Today Is My Day: Analysis of the Awareness Campaigns’ Impact on Functional Diversity in the Press, on Google, and on Twitter

Abstract

(1) Every day, people with functional diversity face different kinds of difficulties that pose a barrier to their social inclusion. These difficulties often go unnoticed by most citizens. Social networks are a powerful tool to sensitize the population. With this objective, different organizations such as associations, federations, foundations, and other institutions have promoted campaigns through the celebration of world days for different types of functional diversity. This research aims to monitor and analyze the impact of these social campaigns in Spain, including Asperger’s syndrome, rare diseases, Down syndrome, autism, hearing and visual impairment, cerebral palsy, dyslexia, ADHD, spina bifida, disability, and dyscalculia world days, between 2015 and 2020. (2) The impact of each campaign on the press, Google, and Twitter has been analyzed using: MyNews, Google Trends, and Trendinalia. (3) The results suggest a close relationship between the impact on the number of pieces of news generated in the press, the searches on Google, and the hashtags in high positions on Twitter. (4) The campaigns with the greatest levels of success are those whose diagnoses involve greater difficulties in adaptive behavior. These results can provide some practical implications for future campaigns.

¿ Dónde has oído hablar del trastorno del espectro autista? Identificando las fuentes de conocimiento docente sobre el TEA

“…Dependiendo de cómo se haga esta transmisión, los medios pueden ser una herramienta para la desestigmatización, brindando al público información y verificación de hechos, y desacreditando falsedades y mitos; o bien, una estructura de perpetuación de mitos e informaciones erróneas. Por esta razón, Kollia et al (2017) añaden a esta discusión la necesaria participación de profesionales en TEA para crear productos culturales que se difundan a las masas, o incluso que se utilicen como herramienta en la formación inicial docente (Gómez-Marí et al, 2021).…”

Strengthening Equitable Access to Care and Support for Children with Cerebral Palsy and Their Caregivers

“…In a different study, one that examined coverage of twelve campaigns pertaining to developmental disorders, one campaign (Día Mundial de la Parálisis Cerebral) centered on cerebral palsy celebration and awareness [ 32 ]. There was an increased uptake of searches for this campaign on Google and a wider reach on Twitter.…”

“…In the context of our digital era, during contemporary times, social media has taken a much more increased and visible presence as an influencer and bearer of information across many domains of life [ 36 ]. Notably, in two studies investigated, social media and campaign coverage of cerebral palsy were in the Portuguese-Brazilian or Spanish languages and meant primarily to reach the national populations of Brazil and Spain [ 30 , 32 ]. Future research could involve critically examining social media content in English and additional languages to account for coverage of content that could be relevant to more segments of the global population of children with cerebral palsy and their caregivers.…”