JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Social listening, the process of monitoring and analyzing conversations to inform communication activities, is an essential component of infodemic management. It feeds into context-specific communication strategies that are culturally acceptable and appropriate for different sub-populations. Social listening is based on the notion that target audiences themselves can best define their own information needs and messages.

Objective:

To describe the development of a context-specific social listening process that is based on available financial and human resources and implemented during crisis situation

Methods:

Six organizations and governmental entities that communicate pandemic-related information to people from diverse cultural backgrounds were trained by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare to establish a social listening system. The training included four online workshops that aimed to provide participants with sufficient knowledge and skills to develop a social listening system based on their own needs and available resources. The workshops provided guidance on the organizational structure and the project cycle including data collection, analysis, and the use of findings to develop communication messages and products. During the workshops, project team members developed their own project structure and flow.

Results:

Four out of six organizations established social listening systems after the workshops, each with slightly different structures, target audiences, and aims. Nonetheless, all of them followed the social listening system to collect, analyze, and utilize community insights in communication. The core value of social listening, namely reliance on the perspectives of the laypeople, was well understood by all project groups. The dependence on qualitative data and reflecting it through knowledge co-creation were also well internalized. The projects were flexible, but at the same time also structured enough to have a functional system that effectively produced recommendations for risk communication purposes targeting culturally diverse populations. However, the lack of formalization of the project processes may hinder its sustainability. The projects will need to continue developing data collection and analysis processes to ensure that they are sufficiently credible and logistically simple enough to be implemented.

Conclusions:

The social listening projects have shown that real-time social listening produces community insights that can be used to develop culturally appropriate communication messages and materials. Targeted messaging will result in more effective communications.