Today Is My Day: Analysis of the Awareness Campaigns’ Impact on Functional Diversity in the Press, on Google, and on Twitter

Abstract

(1) Every day, people with functional diversity face different kinds of difficulties that pose a barrier to their social inclusion. These difficulties often go unnoticed by most citizens. Social networks are a powerful tool to sensitize the population. With this objective, different organizations such as associations, federations, foundations, and other institutions have promoted campaigns through the celebration of world days for different types of functional diversity. This research aims to monitor and analyze the impact of these social campaigns in Spain, including Asperger’s syndrome, rare diseases, Down syndrome, autism, hearing and visual impairment, cerebral palsy, dyslexia, ADHD, spina bifida, disability, and dyscalculia world days, between 2015 and 2020. (2) The impact of each campaign on the press, Google, and Twitter has been analyzed using: MyNews, Google Trends, and Trendinalia. (3) The results suggest a close relationship between the impact on the number of pieces of news generated in the press, the searches on Google, and the hashtags in high positions on Twitter. (4) The campaigns with the greatest levels of success are those whose diagnoses involve greater difficulties in adaptive behavior. These results can provide some practical implications for future campaigns.