"Drawing on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework, we sought to examine how leading health organizations use Instagram for communicating and engaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. We manually retrieved Instagram posts together with relevant metadata of four health organizations (WHO, ... CDC, IFRC, and NHS) shared between January 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020. Two coders manually coded the analytical sample of 269 posts related to COVID-19 on dimensions including content theme, gender depiction, person portrayal, and image type. We further analyzed engagement indices associated with the coded dimensions. Results: The CDC and WHO were the most active of all the assessed organizations with respect to the number of posts, reach, and engagement indices. Most of the posts were about personal preventive measures and mitigation, general advisory and vigilance, and showing gratitude and resilience. An overwhelming level of engagement was observed for posts representing celebrity, clarification, and infographics. Conclusions: Instagram can be an effective tool for health organizations to convey their messages during crisis communication, notably through celebrity involvement, clarification posts, and the use of infographics. There is much opportunity to strengthen the role of health organizations in countering misinformation on social media by providing accurate information, directing users to credible sources, and serving as a fact-check for false information." (Abstract) more

"The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods offers a step-by-step guide to overcoming the challenges inherent in research projects that deal with 'big and broad data', from the formulation of research questions through to the interpretation of findings. The handbook includes chapters on spec ... ific social media platforms such as Twitter, Sina Weibo and Instagram, as well as a series of critical chapters. The holistic approach is organised into the following sections: Conceptualising & Designing Social Media Research; Collection & Storage; Qualitative Approaches to Social Media Data; Quantitative Approaches to Social Media Data; Diverse Approaches to Social Media Data; Analytical Tools Social Media Platforms." (Publisher description) more