Loading...
Retweeting Covid-19 disability issues: Risks, support and outrage
Thelwall, Mike Levitt, Jonathan M
Thelwall, Mike
Levitt, Jonathan M
Authors
Editors
Other contributors
Affiliation
Epub Date
Issue Date
2020-04-15
Submitted date
Subjects
Alternative
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly uneven impacts on sectors of society. People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to it and so it is important to understand both the disability perspective and the role of social media. This information may help to reduce the risk from the disease. In response, this article uses thematic analysis to investigate 59 disability-related tweets from March 10 to April 4, 2020 that were retweeted at least 500 times, with a quarter of a million retweets altogether. This approach generates quick insights into widely resonating disability-related issues. The results suggest the value of Twitter for disseminating information about the risk, offers or requests for support, the ability of many people with disabilities to adjust to the changes well, and information about individuals with the disease. In addition, there was outrage at suggestions that the disease was less serious because young people without disabilities were relatively low risk, and that people with disabilities might be denied equal access to medical treatment. As one tweet pointed out, people in less vulnerable categories should not be told on Twitter or elsewhere that the disease is less relevant to them because their actions can impact others through social spreading.
Citation
Thelwall, Mike and Levitt, Jonathan M. (2020) Retweeting Covid-19 disability issues: Risks, support and outrage. El profesional de la información, v. 29, n. 2, e290216. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.mar.16
Journal
Research Unit
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Embedded videos
Additional Links
Type
Journal article
Language
en
Description
© 2020 The Authors. Published by El Profesional de la Información. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.mar.16
Series/Report no.
ISSN
1386-6710
EISSN
1699-2407