Canadian COVID-19 Crisis Communication on Twitter: Mixed Methods Research Examining Tweets from Government, Politicians, and Public Health for Crisis Communication Guiding Principles and Tweet Engagement

Melissa MacKay, Andrea Cimino, Samira Yousefinaghani, Jennifer E. McWhirter, Rozita Dara and Andrew Papadopoulos
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Melissa MacKay: Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Andrea Cimino: Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Samira Yousefinaghani: School of Computer Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Jennifer E. McWhirter: Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Rozita Dara: School of Computer Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Andrew Papadopoulos: Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: To foster trust on social media during a crisis, messages should implement key guiding principles, including call to action, clarity, conversational tone, compassion and empathy, correction of misinformation, and transparency. This study describes how crisis actors used guiding principles in COVID-19 tweets, and how the use of these guiding principles relates to tweet engagement. Original, English language tweets from 10 federal level government, politician, and public health Twitter accounts were collected between 11 March 2020 and 25 January 2021 ( n = 6053). A 60% random sample was taken ( n = 3633), and the tweets were analyzed for guiding principles. A tweet engagement score was calculated for each tweet and logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the relationship between guiding principles and tweet engagement. Overall, the use of guiding principles was low and inconsistent. Tweets that were written with compassion and empathy, or conversational tone were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Across all guiding principles, tweets from politicians and public health were associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Using a combination of guiding principles was associated with greater odds of having higher tweet engagement. Crisis actors should consistently use relevant guiding principles in crisis communication messages to improve message engagement.

Keywords: COVID-19; social media; Twitter; crisis communication; social media engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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