Crisis? What crisis? Assessing over-time public engagement with crisis communication on social media during COVID-19 in Scandinavia

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media platforms became essential for sharing crucial information and encouraging citizen engagement with public health authorities. This paper presents a cross-national and cross-platform analysis, identifying which public health message type drives social media engagement during a public health crisis. Specifically, the study examines engagement dynamics in response to four messaging objectives: instructive, supportive, reputational management, and soliciting of interaction, as disseminated by public health authorities on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and how these engagement patterns changed as the pandemic progressed. Results show that Facebook garnered the highest engagement regardless of country, with Instagram receiving the least. Instructional messages achieved the most consistently high levels of engagement across platforms, and Norway’s health authorities were generally more engaged than those in Sweden and Denmark. A general decline in engagement over time suggests pandemic fatigue. These findings underscore the importance of tailoring instructive crisis communication while accounting for cultural nuances, even among relatively similar countries. These findings indicate that by identifying the different factors that appear to influence audience engagement, practitioners can develop more effective online crisis strategies during public health crises. This includes understanding communication objectives and the necessity for adaptive strategies as public health crises unfold.