CDC’S COVID-19 VACCINATION MESSAGES AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: A STUDY ON FACEBOOK POSTS

<p>Government health agencies utilize social media for public health interventions. This study examines how CDC, the national public health agency of the United States, use <em>Facebook</em> to disseminate COVID-19 vaccine messages and to get public engagement towards them over the past two years (2020-2022). Investigating the process of dialogic potentials of <em>Facebook</em> from the dialogic theory of public relations perspective, the current study analyzes 681 posts and 3,405 comments from CDC’s official <em>Facebook</em> page. Thematic analysis of posts yields three dominant themes such as “Vaccine supportive”, “availability of vaccine”, and “up to date information”. Comment analysis shows positive sentiment to vaccine promotion but negative sentiment for pregnant women’s vaccine uptake. Parents of children lack of confidence to get them vaccinated. Drawing on dialogic theory, the study argues, CDC needs to escalate “usefulness of information” (e.g., audio-visual production) principle while crafting messages for vaccination. The study concludes by calling for building an active “dialogic loop” by responding to users’ comments as much as possible. Practical implications and importance of findings are discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2022

Author dc:creator

• Faisal, Hasan Mahmud

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Jae-Hwa Shin
• Dr. Fei Xue
• Dr. Kathryn Anthony

• COVID-19
• Vaccine
• CDC
• Facebook
• Public engagement
• Dialogic principles
• Arts and Humanities

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/944

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-2015