Charlotte Law CST Healthcare Communication Questions

Social Media and Health Literacy

Social media has become an increasingly relevant source for distributing health information and communicating health during a crisis. Twitter, in particular, creates a space for people and organizations to share up-to-the-minute health information, events, policies, and other pieces of communication.

This assignment asks you think about how Twitter operates as a communication resource for communicating public health during a time of crisis. This assignment will focus on evaluating health information about Covid-19 and corona virus through Twitter. You will need to complete the following steps:

1. Create a Twitter account (if you don’t already have one). You will never need to post anything, but you will need to follow some feeds.
2. Pick an angle on Covid-19 that you’d like to explore. It could be general health information, NC-based information, Covid-19 in minority communities or other high-risk groups. Pose a question about this angle, such as “Where can I find the best information on Twitter to help me make decisions about my Covid-19 risk level?”
3. Pick the 10 best Twitter feeds for you to follow regarding your angle. Don’t just pick the first 10 that pop up when you do a search. Really dig in to see what the 10 best feeds would be for you to follow to learn more about Covid-19.
4. Examine the 10 pages & gather some of the following informationWhat organization or person is the feed associated with?How credible is their expertise?How often do they post?Do they post their own content? Or do they repost content from others?What makes their content particularly useful?How effective are they at reaching their audience? How many followers do they have? How many people like or RT what they tweet?What pages do they follow? Not just who follows them, but who is in their feed?Why did you include them in your Top 10?
5. Convert this information into a table with the following headers:Twitter HandleOrganization/Individual# of FollowersTweet FrequencyKey StrengthsWho They’re FollowingReason for Inclusion

The “Key Strengths” section is where you can include some of the other relevant information like if they post their own content, how many people re-tweet their posts, and how effective they are at reaching their audience.

You’ll need to think strategically about how to format your table. I’d suggest constructing it in a Word Document with landscape formatting & saving it as a PDF. You’ve got 7 sections of information to include – and you’ll need to think about the readability.

6. Finally, you’ll need to include a short paragraph (5-7 sentences) answering the following question: “In what ways does Twitter create a platform for communicating about public health during a pandemic or other health crisis?” Please note: you can be either supportive or critical of Twitter as a platform. Just make sure that your rationale is well supported.