ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the emergency communication of migrants and discusses how Russian-speaking Instagram bloggers in China and Italy covered the COVID-19 outbreak in their countries in January–April 2020. We aimed to understand the role they fulfilled during the pandemic. Social media are rapidly integrated into disaster environments: from civil unrest incidents to natural disasters. Researchers argued that Twitter provides an arena for unreliable sources, while news media and authorities might regulate the information flows. Still, this research focuses on online communication in national languages, while migrants are even more vulnerable due to the lack of trustworthy information in their native languages. We address this gap with a comparative study of 12 Russian-language blogs whose posts were included in the list of best publications by Russian-language hashtags dedicated to coronavirus in both countries. We analyzed the content policy of these blogs and how followers reacted on changes triggered by the pandemic, estimated the level of emotionality, revealed main objects of criticism, and monitored the information sources the bloggers rely on. The findings suggest that while covering the pandemics most visible Russian-speaking Instagram bloggers performed an informative role, and actively called for WHO obedience and avoiding misleading information.
