The use of Twitter to increase the awareness on health issues: An analysis through Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health Twitter Account

Abstract

New media is preffered to use by many different organizations. Governmental organizations is also one of these which uses the tools of new media to communicate with their target audience. From this poing the aim of this research is to explore how the Turkish Ministry of Health use its Twitter account to create an awareness on health issues. Through purposive sampling the Twitter account of the Turkish Ministry of Health is analyzed. Only the public advertisements which are published between 11 July 2018 and 11 October 2018 is chosen. The total numbers of the public ads were 59. The results indicated that Turkish Ministry of Health uses twitter in an effective way to communicate with their audience. The visuals and the messages that they use in their designs are used in a balanced way and they both supports each other. They do not only create an awareness on health issues but also try to empathize the importance of blood donation, vaccines and giving a road to ambulance. So it is possible to say that they also use public advertisements in order to make a change on attitudes. Since new media is an important tool, each organization should use it effectively because its power cannot be underestimated.