Constituting responsibility in social media communication during the COVID-19 pandemic

This chapter compares how official communication via governmental social media accounts in China and the United Kingdom—were used to communicate the ideas of responsibility and ‘doing the right thing’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a social constructionist lens, the analysis shows how official accounts constituted responsibility in three different ways: governmental support, essential worker responsibility as everyday heroism, and citizen adherence to personal duties. These three perspectives collectively shaped how publics could make sense of ‘the right thing to do’ during COVID-19. Analysis of Weibo and Twitter data suggests that responsibility in global crises is neither static nor predefined but dynamically constructed within socio-political and cultural contexts. The chapter also discusses how platform-specific affordances, such as word count limits, visuals, and hashtags, help shape these constructions. Theoretically, this chapter conceptualizes official communication on digital platforms during global crises as part of the process of constructing ‘digital risk communities,’ and reveals a way of knowing responsibility that is constituted in relation to risk management solutions through culturally resonant narratives.