How South Korean Internet users experienced the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: discourse on Instagram

Seoyoung Kim,Shin-Young Chung,Hyun-Woo Lim

doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01087-7

Abstract

This study explores how South Korean individuals managed the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in their daily lives during a time of continuous and sustained social distancing using 8241 Instagram posts from May 6 to June 16, 2020. Co-word analysis found two main theme clusters highlighting individuals’ endeavors in daily life management and their fear of COVID-19 infection. DMR topic modeling analysis resulted in five higher-order themes, each reflecting different aspects of people’s COVID-19 experiences. Overall, the results shed light on individuals’ resilience in managing their daily lives despite the fear and discomfort caused by the pandemic. Results also highlight the possibility that the discursive practices of Social Network Services (SNS) reinforce hatred against social minorities and frame otherizing COVID-19 patients as legitimate. The present study suggests the need for a range of social support to help individuals and communities during the prolonged pandemic, including a long-term, large-scale psychological quarantine system. Deliberate social measures also need to be taken to promote the process of social sharing through media texts and SNS to resist hateful frames and othering of social minorities. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are provided.

Highlights

To slow COVID-19 pandemic spread, governments across the globe have enacted ranges of social-distancing measures, including stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and closure of non-essential businesses (Hale et al, 2020)
The first of the distinctive increases in daily posts coincided with the point when the daily number of new patients increased and the infection spread out, starting from a nightclub in Itaewon, Seoul (Kim, 2020b)
The rising and falling curve in the number of daily posts appears to reflect an increase and decrease in people’s effort to regulate their fear and anxiety; the more they felt fearful and anxious due to the threat of infection, the more often they were likely to express it in Instagram posts

Summary

Introduction

To slow COVID-19 pandemic spread, governments across the globe have enacted ranges of social-distancing measures, including stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and closure of non-essential businesses (Hale et al, 2020). The rhetoric of “war against COVID-19” has been widely adopted in political and media discourse to communicate the severity of the crisis to the public and enforce restrictions (Maesse, 2020; Sohn, 2020). We expect that any new pandemic causes a broad array of anxiety and phobic disorders among the general public (Cheng and Tang, 2004; Lau et al, 2010; Ramalingaswami, 2001). Individuals could suffer from stress and helplessness caused by restrictions on going out of the home (Lee‐ Baggley et al, 2004), economic losses including business layoffs, closures, and income loss (Mihashi et al, 2009), and other restrictions on normal activities (Main et al, 2011). A recent review of studies on the impact of COVID-19 on mental health shows that the COVID-19 outbreak could cause fear, pervasive anxiety, frustration and boredom, and loneliness among the public (Serafini et al, 2020)

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Results

Conclusion