Communication Research

Representation and Construction of the Corona Pandemic in Social Networks (Case: Twitter Users in Iran)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Zahra Zakeri Nasrabadi 1
Azimeh Sadat Abdelahi 1
Mohammad Taghizadeh 2

1 Assistant Prof. In Social Science, Payam-E Noor University, Tehran, Iran

2 Journalism, Payam-E Noor University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22082/cr.2024.2015164.2624
Abstract
The aim of the research is to analyze the way the corona pandemic is represented among the users of the Persian Twitter social network. The research method, qualitative content analysis and the statistical population includes the most like tweets related to the Corona issue between March 2018 to March 2019, which were extracted from the social network monitoring system (8tag) using a targeted sampling method. The three-step coding of the selected tweets revealed 120 basic themes, 14 organizing themes and 3 overarching themes: “Political dimension: representing the gap between the people and the government”, “Social dimension: bio-social heterogeneity” and “Cultural dimension: from the representation of value conflicts to the representation of Iranian moods”. These themes reflect the users’ interpretation of the Corona epidemic in the context of the social, political and cultural conditions of the society and show that the Corona pandemic is not just a medical issue, but a social and multi-layered phenomenon which constructed by the users in three main political, social and cultural dimensions in the tweeter space. Most of the tweets are devoted to users’ criticism of management and policies in controlling and dealing with Corona, or to sharing experiences and feelings caused by encountering this disease, and tweets containing the need to change the social life in accordance with the conditions of the epidemic and making fun of the Corona situation.

Keywords

Twitter Social Network
Corona Epidemic
Multi-Layered Social Phenomenon
Theme Analysis
Per-Like Tweets
Subjects
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  • Receive Date 06 November 2023
  • Revise Date 02 March 2024
  • Accept Date 04 April 2024

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