Cuidado y crítica afectiva en la comunicación institucional durante la pandemia por covid-19

Abstract

This article analyzes the affective responses of citizens to ten institutional posts published on Facebook by Mexico’s Ministry of Health during the covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on the concepts of symbolic forms (Thompson, 1993), the prosaics of everyday life (Mandoki, 2006), the common (Massumi, 2015; Esposito, 2009), and the produser (Bruns, 2008), it shows that public messages were not simply received but emotionally reappropriated. From tenderness and humor to critique and irony, audiences expressed affective responses that shaped spontaneous communities of meaning. These reactions reveal emotional negotiations around care, fragility, and institutional distrust, as well as ephemeral forms of the common articulated through digitality. Through a mixed-methods approach, with particular emphasis on its qualitative dimension, the analysis of the most interacted-with comments identifies micropolitical gestures and forms of digital hospitality that, even amid institutional fatigue, reaffirmed collective bonds. The article proposes understanding public communication as a space of affective dispute, where power, life, and meaning are negotiated under conditions of crisis. This text is presented as a research article that, based on empirical analysis, seeks to contribute insights toward a more sensitive, empathetic, and effective model of public communication.