Özet:

Social media represents an important digital space to monitor information about outbreaks such as COVID-19, and can also serve as a tool to target outreach and interventions. In emergency crisis management, social media analyzes such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook have been used to support situational awareness during crisis and were considered necessary for decision making in many different situations, from monitoring infectious diseases to regional planning and multi-purpose campaigns. In this study, it was aimed to determine how Instagram was used in the COVID-19 pandemic. The term “coronavirus” and “COVID-19” was used to search on Instagram. Using web scanning approach, visual scanning was performed between January 10 – February 20, 2020. In this qualitative research, content analysis was used to analyze the datas. It was determined that most of the images (35,0%) had English subtitles. It was found that the message approach used in visuals was mostly fear (38,9%). It was determined that the majority of the images were photographs (71,0%). The photographs were followed by infographic (17,7%) and cartoons (11,4%), respectively. Images were focused on giving information. It has been determined that the majority (53,1%) of the images of public interest shared by the official Instagram accounts of the organizations were news. It was observed that the visuals with the content of health policies (24.7%) and social marketing (22.2%) followed the news. As a result, it is thought that Instagram will be a social media channel that can enable surveillance, education and intervention, which is useful in evaluating public opinion

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