Europe failed to get Covid advice out on social media
● Political leaders’ tweets contained very small amount of WHO guidance
Political leaders across Europe failed to promote Covid-19 health guidelines on social media in the early days of the pandemic, according to a new academic study.
Research from Glasgow Caledonian University and two universities in Spain analysed Twitter use of political leaders from countries in Europe most affected by coronavirus.
The study found that in the first 40 days of the health pandemic, just 1.9 per cent of Boris Johnson’s tweets related to official health guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
They also found that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO behaved “more like an Instagram influencer” by tweeting quotes from celebrities.
The study focused on images and videos posted by Mr Johnson and Dr Tedros, as well as Emmanuel Macron of France, Pedro Sanchez of Spain, Giuseppe Conte of Italy, and Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
While Mr Johnson’s tweets contained less than 2 per cent of WHO recommendations, 53.1 per cent of Mr Conte’s, 33.7 per cent of Mr Macron’s and 22.4 per cent of Mr Sanchez’s were relating to guidelines.
The paper, entitled European Leaders Unmasked: Covid-19 Communication Strategy Through Twitter, stated: “Some weeks Tedros-Adhanom posts more than 300 tweets and some of them are more reminiscent of an Instagram influence r-quoting celebrities and introducing concepts such as ‘Love’ and ‘Peace’, without providing any context - than a director of a global medical organisation facing the worst health crisis in decades..”
The study also found that all four leaders rarely highlighted hand washing advice - Mr Conte was the highest at 9.3 per cent, followed by Mr Johnson (6.8 per cent), Mr Sanchez (4.8 per cent) and Mr Macron (1.1 per cent).
It concludes that leaders “failed to use the medium to re - enforce the public health messages with supporting personal actions or values in the pictures and videos they posted”.
It continued: “They did not take advantage of their influential position to show themselves wearing masks, observing social distancing, or following rigorous measures such as regular hand washing .”
Dr Lindsey Dry lie Carey, senior lecturer in marketing at Glasgow Caledonian University, said :“All the leaders mainly used the platform as a news service with very little interest in entering into a twoway dialogue with the users.”