The informative use of Twitter during the Covid-19 Pandemia in Turkey

Abstract

Twitter allows users to share ideas and information via text messages called tweets, limited to 280 characters. Twitter, a microblogging and social networking platform, has become a center of information and communication that allows us to stay connected in times of crisis.  This research is designed to reveal which areas of the public are more widely informed by authorities as part of the COVID-19 pandemia process. Snowball sampling method was used and tweets sent between March 11th and May 4th 2020 by real and legal accounts in Turkey in the fields of health, education and utilities related to COVID-19 were analysed for this study.  4042 tweets sent from 800 different real and legal accounts were included in the study and content analyses were carried out. Information tweets sent by experts in health, education and public fields were categorized in 10 different topics identified as science-health, vigilante activities, education, isolation, protection, economics, aid, hygiene, psychology, and culture & arts activities. As a result of the analysis, information tweets made in the areas of protection and isolation were found to be the most informed areas and the least informed areas in the fields of cultural arts and illegal activities.