TWITTER COVERAGE OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC: ANALYSIS OF FACTS, FEAR APPEAL AND FAKE NEWS

ABSTRACT: After the pandemic hit Nigeria the Nigerian centre for disease control (NCDC) was given theresponsibility to manage the virus. While carrying out this responsibility their used their twitter handles to shareinformation to Nigerians. The importance and trend of the existence of the virus made it a viable topic andeveryone in the country had an opinion regardless of their opinion. This study sought to analyse differencebetween the frames, likes and shares of the posts of NCDC and popular twitter handles. Using the contentanalysis method this study analysed the direction of coverage, language and tone of coverage, and the dominateframes used in these handles. The researcher content analysed post for Nigerian centre for disease control andselected popular twitter handles. The period of study was from the 27th of February to 30th of April becauseNigeria recorded her first corona virus case on 27th of February 2020 and the population of study is 2,283. Thecensus method was used. The coding sheet and coding guide was used. The researchers used the framing theoryand the theory of planned behavior. The researchers therefore concluded that there was significant differencebetween the frames however, there was no much significance difference between the handles in the direction,tone and language of coverage. This paper therefore recommends that the Nigerian centre for disease controlshould endeavor to read the comments section to enable them know when to tone down on the fear factor duringpublic health campaigns like the corona virus pandemic. Again Nigerian celebrities should continue to use theirplatforms to inform and persuade Nigerians to do the right thing on public health matters.

KEYWORDS: News, fake news, fear, facts, comments.