Health Messaging and the Black Community: Analysis of Rhetoric in Michelle Obama’s Social Media’s Posts Announcing Her COVID-19 Vaccination Status

IF 1 Q3 COMMUNICATION

Howard Journal of Communications Pub Date : 2023-02-06 DOI:10.1080/10646175.2023.2174391

Sharifa Simon-Roberts, D. Hawkins

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract COVID-19 data reveal that the pandemic caused chaos for all, but the Black community repeatedly saw elevated rates of infection and high mortality rates. After COVID-19 vaccines were developed, dissemination and uptake within the Black community lacked. It was abundantly clear that the Black community’s large distrust of the medical establishment was a barrier to successfully rolling out COVID-19 vaccines. Former First Lady Michelle Obama, received her vaccine and posted a captioned image across all of her social media platforms. Her posts functioned as a health promotion tool. Therefore, to grasp the importance of Blackness and Black culture as it relates to communication, we utilize the Culture-Centered Approach as a lens to analyze the rhetoric of Michelle Obama’s vaccination posts. We argue that not only did Michelle Obama use her social position as former First Lady and a Black woman to connect with the Black community when she posted about receiving the vaccine, but we also highlight the unique communicative choices present in the posts that are rooted in Blackness.

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健康信息和黑人社区:米歇尔·奥巴马在社交媒体上宣布她的COVID-19疫苗接种状态的修辞分析

COVID-19数据显示，大流行给所有人带来了混乱，但黑人社区的感染率和死亡率一再上升。在COVID-19疫苗开发出来后，黑人社区缺乏传播和吸收。很明显，黑人社区对医疗机构的严重不信任是成功推出COVID-19疫苗的障碍。前第一夫人米歇尔·奥巴马接种了疫苗，并在她所有的社交媒体平台上发布了一张配文字的照片。她的帖子起到了促进健康的作用。因此，为了把握黑人和黑人文化在沟通中的重要性，我们利用以文化为中心的方法来分析米歇尔·奥巴马的疫苗接种帖子的修辞。我们认为，米歇尔·奥巴马不仅利用她作为前第一夫人和黑人女性的社会地位，在她发布关于接种疫苗的帖子时，与黑人社区建立了联系，而且我们还强调了帖子中根植于黑人身份的独特交流选择。

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来源期刊

Howard Journal of Communications COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

10.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Culture, ethnicity, and gender influence multicultural organizations, mass media portrayals, interpersonal interaction, development campaigns, and rhetoric. Dealing with these issues, The Howard Journal of Communications, is a quarterly that examines ethnicity, gender, and culture as domestic and international communication concerns. No other scholarly journal focuses exclusively on cultural issues in communication research. Moreover, few communication journals employ such a wide variety of methodologies. Since issues of multiculturalism, multiethnicity and gender often call forth messages from persons who otherwise would be silenced, traditional methods of inquiry are supplemented by post-positivist inquiry to give voice to those who otherwise might not be heard.