Social and Institutional Presence of the Presidents of the Americas on social media: An analysis of the Communication on Twitter about COVID-19

Abstract

This article examined, through Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques, the personal profiles of theHeads of Government of countries in South and North America and how they communicated withtheir audiences on institutional measures to contain COVID-19. Analyses were carried out on data collected from Twitter from November 2019 to November 2020. This study includes: i) quantitative analysis, measuring categories and emphases in the communication of tweets, retweets, likes, and comments on matters relevant to the pandemic; ii) qualitative analysis that allowed evaluating speeches to identify political interference and the effectiveness of communication at critical moments of the pandemic. It was possible to infer that each president has his singularities and understanding about Social Media’s use as a more direct communication tool with his audience. It was also found that successful communication is not directly proportional to the volume of messages on Twitter, but to socio-political aspects and institutional leadership that can make a difference in Social Media in combating COVID-19.