Women-Focused Nonprofit Organizations and Their Use of Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Characterizing a Gendered Pandemic Through Information, Community, and Action

Abstract

This study investigates how gender-focused nonprofit organizations used Twitter to advocate on behalf of women and girls during the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected tweets from five nonprofits including Canadian Women’s Foundation, Anova, UN Women, National Organization for Women, and Planned Parenthood. Through thematic analysis, we identified nine gender-related themes: safety, physical health, mental health, labor, economic situation, intersectional concerns, leadership, the role of gender in pandemic response and recovery plans, and supporting women’s organizations. A subsequent content analysis revealed that women’s safety, labor, and economic situation were the most prominent themes. It was also revealed that safety and intersectional concerns were raised by all organizations. We applied the theoretical framework of microblogging functions which distinguishes between information-, community-, and action-oriented tweets. Most of the tweets in our study were informational, much fewer were associated with calls to action and community engagement. Our analysis also revealed relationships between the microblogging functions and the tweets’ content themes. We found that informational tweets addressed women’s safety, physical health, economic situation, and the role of gender in pandemic response and recovery plans, while community-oriented tweets addressed women’s labor, leadership, and supporting women’s organizations. Finally, each microblogging function elicited different levels of user engagement on Twitter, with the community-oriented function receiving the largest number of “likes” compared with the information- and action-oriented functions. Our study adds to the growing body of research on social media use by feminist groups and provides novel theoretical insights by expanding the microblogging framework.