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. 2020 Jul 21;17(14):5261.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17145261.

Social Networks' Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain: Health Media vs. Healthcare Professionals

Ana Pérez-Escoda  1 , Carlos Jiménez-Narros  1 , Marta Perlado-Lamo-de-Espinosa  1 , Luis Miguel Pedrero-Esteban  1
Affiliations

Social Networks' Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain: Health Media vs. Healthcare Professionals

Ana Pérez-Escoda et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

An increased use of social networks is one of the most far-reaching consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from the traditional media, as the main drivers of social communication in crisis situations, individual profiles have emerged supported by social networks, which have had a similar impact to the more specialized communication media. This is the hypothesis of the research presented, which is focused on health communication and based on a virtual ethnography methodology with the use of social metrics. The aim is to understand the relationship established between the population in general and digital media in particular through the measurement of engagement. In this regard, a comparative study was carried out that describes this phenomenon over a period of six months on three social networks: YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, with a sample composed of specialized health media versus healthcare professionals. The results point to a new communications model that opens up a new space for agents whose content has a degree of engagement comparable to and even exceeding that of digital media specialized in health communication. The conclusions show that the crisis of the pandemic has accelerated the transformation of the communication sector, creating new challenges for the communication industry, media professionals, and higher education institutions related to market demands.

Keywords: COVID-19; Instagram; Twitter; YouTube; communication; engagement; health media; health professionals; social networks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Annual change worldwide of the world’s population, internet users, social network users, and mobile phone users. Created by the author from the annual reports from Hootsuite (We are social, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Joint declaration of the technology industry in an effort to provide a response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Facebook Newsroom, 2020). Created by the author from the tweets published by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Reddit.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary of the growth indices in the number of followers in the February 2020–May 2020 trimester (pandemic crisis) with respect to the previous trimester, November 2019–January 2020.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Chronological change of the growth index of interactions in the social network YouTube in the two trimesters analyzed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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