Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, key stakeholders have used social media to rapidly disseminate essential information to the public to help them make informed health-related decisions. Our research examined how the public responded to official actors’ Facebook posts during COVID-19 and examined the comment sentiment and post engagement rates. CBC News and CTV News received a greater proportion of negative comments and a lower average post engagement rate compared with Healthy Canadians. Additionally, the proportion of negative and positive comments varied over time for all sources; however, over 30% of the comments for all three actors were consistently negative. Key stakeholders should monitor the public’s response to their social media posts and adapt their messages to increase the effectiveness of their crisis communication efforts to encourage the adoption of protective measures.
Highlights
The pattern of sentiment across sources was found to be statistically significant with comments on posts made by Healthy Canadians evenly distributed across positive, neutral, and negative sentiment, whereas posts made by the news media evoked approximately 50% more negative comments than positive [48]
The news media received a greater proportion of negative comments and lower post engagement compared with Healthy Canadians, negative sentiment was highest for all sources
Our research found that Healthy Canadians had a slightly higher than average post engagement rate, whereas news media was below this average
Summary
Communication regarding the risks and recommended behaviors associated with COVID-19 is complex, due to the uncertain nature of the disease, the rapidly evolving conditions, and the corresponding infodemic [1]. In Canada, after the number of COVID-19 infections levelled off in the summer months, they started to steadily rise again in September 2020, with an all-time high number of new daily infections (n = 7894). During a time in which the spread of the virus rapidly increases, public adherence to risk-protective measures is critical to reduce the burden of disease [3,4,5]. Confusion and lack of clarity about changing decisions and recommendations may contribute to a lack of adherence [3], making it essential for effective risk communication strategies to influence risk perception and the adoption of recommendations
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