Vulnerability in context; hard numbers, tricky words and grey areas for gerontology.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese government identified those aged 70 or more as a risk group, placing a special duty of protection on them to shelter-at-home. This paper asks how Portuguese municipalities, using Facebook posts, communicated the risk to older adults and to what extent ageist stereotypes were found in the language and frames employed. Over 3800 Facebook posts made by Portuguese municipalities concerning older adults and COVID-19 published between March and July 2020 were analyzed.

Local governments' use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Portugal.

While the use of social media by local governments has gained relevance in recent years, crises are critical situations that reinforce the need to reach citizens to disclose information, demonstrate the government's commitment, and increase the citizens' level of preparedness and awareness of resources. This paper examines the factors that influenced local governments' e-disclosure during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. To accomplish this objective, we systematically tracked every post published by the official Facebook page of 304 Portuguese municipalities between March 2 and July 5, 2020.