scholarly journals Blurred Shots: Investigating the Information Crisis Around Vaccination in Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 000276422091024
Author(s):  
Alessandro Lovari ◽  
Valentina Martino ◽  
Nicola Righetti
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Italian Context

This article aims at exploring a case of information crisis in Italy through the lens of vaccination-related topics. Such a controversial issue, dividing public opinion and political agendas, has received diverse information coverage and public policies over time in the Italian context, whose situation appears quite unique compared with other countries because of a strong media spectacularization and politicization of the topic. In particular, approval of the “Lorenzin Decree,” increasing the number of mandatory vaccinations from 4 to 10, generated a nationwide debate that divided public opinion and political parties, triggering a complex informative crisis and fostering the perception of a social emergency on social media. This resulted in negative stress on lay publics and on the public health system. The study adopted an interdisciplinary framework, including political science, public relations, and health communication studies, as well as a mixed-method approach, combining data mining techniques related to news media coverage and social media engagement, with in-depth interviews to key experts, selected among researchers, journalists, and communication managers. The article investigates reasons for the information crisis and identifies possible solutions and interventions to improve the effectiveness of public health communication and mitigate the social consequences of misinformation around vaccination.

The evidence of compelling arguments in agenda building

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyejoon Rim ◽  
Jin Hong Ha ◽  
Spiro Kiousis
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Agenda Building ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Information Subsidies

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the links among health authorities’ public relations efforts, news media coverage, and public perceptions of risk during the H1N1 pandemic outbreak. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a triangulation of research methods by comparing public relations materials, media coverage, and public opinion. The data were collected from a federal government web site, national newspapers, and national polls. Findings – The data revealed a positive relationship between information subsidy attention and media attention to the H1N1 disease as well as the severity attribute. The salience of the severity attribute in information subsidies was linked with increased H1N1 salience in media coverage, extending the testing of the compelling-arguments hypothesis to an agenda-building context. However, there was no association between salience of the severity attribute and public risk perceptions. Research limitations/implications – The study provides evidence for public relations effectiveness. However, the limited influence of the severity frame on the public's risk perception suggests a gap between news coverage and the public's view. Framing that effectively empowers the public to engage in desired behavior should be further studied for the success of a public health campaign. The study is limited to examining the severity attribute. A future study should pay more attention to different issue attributes or other frames. The media sample was limited to newspapers and thus lacks generalizability. Originality/value – The study contributes to public relations scholarship by demonstrating how information subsidies influence media agendas and public opinion in a health communication context. The public health authorities’ role in influencing media agenda should be stressed.

scholarly journals A topic analysis of traditional and social media news coverage of the early COVID-19 pandemic and implications for public health communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wallace Chipidza ◽  
Elmira Akbaripourdibazar ◽  
Tendai Gwanzura ◽  
Nicole M. Gatto
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Public Health Officials

AbstractKnowledge gaps may initially exist among scientists, medical and public health professionals during pandemics, which are fertile grounds for misinformation in news media. We characterized and compared COVID-19 coverage in newspapers, television, and social media, and discussed implications for public health communication strategies that are relevant to an initial pandemic response. We conducted a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised topic modelling technique, analysis of 3,271 newspaper articles, 40 cable news shows transcripts, 96,000 Twitter posts, and 1,000 Reddit posts during March 4 - 12, 2020, a period chronologically early in the timeframe of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coverage of COVID-19 clustered on topics such as epidemic, politics, and the economy, and these varied across media sources. Topics dominating news were not predominantly health-related, suggesting a limited presence of public health in news coverage in traditional and social media. Examples of misinformation were identified particularly in social media. Public health entities should utilize communication specialists to create engaging informational content to be shared on social media sites. Public health officials should be attuned to their target audience to anticipate and prevent spread of common myths likely to exist within a population. This will help control misinformation in early stages of pandemics.

scholarly journals Changes in public response associated with various COVID-19 restrictions in Ontario, Canada: an observational study using social media time series data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Chum ◽  
Andrew Nielsen ◽  
Zachary Bellows ◽  
Eddie Farrell ◽  
Pierre-Nicolas Durette ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
News Media ◽  
School Closure ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
Positive Sentiment

Background: News media coverage of anti-mask protests, COVID-19 conspiracies, and pandemic politicization has overemphasized extreme views, but does little to represent views of the general public. Investigating the public’s response to various pandemic restrictions can provide a more balanced assessment of current views, allowing policymakers to craft better public health messages in anticipation of poor reactions to controversial restrictions. Objective: Using data from social media, this study aims to understand the changes in public opinion associated with the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions (e.g. business and school closure, regional lockdown differences, additional public health restrictions such as social distancing and masking). Methods: COVID-related tweets in Ontario (n=1,150,362) were collected based on keywords between March 12 to Oct 31 2020. Sentiment scores were calculated using the VADER algorithm for each tweet to represent its negative to positive emotion. Public health restrictions were identified using government and news media websites, and dynamic regression models with ARIMA errors were used to examine the association between public health restrictions and changes in public opinion over time (i.e. collective attention, aggregate positive sentiment, and level of disagreement) controlling for the effects of confounders (i.e. daily COVID-19 case counts, holidays, COVID-related official updates). Results: In addition to expected direct effects (e.g. business closure led to decreased positive sentiment and increased disagreements), the impact of restriction on public opinion is contextually driven. For example, the negative sentiment associated with business closures was reduced with higher COVID-19 case counts. While school closure and other restrictions (e.g. masking, social distancing, and travel restrictions) generated increased collective attention, they did not have an effect on aggregate sentiment or the level of disagreement (i.e. sentiment polarization). Partial (region-targeted) lockdowns were associated with better public response (i.e. higher number of tweets with net positive sentiment and lower levels of disagreement) compared to province-wide lockdowns. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of a rapid and flexible method of evaluating the public response to pandemic restrictions using near real-time social media data. This information can help public health practitioners and policymakers anticipate public response to future pandemic restrictions, and ensure adequate

scholarly journals Changes in public response associated with various COVID-19 restrictions in Ontario, Canada: an observational study using social media time series data (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Chum ◽  
Andrew Nielsen ◽  
Zachary Bellows ◽  
Eddie Farrell ◽  
Pierre-Nicolas Durette ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
News Media ◽  
School Closure ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
Positive Sentiment ◽  
Negative Sentiment

BACKGROUND News media coverage of anti-mask protests, COVID-19 conspiracies, and pandemic politicization has overemphasized extreme views, but does little to represent views of the general public. Investigating the public’s response to various pandemic restrictions can provide a more balanced assessment of current views, allowing policymakers to craft better public health messages in anticipation of poor reactions to controversial restrictions. OBJECTIVE Using data from social media, this study aims to understand the changes in public opinion associated with the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions (e.g. business and school closure, regional lockdown differences, additional public health restrictions such as social distancing and masking). METHODS COVID-related tweets in Ontario (n=1,150,362) were collected based on keywords between March 12 to Oct 31 2020. Sentiment scores were calculated using the VADER algorithm for each tweet to represent its negative to positive emotion. Public health restrictions were identified using government and news media websites, and dynamic regression models with ARIMA errors were used to examine the association between public health restrictions and changes in public opinion over time (i.e. collective attention, aggregate positive sentiment, and level of disagreement) controlling for the effects of confounders (i.e. daily COVID-19 case counts, holidays, COVID-related official updates). RESULTS In addition to expected direct effects (e.g. business closure led to decreased positive sentiment and increased disagreements), the impact of restriction on public opinion is contextually driven. For example, the negative sentiment associated with business closures was reduced with higher COVID-19 case counts. While school closure and other restrictions (e.g. masking, social distancing, and travel restrictions) generated increased collective attention, they did not have an effect on aggregate sentiment or the level of disagreement (i.e. sentiment polarization). Partial (region-targeted) lockdowns were associated with better public response (i.e. higher number of tweets with net positive sentiment and lower levels of disagreement) compared to province-wide lockdowns. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrates the feasibility of a rapid and flexible method of evaluating the public response to pandemic restrictions using near real-time social media data. This information can help public health practitioners and policymakers anticipate public response to future pandemic restrictions, and ensure adequate resources are dedicated to addressing increases in negative sentiment and levels of disagreement in the face of scientifically informed, but controversial, restrictions.

scholarly journals Quantifying Online News Media Coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Text Mining Study and Resource

10.2196/28253 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. e28253
Author(s):  
Konrad Krawczyk ◽  
Tadeusz Chelkowski ◽  
Daniel J Laydon ◽  
Swapnil Mishra ◽  
Denise Xifara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
English Language ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Online News ◽  
Topic Detection ◽  
The Impact

Background Before the advent of an effective vaccine, nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as mask-wearing, social distancing, and lockdowns, have been the primary measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Such measures are highly effective when there is high population-wide adherence, which requires information on current risks posed by the pandemic alongside a clear exposition of the rules and guidelines in place. Objective Here we analyzed online news media coverage of COVID-19. We quantified the total volume of COVID-19 articles, their sentiment polarization, and leading subtopics to act as a reference to inform future communication strategies. Methods We collected 26 million news articles from the front pages of 172 major online news sources in 11 countries (available online at SciRide). Using topic detection, we identified COVID-19–related content to quantify the proportion of total coverage the pandemic received in 2020. The sentiment analysis tool Vader was employed to stratify the emotional polarity of COVID-19 reporting. Further topic detection and sentiment analysis was performed on COVID-19 coverage to reveal the leading themes in pandemic reporting and their respective emotional polarizations. Results We found that COVID-19 coverage accounted for approximately 25.3% of all front-page online news articles between January and October 2020. Sentiment analysis of English-language sources revealed that overall COVID-19 coverage was not exclusively negatively polarized, suggesting wide heterogeneous reporting of the pandemic. Within this heterogenous coverage, 16% of COVID-19 news articles (or 4% of all English-language articles) can be classified as highly negatively polarized, citing issues such as death, fear, or crisis. Conclusions The goal of COVID-19 public health communication is to increase understanding of distancing rules and to maximize the impact of governmental policy. The extent to which the quantity and quality of information from different communication channels (eg, social media, government pages, and news) influence public understanding of public health measures remains to be established. Here we conclude that a quarter of all reporting in 2020 covered COVID-19, which is indicative of information overload. In this capacity, our data and analysis form a quantitative basis for informing health communication strategies along traditional news media channels to minimize the risks of COVID-19 while vaccination is rolled out.

scholarly journals A comparison of health communication effectiveness and the improvement of management strategies: taking two Chinese traditional medicine hospitals’ WeChat public accounts as examples

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Wang ◽  
Lanting Wu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Traditional Medicine ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Health Care Service ◽  
Mobile Internet ◽  
Chinese Traditional Medicine ◽  
Public Account ◽  
Significant Difference

Abstract Background In the light of “Internet plus”, hospitals are following the trend of using mobile internet and adopting a strategy of spreading public health knowledge through mobile terminals. WeChat is a social media with the largest number of users in China. Its public account has become the most popular service among the public. Methods We examine the health communication of medical institutions on social media platforms. The WeChat public accounts of Zhejiang Provincial Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital and Jiangxi Provincial Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital were taken as cases to measure the communication effect from the following dimensions: update interval, content positioning and design, numbers of clicks and likes as well as topic types. Results The update interval of WeChat public account of Jiangxi Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine was regular, compared with that of the other hospital. The accounts of the two hospitals both set up special sections to facilitate patients to obtain medical services online. There is an extremely significant difference between the two hospitals’ mean numbers of clicks (p < 0. 001), compared with no significant difference between their mean numbers of likes. One-way analysis of variance suggests the type of topic on posts is significantly correlated with the number of clicks. Moreover, there is an extremely significant difference between public health knowledge and news propaganda. Conclusion The development of hospitals’ WeChat public accounts can promote people’s health and equity in accessing medical information and service, and also boost “Internet plus health care” service. The topic type of hospital’s news publicity is paid a relatively lower attention by users. Therefore, hospitals’ WeChat public accounts need to adjust their strategy from propaganda-oriented to users-centered, with topic planning and posts designed to fulfill users’ needs.

Young adults know that their issues are not represented in the news: Israeli young adults and mainstream news media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.

Online Opinion Leaders in the Health Promotion Digital Era

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 295-309
Author(s):  
Joyce Cheah Lynn-Sze ◽  
◽  
Azlina Kamaruddin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Opinion Leader ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public

Health opinion leaders have widely embraced social media for health promotion and public health communication which can make a strong influence on the public decision making. However, despite the growing relevance of public health threats such as infectious diseases, pandemic influenza and natural disasters, research has paid little attention to the qualities of opinion leaders. Moreover, there is limited evidence that public health organisations use social media appropriately to engage in meaningful conversations with audiences. Thus, the aims of the study are to describe principles of communication practised by online opinion leaders to promote health issues, to discuss the strategies of social media used, to explain the opinion leaders’ influence attributes in health decision making and finally to develop a model of online opinion leader in the contemporary health promotion era. Content analysis was conducted on Facebook postings of five selected health opinion leaders. In addition, semi-structured interviews with 10 followers were conducted. The findings of the study revealed that there are three principles of communication practised by online opinion leaders, which are language, interaction and themes. There are three strategies opinion leaders use to influence the public: social connectivity, social support and social consultation. Furthermore, there are five opinion leaders’ attributes that influence the public’s decision making, namely personality, authenticity, trust/credibility, professional knowledge and social position. The model would be beneficial in educating and guiding the current public health opinion leaders in order to establish health and social well-being. Keywords: Online opinion leader, online health communication, public health, two-step flow theory, decision making.

Calm the farm or incite a riot? Animal activists and the news media: A public relations case study in agenda-setting and framing

2021 ◽  
pp. 2046147X2110551
Author(s):  
Deborah K Williams ◽  
Catherine J Archer ◽  
Lauren O’Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Front Page ◽  
Primary Producers ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
Study Approach

The ideological differences between animal activists and primary producers are long-standing, existing long before the advent of social media with its widespread communicative capabilities. Primary producers have continued to rely on traditional media channels to promote their products. In contrast, animal activists have increasingly adopted livestreaming on social media platforms and ‘direct action’ protest tactics to garner widespread public and media attention while promoting vegetarianism/veganism, highlighting issues in animal agriculture and disrupting the notion of the ‘happy farm animal’. This paper uses a case study approach to discuss the events that unfolded when direct action animal activists came into conflict with Western Australian farmers and businesses in 2019. The conflict resulted in increased news reporting, front-page coverage from mainstream press, arrests and parliamentary law changes. This case study explores how the activists’ strategic communication activities, which included livestreaming their direct actions and other social media tactics, were portrayed by one major Australian media outlet and the farmers’ interest groups’ reactions to them.

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