Public Perception of Information about Covid 19 on social media Instagram: An Netnography Study of Visual Information

Abstract

Information about Covid-19 circulating in the community has a crucial role in addressing this pandemic. The information about Covid 19 that was shared turned out to being great interest to the public so that it has many followers and verified as a trusted account by Instagram. People voluntarily follow these accounts in order to access Covid 19 information. Thus, people who follow these accounts have the awareness and willingness to be informed. This is certainly interesting in the midst of high public distrust of Covid 19, it turns out that on the other hand the community also voluntarily accesses information about Covid 19. To conduct this researchs we used netnography approach with blended method, involved 200 respondents from online questionnaires and 20 informants of virtual interview, observing informants' online activities and also account activities that spread information about Covid 19. Informations on Instagram account are considered more interesting, easier to check and more updates. 82% of respondents are interested in following information on the number of positive suspects every day. This interest can also be seen from the number of comments on related posts which are always the most. 84% of respondents admitted to spreading the information back to their families, but this information did not appear on the informants' social media accounts. Even though they always follow Covid 19 information, only 10% of respondents said they were afraid of this information.