A circulação de informações sobre a variante ômicron em perfis de entretenimento no Instagram

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a true boom of informations in the face of a major health emergency. During this period, there has been an increase in informative and/or news-related posts on entertainment profiles on Instagram. Profiles that were previously focused on posting about TV shows, soap operas, celebrities and influencers have started providing health information to their followers. In light of this, this study aims to answer the following problem question: How does the circulation of information about the Omicron variant occur in posts from entertainment profiles on Instagram? The overall objective is to analyze the circulation of information about Covid-19 during the emergence of the Omicron variant in Brazil on the Instagram media network, specifically on the profiles @choquei and @gossipdodia. To achieve this, the study relies on theoretical concepts of mediatization and circulation proposed by Eliseo Verón and Antônio Fausto Neto, as well as the ideas of continuous communicational flow and circuits by José Luiz Braga. The definition of media systems proposed by Mario Carlón is also used as a theoretical framework. The chosen methodology involves the creation of analytical devices for the temporal analysis of hypermedia circulation based on Carlón's work (2018). This approach requires a description of communicational flows and the creation of a visual contribution with a graph. In total, 18 posts about the Omicron variant of Covid-19 were analyzed, with nine from each proposed profile, during the period between november 2021 and january 2022. Through the development of analytical devices for temporal circulation analysis based on Carlón (2018), it was concluded that informative publications made by entertainment profiles on the social media platform Instagram tend to have a model of intra-systemic circulation and ascending circulation with the creation of at least one sub-phase.