Chris Liebold
In a large-scale study, the researchers from the University of Jena and the Ilmenau University of Technology analyzed how governments in four countries have used textual-visual modes of communication in crisis messages on Instagram to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and how risk cultures shaped these textual-visual narratives.
Based on the concept of multimodality, the authors propose a new framework for understanding multimodal crisis messages: the integration of textual and visual elements and the influence of contextual factors. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2,140 Instagram posts (Germany N = 417, Türkiye N = 388, United Kingdom N = 684, United States N = 651) published by governments and health institutions between 2020 and 2021. Hierarchical clustering on principal components revealed three clusters of multimodal crisis messages: a person-oriented protective pattern (UK and US), a state-oriented instructional pattern (Germany and partly US), and a politicizing crisis pattern (Türkiye). The study is part of the DECIPHER project and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Retrieve the article here: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22032
To the DECIPHER project: https://www.tu-ilmenau.de/universitaet/fakultaeten/fakultaet-wirtschaftswissenschaften-und-medien/profil/institute-und-fachgebiete/institut-fuer-medien-und-kommunikationswissenschaft/forschung/deciphering-the-pandemic-sphere
Contact:yi.xu@uni-jena.de and martin.loeffelholz@tu-ilmenau.de