Governments and Social Media Influencers in Times of Crisis

Borén, Thomas

4. term

Culture, Communication and Globalization, Master

2020

2020-05-31

44 pages

Abstract Problem: As the coronavirus spread across the globe, governments around the world received mixed critique for their communication to the public as some handled it better than others in public opinion. While the US government faced backlash over communication deemed woefully inadequate by the public, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, received praise for her handling and communication with the public during the crisis, indicating that some governments were better at responding to the crisis. As numbers suggest that traditional media, like TV and newspapers, is dwindling in the US, the case appears to be the same in Finland, as claimed by the Finnish government. Such tendencies might suggest that this might be the case in other nations as well. In Finland, the government has therefore decided to communicate through social media and social media influencers by inciting them to share reliable information. Purpose: This study not only seeks to discover how governments may utilize social media influencers in times of crisis, but also how social media influencers around the world are currently addressing the pandemic and what can be learned from social media and social media influencers during the pandemic. Methodology: This study adopts a qualitative research approach with an exploratory design and will analyze Instagram posts addressing the pandemic, collected from social media influencers around the world in order, through a multimodal analysis to fulfill the above- mentioned purpose. Conclusion: This study concludes that governments may, when a crisis occurs, choose among several crisis response strategies, depending on the crisis, and then base their communication to the public on the selected strategy. Communication may be done through social media and social media influencers and, from there, the message may spread far and wide digitally as social media allows users to easily share content among each other. Furthermore, the study found that social media influencers were already inciting community spirit and spreading awareness through creative solutions like social media challenges where users are incited to share content.

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