Communicating COVID-19 Pandemic on Facebook: Illustrations from Users’ Screenshots from Nigeria and Bangladesh

The outbreak of COVID-19 has dented the global public health profile. On the one side, the ubiquity of social media has led to damaging misinformation, fake news, stigmatization, and conspiracy theories. Fortunately, on the other side, the advantageous characteristics of social media and the informational support mechanisms with which they produce social safety valves; are a solid basis to curbing the pandemic. This paper examines the use of social media as a valuable platform to publicly communicate the COVID19, especially its scientific discourses. This paper focuses on Facebook as a platform amenable to the strategic digital communication of COVID-19. It takes illustrations from screenshots of Facebook users in Nigeria and Bangladesh. Some of the identified strategies include supporting for preventive measures, focusing on solutions, countering fake information, standing against racism and stigmatization, relying on scientific facts, confronting conspiracy theories, dealing with pseudoscience and denials, explaining statistics meaningfully, avoiding the temptation to trivialize and sensationalize, and using local languages.

3 suitable for communication of COVID-19 pandemic; exploring the social media to communicate the pandemic effectively.

Method
The method used is exploratory and textual analysis (Daymon & Immy, 2011). The materials are mainly Facebook content about the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and Bangladesh. This research has captured thirteen COVID-19 related messages in screenshots from Facebook walls of users from Nigeria and Bangladesh for examination. The observation period was from March to July 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 global lockdown. The text analyses aim as narrative and illustrative examples rather than empirical-based data sets.
This article purposively chose Nigeria and Bangladesh as they share several similarities. Apart from having a similar colonial heritage, both countries have a large population. They are both low-middle income countries and are geographically located in the tropics with numerous Muslim citizens. These two countries will be analyzed for complementarity.

The use of social media in health/science communication
Spreading factual information about COVID-19 requires the use of effective communication channels by credible sources to specific and targeted segments of the population for behavior modification or change (Hauer & Sood, 2020). Social media have become veritable means of strategic communication in the digital age, used to promote knowledge, agendas, issues, and group-based objectives. Since the break out of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media, especially Facebook, have been deployed to communicate about the disease (Dadaczynski et al., 2021;Kumar et al., 2021).
The social media or digital networking platforms genuinely provide the enabling or supportive environment for users to exchange assistance through social relationships enacted and sustained in the cybersphere (Fergie et al., 2016;Holmes, 2020). Barnes (1954) describes patterns of social relationships not accommodated by family and workplace structures. Cassel (1976) investigates the relations between social relationships and health, pointing out that social support shielded people from the vulnerabilities mounted by health stressors. The structures, processes, and functions that occur in social relationships and social networks provide the grounds that help people wade through illness because of the social support they engender.
Concerning pandemics, the core assumptions of the social support concept can be applied as they pertain to social media, including emotional, instrumental, appraisal, and Volume 5, Number 1, 2021, 1-17 4 informational support. Social media allows people to form social relationships based on social networks, which generates digital social togetherness and offers opportunities for social support. These allow digital health awareness about the pandemic, making it possible for people in the network to learn about the nature, manifestations, and management of these disorders. They also help people adopt proper behaviors to prevent and treat the disease, including handwashing/sanitization, respiratory hygiene, physical distancing, face masks, personal protective wear, self-isolation, etc.  Barnes (1954) first described the concept, expanded by Cassel (1976), and adapted here to conceptualize how social media engender the mechanisms necessary in response to a pandemic. In developing countries where scientific advancement is at its lowest condition, expanding employment of social media "is an opportunity for dissemination of truthful information and engagement of the community; groups from trusted universities have the capacity of engaging new readers" (Sandalova et al., 2019: 9). Also, "large social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn; allow patients to organize themselves and raise both awareness and funds for topics for which they share a common interest" (Sandalova et al., 2019: 2). These topics may necessarily include pandemics.
Indeed, there has been a blurring of the boundaries separating scientists, communicators, and the public because of the engagement in new forms of media such as social media, which have transformed science communication (Liang et al., 2014). For a large social media such as Facebook, researchers warn that ignoring the platform is at the peril of such people because it is "an effective form of online science communication" (Liang et al., 2014: 2). In this sense, the network affords users seven particular uses, i.e., social    Accurate information plays an essential role in addressing health and other social problems everywhere. Barua et al. (2020) affirm that the proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms is faster than the spread of COVID-19 and require authorities to initiate proper safety measures concerning dangerous misinformation. The COVID-19 pandemic, as Tasnim et al. (2020: 171) agree, has "fueled the surge of numerous rumors, hoaxes, and misinformation regarding the etiology, outcomes, prevention, and cure of the disease." They suggest adopting advanced technologies such as natural language processing to delete online content that lacks a scientific basis. Besides, people who are motivated by self-promotion and entertainment and those with deficits in self-regulation are more prone to share unsubstantiated information .

b. Focus on the solutions, not the problems
The digital age can easily lead to information overload. The pandemic information should not stress the scary figures, numbers, and statistics; but emphasize the concrete steps that may ameliorate the health condition ( Figure 5).  9

c. Counter of fake information
We live in a cybernetic world where fake news, false information, and half-truths are peddled in the digital sphere at an alarming rate. It is crucially essential to dispel rumors and all unwholesome information about the cause, origins, characteristics, preventions, and treatments of disease outbreaks in times of disease outbreaks. We should offer actual, credible, accurate, and factual information as a counter. Figure 6 uses cartoon characterization and the Nigeria pidgin to confront the false notion that only older people with comorbidities are vulnerable to contract COVID-19.

d. Stand against racism, finger-pointing, and stigmatization
We may notice that social media platforms have promoted racism (the coronavirus is a China virus), finger-pointing (the disease started in the wild-animal market in Wuhan), stigmatization (avoid relating with those infected even after they have recovered), scapegoats (this or that country will pay for it after the outbreak). Figure   7 demonstrates the unhelpful tendency for social network users to resort to fingerpointing and racism by insinuating that China is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, social media networks can also be effective in kicking against these by seeing the outbreaks as the local, national, or global threat to health, society, and economy that must be fought concertedly, stridently, and globally.

e. Use scientific (evidence-based) facts to allay fears
Fear may become more dangerous than the pandemic itself. However, cyberspace provides an abundance of accurate, factual, research-based information available to all users of social network platforms if they care to search. The users must conduct such searches and disseminate the information to reduce fears and empower users to confidently confront disease outbreaks as individuals, communities, institutions, nations, and regions. It is crucial to rely on trusted scientific publications or periodicals to bring up facts to allay the fears. In contrast, hear-says, urban-legend, the idle talk should all be avoided as they may escalate the concern. Figure 8, a Bangladesh example, illustrates that the best protection from masking comes when interacting people all use face masks and observe physical distancing. In this sense, the media of communication may help to democratize science, empowering the public to understand the situations and make the decision. The media assists science and technology to make an impact on contemporary society, the human future, and the environment (Jucan & Jucan, 2014). Communication can promote scientific values, frame science into the public consciousness, and increase public participation and public policy (Jamieson, 2015;Kappel & Holmen, 2019).

f. Explain numbers, figures, and statistics meaningfully
During disease outbreaks, the public is usually inundated with copious amounts of epidemiological statistics. Quite often, the average citizen hardly makes sense of them if they do not become more confounded. Statistics in social media should be simplified, transformed into discernible informational graphics explaining the extent

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of the outbreak, allowing people to appropriately grasp the problem and get the simple-to-do actions they can undertake to protect themselves (Figure 9). Figure 9. Statistic-based illustration. Figure 10. An example of finger pointing.

g. Confront conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories are dangerous as they can distract attention from diseasetackling initiatives. In the social media, we find conspiracies such as, "Covid-19 is caused by high radiations of the 5G cellular phone networks," or that coronavirus was a biological weapon designed in a Chinese lab that got spilled accidentally ( Figure   10). Social media users should recognize them as baseless and ready to search for the correct information to control them.

h. Watch out for pseudoscience, denials, and contrariness
Pandemics are bioscience issues, and therefore as in other sciences, they are steeped in controversies and often contentious among scientists. Fringe scientists and others deny stark realities, and others are contrary views. The social media enthusiast should watch out for these groups, identify them, not take sides, but counter their opinions with the generally held consensus of the more significant majority of mainstream science (bioscience) ideas.     Figure 11 is user-generated textual content circulating in the social network circle and bears false information on COVID-19 in Nigeria. It tends towards sensationalizing the pandemic by blowing it out of proportion. While Figure 12, captured from a social media user in Bangladesh, uses the graphic image to reassure people and underscore the heroic efforts of health personnel and the government in fighting the pandemic. It is a single illustration that speaks volumes.

j. Recourse to local language
We live in the English language-dominated world. However, this cuts out non-English readers, especially in the digital space. Fortunately, there is language translation software that can translate many languages. Social media users should avail themselves of this facility to share information about the pandemic. This facility would further democratize health/medical information and accommodate a vast majority of non-English users and co-opt them into local, national, and global efforts to fight disease outbreaks (Figure 13 & 14).

Conclusion
This paper has shown that social media, especially Facebook, have become a veritable avenue for communicating information on the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the message is usergenerated or shared from other sources. However, this platform has been used both for positive and negative purposes. From examining the COVID-19 related text in Facebook, we may conclude that users may use social media to support preventive measures against COVID-19well to get help and treatment through texts, pictures, graphics, statistics, and local languages.
As the illustrations from the two countries have demonstrated, Facebook has been deployed to support preventive measures, focus on the solutions, counter fake information, stand against racism and stigmatization, emphasize scientific facts to allay fears, confront conspiracy theories, deal with pseudoscience and denials, explain numbers and statistics meaningfully, avoid the temptation to trivialize and sensationalize, and translate the content into local languages. Unfortunately, other users have used it to stoke conspiracy theories, spread rumors, falsehood, and sensational news, etc. This problem underscores the need for social network users to acquire keen skills in digital literacy, especially the ability to verify digital information from credible sources.
However, the effectiveness of these communication strategies on behavioral changes is not the focus of this article. We, therefore, suggest further studies on the influence of social media communication on COVID-19 on compliance with COVID protocols. The paper has also offered the option to reconceptualize the notion of strategic communication in the context of social media uses to address the COVID-19 health crisis.