Raising Awareness in Public Health: A Study of Beijing Health Commission Weibo Communications during the 2022 COVID-19 Wave in Beijing

Abstract

The public demands of information will increase during the crisis and the social media accounts run by governmental sectors is one of the major sources where the public obtains information. This study focuses on the practices of Beijing health commission, an authoritative official outlet, in posting COVID-19 related information from a governmental stance. We explore the content of these social media posts and manner of posting during the COVID-19 crisis. Based on a data set of 1,422 Weibo posts related to the early 2022 COVID-19 wave in Beijing, we identified the theme of reports of confirmed cases and travel paths, and propagandistic objective as the most prominent. From analysed posts and the identified themes, the preliminary findings suggested that the government gave its priority to maintain its legitimacy during the crisis. Thus, by borrowing the concept of paternalism, we argued that arising the public’s attention of crisis is what government applied to achieve its propaganda goal, which aims to practicing its paternalistic governance in China.