CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background to the Study Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first reported in early December in Wuhan province of China spread worldwide to become a global pandemic (?Pan et al., 2020). Governments across the world implemented social distancing and isolation measures taken to reduce the risk of infection (Zhai and Du, 2020). Self-quarantine and isolation posed a threat to the mental health of the people (Brooks et al., 2020). Since little is known about the novel Coronavirus, it is essential to provide the correct information obtained from an authentic source (Hua and Shaw, 2020). It is difficult to collect the current data of the affected, recovered and casualties, for, the rapidly changing data on Coronavirus. It is reported that the elderly and immunocompromised individuals are more at risk for COVID-19 infection (Hua and Shaw, 2020). Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, people already relied on social media to gather information and news, and since the outbreak in December 2019, people in many countries have relied on social media to obtain information about the virus. In addition, people in Iraqi Kurdistan depend on social media. Internet use is strongly associated with behaviors related to health information; users write about their health on various social media platforms (BBC, 2020). According to Kemp (Bronstein, 2019), there were 29.82 million internet users and 21 million social media users in Iraq in January 2020. Therefore, internet data, including data from social media platforms such as Twitter, have been used extensively in the past 20 years to study health patterns and better understand infectious disease outbreaks, a field known as infodemiology or (if used as surveillance tool) infoveillance (Bronstein, 2019). In recent time, Social media is one of the primary source proliferating the information regarding the virus (Gao et al., 2020). The major drawback of social media amid a problematic situation as COVID-19 pandemic is that social media has been conveniently used as an approach to convey misinformation and fake news (Park et al., 2020). After the advent of social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, the information transmission in disaster contexts has increased globally at various levels (Park et al., 2020). Social media gives a plat-form for sharing public opinion and perceptions, which can be volatile and sensitive during a grave situation as COVID-19 pandemic (Han et al., 2020). Misinformation on COVID-19 are spreading rapidly through media and the internet, thus altering public behaviour during the epidemic. These misinformation need attention for enhancing sentiment awareness, improving emergency responses and support-ing decision making (Han et al., 2020). With many drastic measures needed to contain the spread of the virus, it was imperative that social media was appropriately utilized to maximise its benefits to the workforce and education, while recognizing the associated limitations. For instance, an innovative application of social media as a means of location-tracking and hence contact tracing has materialized directly as a result of the pandemic; however, this manuscript will focus on the audience perception of social media campaign on covid-19. 1.2. Statement of the Problem In today's modern media ecosystem, social media is considered as a noteworthy passage for information (Barua et al 2018). Most of the public shows their responses based on the information received via social media, and misinformation on social media can generate disastrous responses from the individual public. Unfortunately, social media does not always share correct information. Brennen et al. (2020) pronounced that misinformation related to the pandemic produces deleterious effects on public health and action. Further, numerous researchers orated that social media is liable for proliferating misinformation about health or COVID-19 (Russonello, et al 2020). This is a matter of great sorrow in this unprecedented global crisis moment, because, albeit some countries reported the use of medicines with no proper confirmation (Shaw et al. 2020), still there is no vaccine for the COVID-19 as of May 31, 2020; and preventive measures are considered as the best weapons to fight against COVID-19. Having said this, it can still be argued that reasonable information were gathered from social media during the pandemic. It is on this verge this research work is based on audience perception of social media campaign on covid-19. 1.3. Objectives of the Study Based on the gap identified in the literature, the following objectives are set: i. To investigate audience perception campaign of social media during the corona virus pandemic ii. To examine the perceived effect of social media campaign during covid-19 iii. To examine the excesses of information and decision support or otherwise of social media campaign during covid-19 1.4. Research Questions i. What is the audience perception campaign of social media during the corona virus pandemic? ii. What is the perceived effect of social media campaign during covid-19? iii. To what extent is the excesses of information and decision support or otherwise of social media campaign during covid-19? 1.5. Significance of the Study Social media renders enormous contributions to the fight against Covid-19 in Nigeria. These contributions could be positive or negative. Within this context, there is a paucity of research in the area. Most of the researches done in the related area were studies of photographs of Covid-19, as presented in Newspapers; News Magazines as well as mainstream media (Hand in Gwandu, 2019). This calls for a thorough study of the visual rhetorical analysis of how social media users disseminate information as tools to the fight against Covid-19 in Nigeria. This research work will contribute to body of knowledge by investigating audience perception of social media campaign on COVID-19 as there would be more research paper in the data bank of the research topic. 1.6. Scope of the Study This study is on audience perception of social media campaign in combating Covid-19. The study is limited to the information sharing and networking on all forms of social media platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram activities during the pandemic period 1.7. Operational Definition of Terms Covid-19: This is an infectious disease caused by a type of virus that is capable of causing fever, cough and breathing as reported in form of Internet meme on Facebook. Campaign tool: These are series of operation that are intended to achieve the goal of fighting Coivd-19 in Nigeria via social media like Facebook. Nigeria: This is an African country on the Gulf of Guinea which has many natural landmarks confronted with Covid-19 pandemic. Pandemic: Social media: These are websites and application that enable users to create and share content in form of meme on Covid-19 in Nigeria.
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