Public Engagement with Romanian Government Social Media Accounts during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vasile Gherheș, Mariana Cernicova-Buca () and Marcela Alina Fărcașiu
Additional contact information
Vasile Gherheș: Department of Communication and Foreign Languages, Politehnica University of Timisoara, 300006 Timisoara, Romania
Mariana Cernicova-Buca: Department of Communication and Foreign Languages, Politehnica University of Timisoara, 300006 Timisoara, Romania
Marcela Alina Fărcașiu: Department of Communication and Foreign Languages, Politehnica University of Timisoara, 300006 Timisoara, Romania

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Following international best practice examples, the Romanian government resorted to its social media accounts to disseminate information and unfold an awareness and persuasion campaign to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The article focuses on the use of the government’s YouTube and Facebook accounts to persuade the population to get vaccinated in 2021 via video messages tailored for this purpose. The research quantified the volume of public engagement with the two waves of the persuasive campaign, finding that, while click-based reactions tended to show a positive attitude toward the campaign, the comments mainly denoted frustration, anger, and anxiety on the part of the public. Moreover, the citizens’ engagement with the campaign messages was by far lower than the number of subscribers and followers of the analyzed social media accounts. The goal of the COVID-19 public health persuasion campaign was to build support for the governmental policy and minimize the risks of the pandemic while vaccination was being rolled out. The public reaction to the governmental campaign showed that a finer and more adapted approach was necessary. This study offers a qualitative basis for informing health communication strategies of the challenges posed by social media platforms used in crisis times.

Keywords: social media; public health; engagement; COVID-19; campaign; governmental communication; Facebook; YouTube; comment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2372/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2372/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:2372-:d:1050129

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().