The Relationship Between the Government’s Official Facebook Pages and Healthcare Awareness During Covid-19 in Jordan

Al-Shakhanbeh, Z. M.; Habes, M.

Today new trends in new media and advertising have revolutionized the whole world. Social media have enabled health sectors to access the potential audience and persuade them effectively. In this regard, coronavirus is currently a prevalent disease as it is disseminated with great speed and a distinct composition in 2020. In addition, many people are still unaware of its severity and lack any relevant information and this is burdening the healthcare system, especially in Jordan. This chapter aims to explore the role of Facebook in health awareness concerning Covid-19 in Jordan. It has adopted the descriptive approach, using a content-analysis form that consists of main categories and sub-topics carefully selected to analyze three Facebook pages for the official Jordanian institutions. These Facebook pages are directly linked to Covid-19, namely: The Prime Ministry, the Ministry of Health, and the Crisis Management Center (CMC). The study analyzed their posts regarding Covid-19 awareness during the period from April 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020. Through the analysis process, six topics were revealed in terms of health awareness: its attractive approach, source of information, factors, size of interaction, and method of presentation and language. The success of using Facebook for Covid-19 awareness requires that other official institutions raise their level of Facebook use in solving different issues, guiding citizens as to how the work is done through it and strengthening the partnership between official institution and citizens through this network. This opens the door to further research that independently addresses awareness topics and analyses of other Facebook pages to reveal more about Covid-19 and to more studies addressing the use of official institutions’ pages by social media to spread awareness of the current health crisis worldwide. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.