connections and patterns of interaction between governments, citizens and technology [3]. Conclusions: The development of networked socio-political and technical measures, which enabled citizen participation, facilitated the development of new patterns of interaction between national or regional governments and digital citizens. This increased citizens’ possibilities of influencing the public agenda and, strengthening citizen engagement regarding specific situations
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