Palestinian media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic An analytical study of the digital platforms of the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The study aimed to identify the nature of Palestine's social health media coverage of the COVID19 pandemic, how it deals with this global and significant issue, determine the amount of attention paid to the issue, and the nature of the content through which the pandemic has been highlighted, Identifying the journalism arts and multimedia, interactive elements and assistive services used to highlight topics on the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is meta-research based on the media survey and uses a content analysis tool on a sample of topics published on the Palestinian Health Ministry's social media platforms. The study concluded that the coverage of the epidemic on the official page of the Palestinian Ministry of Health was poor, with 75 topics only reported in a month. It reached 38%, followed by the Ministry's efforts to fight the epidemic with 26%, while the latest developments related to the epidemic and issues of awareness, guidance, and instructions reached 17%. It also shows the weakness of the educational and instructional aspects compared to the number of published subjects. In addition, the Palestinian political division reflected on the health aspect, focusing on coverage in West Bank with 22%, while the sample focused on the Gaza Strip was only 4%. It also focused on the informational news aspect through the emergence of the art of news and infographics, considering the weakness or absence of other journalistic arts, with the use of accompanying materials such as photos and videos tangibly and mainly with the published topics in line with the coverage.
Keywords: Health media, Palestinian media, new media, COVID-19 pandemic, social media.