Engagement Analysis of Canadian Public Health and News Media Facebook Posts and Sentiment Analysis of Corresponding Comments during COVID-19

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, key stakeholders have used social media to rapidly disseminate essential information to the public to help them make informed health-related decisions. Our research examined how the public responded to official actors’ Facebook posts during COVID-19 and examined the comment sentiment and post engagement rates. CBC News and CTV News received a greater proportion of negative comments and a lower average post engagement rate compared with Healthy Canadians. Additionally, the proportion of negative and positive comments varied over time for all sources; however, over 30% of the comments for all three actors were consistently negative. Key stakeholders should monitor the public’s response to their social media posts and adapt their messages to increase the effectiveness of their crisis communication efforts to encourage the adoption of protective measures.

COVID-19 Vaccine Communications on Instagram and Vaccine Uptake in Young Adults: A Content Assessment and Public Engagement Analysis

“…During the pandemic, the Canadian Federal Government was responsible for key public health decisions like vaccine approval, procurement, and distribution. The responsibility to transparently communicate about these decisions, which is a key guiding principle of crisis communication (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018;Mackay et al, 2022aMackay et al, , 2022b, fell on government officials-including political party leaders, members of the official opposition, government organizations and public health officials. These federal actors communicated in the form of press briefings, news releases and interviews (Lowe et al, 2022), as well as leveraging social media (Kada et al, 2022;MacKay et al, 2022c) platforms to deliver information.…”