Government Communication In Municipal Public Health On Instagram

Abstract

Considering government communication as a resource for sharing content and information about public health, this article aims to analyze the government communication strategies of a city hall in a capital in the North of Brazil to communicate with citizens on Instagram during a health crisis. The article development comprises documentary analysis of 939 publications from the profiles @cidadedepalmas from Palmas City Hall and @semuspalmas from the Municipal Health Department of Palmas, capital of the State of Tocantins. The analysis is based on the theoretical model constructed by Hyland-Wood et al. (2021) to evaluate effective government communication strategies. Through analysis, it was found that communication strategies are closer to effective practices. However, only credibility and levels of health and mathematics literacy presented specific ineffective situations, which requires attention from public authorities. This demonstrates that, despite this scenario, communication strategies are closer to effective practices, since it is notable met the fulfillment of most conditions analyzed.