Abstract: This talk presents a study that analyzed communication between scientists and laypeople via a social media platform, Twitter, during and about the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines ICT use in a unique context, the global pandemic, from a social informatics perspective. The objective of this study was to understand what and how scientists, medical professionals, and public health organizations communicated with the public on social media, in order to improve online public health communication in the future. We collected Twitter data from 15 scientists and medical professionals, 2 pseudo-experts, and 6 federal government-sponsored public health organizations. Using content analysis, we investigated social media features, content features, social cues, and topics shown in the tweets from these accounts over three different periods during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results showed that scientists and medical professionals, pseudo-experts, and public health organizations used different social media features and shared different content when communicating with the public about COVID-19 and other scientific topics. In addition, different content appeared in the tweets over the three different periods. By examining the engagement level and content of tweets, we found that tweets with certain social media features and social cues received a higher count of favorites and retweets. The study informs the use of Twitter for online public engagement with science by applying a social informatics perspective.

Bio: Meredith Dedema is a PhD student from Department of Information and Library Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington. She received her Bachelor in Information Management and Information System from Peking University, China. She is a student fellow of the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics (directed by Prof. Pnina Fichman) and the Center of Computer Mediated Communication (directed by Prof. Susan Herring). Her research interests include Social Informatics, Science Communication, and Computer-Supported Collaborative Work. She is currently working on multiple research projects and completing her coursework at IU.

More details and Zoom information available at https://www.dins.pitt.edu/news/pitt-css-seminar-speaker-analyze-covid-related-twitter-communications-between-scientists-and.