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

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.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• Michelle Obama
• vaccination
• social media

Notes

1 The authors are cognizant of the diversity within the Black community in the United States of America. Thus, throughout this paper, the term “Black” is used as an encompassing term, referring to people of African descent. Any use of the term “African American/s” in this paper reflects material being cited.