WhatsApp is India’s most popular social media application and has emerged as a valuable tool for health and risk communication during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). Public health institutions,WHO and Government agencies used WhatsApp Health Alert to distribute verified, accurate and timely information during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examines the potential of WhatsApp as a primary source of health and risk information and its impact on users’ risk knowledge and risk perception during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey among 453WhatsApp users in Tamil Nadu during the COVID-19 lockdown in May-August 2021. Most of the respondents used WhatsApp as the primary source of COVID-19 information than other media. COVID-19 information in WhatsApp had a positive and significant impact on users’ risk knowledge and risk perception. Regularly receiving and sharing COVID-19 information, subscribing to and participating in COVID-19-related group chats, and regularly updating WhatsApp statuses about COVID-19 were significant influencers of risk knowledge and risk perception. Future PHE response communication must build on these communication opportunities in WhatsApp rather than routed primarily to traditional methods.
The rising accessibility of mobile phones and the proliferation of social media have revolutionized the way climate change has been communicated. Yet, the inherent invisibility and temporal complexities of climate change pose challenges when trying to communicate it on visual media platforms. This study employs visual content analysis to investigate how environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) in India address these limitations on their Instagram pages. Four environmental NGOs based in India were selected, and their thirty most recent Instagram posts related to climate change were analyzed based on imagery type, subject, context and themes. The findings revealed that these NGOs employed a diverse range of climate change imageries, often accompanied by overlaying texts, to traverse the lack of standardized visual tropes. Moreover, it is noted that a significant majority of analyzed Instagram imageries following the visual principles advocated by Climate Outreach emerged from one single NGO account, suggesting potential variations in the visual communication strategies among different NGOs.
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