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

Abstract

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.