European leaders unmasked: Covid-19 communication strategy through Twitter

Lindsay Drylie-Carey,Esteban Galán-Cubillo,Sebastián Sánchez-Castillo

doi:10.3145/epi.2020.sep.04

Abstract

The coronavirus disease Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is exacting a huge toll on individuals, families, communities, and societies across the world. The study of public communication is a key aspect for slowing the spread of the virus and therefore reducing the death rate. This article analyses political leaders’ crisis communication during the Covid-19 pandemic of the most affected European countries, Boris Johnson (United Kingdom), Emmanuel Macron (France), Pedro Sánchez (Spain) and Giuseppe Conte (Italy), in addition to Tedros Adhanom as a representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Ursula Von der Leyen President of the European Union (EU). The study focuses on the visual information (images and videos) published in their Twitter profiles, with the aim of highlighting the strategies of recommendations by health authorities during the first 40 days of the pandemic. After analysis of the visual content of 634 tweets, the results show significant differences amongst the preventative measures recommended (social distancing, use of masks, hand washing, etc.) and the public image projected by the leaders in their Twitter profiles.

Highlights

Since the Covid-19 pandemic has expanded globally, public health institutions, nonprofit organisations and governments have reacted by providing precise information to the population about the illness (Lipsitch; Swerdlow; Finelli, 2020; Thelwall; Thelwall, 2020), with the intention of successfully arresting the virus responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths globally
Regarding dichotomous variables, “Wearing of the mask” X2 (15, N = 634) = 245.087, p < .000; (rf = .622, p < .000; Cramérs V .359 p < .000; Eta-squared (η2) .294), “Hashtag” X2 (5, N = 634) = 78.164, p < .000 (rf = .351, p < .000; Cramérs V .351 p < .000; Eta-squared (η2) .214) y “Wartime language” X2 (5, N = 634) = 242.164, p < .000 (rf = .619, p < .000; Cramérs V .619 p < .000; Eta-squared (η2) .577). These data show that leaders have used visual resources on Twitter in a significantly different way, far from a joint communication strategy of the World Health organisation (WHO) recommendations and the proposals of the different national health officials
The typology of the image or video itself which can be specific to social media or intended for a different audience, the duration of a video if it is used within a tweet, the actual total number of tweets over the prescribed period and the responses generated by the posts

Summary

Introduction

Since the Covid-19 pandemic has expanded globally, public health institutions, nonprofit organisations and governments have reacted by providing precise information to the population about the illness (Lipsitch; Swerdlow; Finelli, 2020; Thelwall; Thelwall, 2020), with the intention of successfully arresting the virus responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths globally. Previous sanitary crises such as H5N1 (1997), N1H1 (2009), SARS (2002), MERS (2012), H7N9 Chinese (2013) or the Ebolavirus (2014), showed that social networks and mobile technologies exerted an essential role in the diffusion of information and were decisive elements of the public health strategies (Wise, 2001; Tirkkonen; Luoma-aho, 2011; Liu; Kim, 2011). Research suggests that the reputation of an institution or leader has a strong influence on public confidence (Coombs; Holladay, 2002; Renn; Levine, 1991; Palenchar; Heath, 2007)

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