Covid-19 Pandemic and Digital Public Awareness Platforms: Strategies, Solutions, and Tools of Communication and e-Government Data Management

Abstract The global outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has forced governments around the world to launch various digital information campaigns in an attempt to boost public awareness about the virus and increase public information on effective measures to prevent its diffusion in local communities. Different public relations and data preservation, data retention, and data distribution strategies have been applied by healthcare policymakers to initiate, implement, and promote a wide range of public information campaigns, unique open data-driven platforms, and related digital solutions and tools to achieve the goal. Likewise, they were driven by different motivations and priorities as well as demands and political signals that they received from both top government leadership and civil society. In this regard, it is interesting to analyze how these different public relations and data management strategies were manifested in real administrative and technological practices, what priorities policymakers put in promoting such digital platforms, what communication and data management tools they used, and how effective they were in raising public awareness about the pandemic via such digital information platforms and related data-driven projects, startups, and initiatives.