Content Analysis of the Official Twitter Account of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey in the Framework of Health Promotion
Main Article Content
Abstract
As a social media platform, Twitter is increasingly getting popular among health institutions that would like to interact with their audience. Being the leading public authority responsible of health sector in Turkey, the Ministry of Health has become active on Twitter since April 2012 via its account name @saglikbakanligi. The Ministry of Health has more than 110.000 followers, whereas it only follows 9 accounts. This study aims to explore how the Ministry of Health used its official Twitter account in terms of health promotion messages between January 1st and December 31st, 2013. The key question of the study is the content analysis of health promotion messages in the form of ‘tweets’. To this end, we first had a look at the quantitative analysis of the tweets posted within this one-year period. Then, the research moves on with the content analysis under three health promotion themes: health literacy, healthy life styles and prevention of chronic and communicable diseases.
Article Details
How to Cite
ÇOBANER, Aslıhan; SULTAN GÜLGÜN, Beste.
Content Analysis of the Official Twitter Account of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey in the Framework of Health Promotion.
Investigating Culture, [S.l.], n. 1, sep. 2015.
ISSN 1857-9116.
Available at: <https://journals.cultcenter.net/index.php/investigating/article/view/207>. Date accessed: 19 feb. 2025.
Keywords
Twitter, social media, content analysis, health promotion, health literacy, healthy life styles, prevention of chronic and communicable diseases
Section
English articles

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References
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[4] İ. Çınarlı, Sağlık İletişimi ve Medya, Ankara, Turkey, Nobel Yayınları, 2008.
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[6] M. Mc Giboney, (2009-03-18). “Twitter’s Tweet Smell of Success“. Nielsen. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-success/. Accessed on 20.06.2014).
[7] TURKSTAT (2013). Hanehalkı Bilişim Teknolojileri Kullanım Araştırması, http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreIstatistikTablo.do?istab_id=46 (accessed on: 19.06.2014).
[8] Twitter Usage, https://about.twitter.com/company (accessed on: 19.06.2014).
[9] R.M. Carillo-Larco, “Social Networks and Public Health: Use of Twitter by Ministries of Health Public Health”, Int J Public Health, 57:755–756 DOI 10.1007/s00038-012-0387-4, 2012 (accessed on 28.11.2013).
[10] Y.M, Kung and S. Oh, “Characteristics of Nurses Who Use Social Media”, CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 64–72, February; 2014.
[11] Jessen, W., Following the tweets of health. Retrieved from http://blog.highlighthealth.info/social-networks/following-the-tweets-of-health/. November 1. 2008. /(accessed on 28.8.2014).