Postcolonial pandemic publics: examining social media health promotion in India during the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

Summary Affordances offered by new media platforms are perceived as revolutionary instruments for removing the inequities of access to health promotion and communication. However, the production and dissemination of health promotional material on digital platforms does not necessarily translate into uniform access across diverse demographics. This article addresses the lacuna when it comes to analyzing Health Promotion initiatives in India, with a specific focus on the governmental publicity carried out on social media during the four phases of COVID-19 national lockdown between 24 March and 31 May 2020. Our intervention examines how governmental social media health promotion in India played a key role in shaping the ‘outbreak narrative’ during the lockdown across different levels of social and economic privilege. Through a combination of quantitative data analysis and qualitative interview methods, this article analyzes the circulation and impact of official publicity in online and offline spaces, during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. Resultant findings allow for a comprehensive assessment of whether such publicity contributed to democratized citizen science discourses: enabling social protection measures for vulnerable majorities or potentially reified the existing privileges of the economically and socially affluent minority. We find that health promotion campaigns during a pandemic must focus on reaching the widest possible audience in the most efficient manner. Specifically, in the Indian context, health promotion through mass-media like Television and Radio, and participatory media platforms needed to be implemented in tandem with new media platforms, to achieve required engagement with vulnerable communities on key health issues.

Repurposing a WhatsApp group: How a fantasy cricket group transformed into a site of care and support during India's second wave of Covid-19

“…Most participants acknowledged that the activities in this group did not take place in isolation and, in fact, most groups they were part of had acquired a similar character and tone at the time—a trend that also received coverage from mainstream media platforms in India and abroad ( Indian Express Tech Desk, 2021 ; Choudhury, 2021 ). Thus, in India, the users of SNS platforms were part of several smaller networks that were intersecting with each other in myriad ways and were connected by repetitive cycles of collation, curation, and dissemination.…”

“…The repurposing of SNS platforms and “making them their own” is also observed in the context of other such platforms, especially in urban India. In this sense, Sarwatay and Raman (2021) note that conversations about digital platforms, particularly social media spaces, in the context of children's everyday are necessary and need to begin early. This idea is reinforced by Sarwatay et al (2021) , who argue that a culture-centered approach taking into account the various socioeconomic realities at play is needed to understand issues that arise from systematic and prolonged engagement with SNS platforms in contexts such as India.…”

The effectiveness of health promotion using social media on adolescent knowledge about Covid-19 in the work area of Health Center Batu Panjang, Rupat District, Bengkalis Regency

“…Health promotion is an activity to provide information so that it can increase the ability of individuals or groups to maintain and improve health 3 (Ghahremani et al, 2017). The government has so far carried out Health Promotions related to COVID-19 using various media, both offline and online (Roy et al, 2022).…”

“…Health promotion through social media among teenagers can increase knowledge about covid-19 by 95% and have an impact on behavior on covid-19 prevention behavior by 77%7.8(Triyanto & Kusumawardani, 2020). Based on a survey by the World Institute of We are Social & Hoot Suite in 2021, it is known that the use of social media among teenagers in Indonesia (Triyanto & Kusumawardani, 2020) in 2021 is 93% YouTube, 87.7% WhatsApp, 86.6% Instagram, 85.5% Facebook and 63 Twitter,3%. For more details can be seen in: Health Promotion using social media in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to increase adolescent knowledge about COVID-19 (Hamilton et al, 2020).…”

Exploring children’s TikTok cultures in India: Negotiating access, uses, and experiences under restrictive parental mediation

“…India is a huge market for internet companies and Indian children and youth are quick to adopt new technologies and become social media users, thanks to increasingly affordable mobile devices and data packs (Arora and Scheiber, 2017; Rangaswamy and Arora, 2016). Digital divides exist, of course, and amplify inequalities (Roy et al, 2022; Tewathia et al, 2020), but there are several initiatives that seek to address these gaps and find solutions (Dutta and Das, 2016; Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, 2022; Sarkar, 2016). This is why it is important to study India, and Indian children and their experiences and practices on social media.…”