scholarly journals COVID-19: information access, trust and adherence to health advice among migrants in Norway

2022 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed A. Madar ◽  
Pierina Benavente ◽  
Elżbieta Czapka ◽  
Raquel Herrero-Arias ◽  
Jasmin Haj-Younes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Access Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Level

Abstract Background Migrants in Norway bear a higher burden of COVID-19 infections and hospitalization as compared to non-migrants. The aim of our study was to understand how migrants perceive their own health risk, how they access information regarding the preventive measures, the degree of trust in this information, in the Norwegian authorities and the news media, and migrants’ adherence to authorities’ recommendations regarding the pandemic. Methods An online survey was performed between May and July 2020 among 529 Polish, Arabic, Somali, Tamil, and Spanish-speaking migrants in Norway. For each outcome presented in the aims, unweighted and weighted descriptive analyses were performed for all migrants together and for each language group. Results Sixty-one percent of migrants perceived their health as excellent or very good, with the lowest value (42%) in the Tamil group and the highest among Somalians (85%). The majority of respondents (82%) felt they had received sufficient information. Press conferences from the government, health authorities’ websites, and Norwegian news media were the preferred channels of information for all groups. Most migrants reported a high level of adherence to preventive measures (88%) and trust in Norwegian authorities (79%). However, there were variations among groups regarding the importance of sources of information and level of trust, which was lowest for the Polish group. Conclusion Migrants in Norway reported receiving sufficient information about COVID-19 and high adherence to preventive measures. However, the levels of trust in the information sources, the services and the authorities varied among the groups. Understanding how migrants are dealing with this pandemic is crucial to improve the dissemination of information and trust in the health authorities for the different groups.

scholarly journals COVID-19: Access to Information, Level of Trust and Adherence to Health Advice Among Migrants in Norway

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed A Madar ◽  
Pierina Benavente ◽  
Elżbieta Czapka ◽  
Raquel Herrero-Arias ◽  
Jasmin Haj-Younes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Chi Squared ◽  
High Level ◽  
Perception Of Health

Abstract Background: Migrants in Norway bear a higher burden of COVID-19 infections and hospitalization as compared to non-migrants. The aim of our study was to understand migrants’: i) perception of health risk, ii) access to information, iii) degree of trust in and iv) adherence to recommendations.Methods: An online survey was performed between May and July 2020 among 529 Polish, Arabic, Somali, Tamil, and Spanish-speaking migrants. Unweighted and weighted descriptive analysis and chi-squared tests were performed for all migrants together and for each language group.Results: There were statistically significant differences among groups in their perception of risk of infection. Although the vast majority reported having received sufficient information, high level of adherence to preventive measures and trust in Norwegian authorities, there were statistically significant differences among groups regarding the importance of sources of information and level of trust, which was lowest for the Polish group. Over all, migrants reported very high adherence to preventive measures.Conclusion: Understanding how migrants are dealing with this pandemic is crucial to improve the dissemination of information and trust in the health authorities for the different groups.

scholarly journals News Media Exposure and Political Communication among Libyan Elites at the Time of War

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 330-339
Author(s):  
Abdul-Karim Ziani ◽  
Mokhtar Elareshi ◽  
Khalid Al-Jaber
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The Media

Abstract Many critical questions concerning the relationship between the news media and political knowledge involve the extent to which the media facilitate learning about news, war and politics. Political awareness - via the news media - affects virtually every aspect of citizens’ political attitudes and behaviours. This paper examines how Libyan elites adopt the news media to access news and information regarding the current Libyan war and politics and how they use political communication and new media to build/spread political awareness. With the expansion of private and state-owned television in Libya, concern has grown that these new TV services will survive in providing information about citizens’ interests, including the new, developing political scene. A total of 134 highly educated Libyan professionals completed an online survey, reporting their perceptions of issues covered by national TV services. This account centres on how those elites consume the media and what level of trust they have in the media and in information and what the role of the media in their country should be. The results show that most respondents, especially those who live outside the country, prefer using different Libyan news platforms. However, 50 per cent of these do not trust these channels as a source of information regarding the civil war, associated conflicts and politics in general. They have grown weary of coverage that represents the interests of those who run or own the services and consequently place little trust in the media. Spreading ‘lies as facts’ has affected the credibility of these services. Politically, these respondents wish the media to discuss solutions and act as a force for good, not for division. They also differed in the number and variety of national news sources that they reportedly used. This paper also highlights the role of social media, mobile telephony and the Internet, as well as the rapidly proliferating private and national media. These findings are also discussed in relation to the growing impact of online sources in Libyan society, social and political change and the emergence of new media platforms as new sources of information.

Chinese Citizenry Social Media Pressures and Public Official Responses

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-181
Author(s):  
James Robert Masterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Access Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
High Level

Widespread use of social media in China is a double edged sword: social media offers opportunities for the government to connect with society, gauge the opinion of citizens in the public domain, and allow citizens to voice their anger when necessary by blowing off steam online rather than in the streets. However, social media also allows citizens to access information outside of China much more rapidly and efficiently and to link up and communicate with other citizens much more quickly. Social media allows users to share texts, photos, and files, making it much more difficult for the government to control information and to thwart organizing for political purposes. In some instances, the use of social media has forced the Chinese government to take actions that it otherwise would not have done or to reverse actions or policies already set in place. The goal of this chapter is to illustrate the double-edged sword that social media poses to government officials in China, particularly high-level party officials in Beijing.

News Media Organisations and Oil Spill Coverage

2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (1) ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
Alison G. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Editorial Policy ◽  
Good News ◽  
News Story ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Scientific Training ◽  
The Impact ◽  
News Groups

ABSTRACT The news media play a key role in framing the media coverage of oil spills. It is imperative that scientists, industry and policymakers are fully tuned into the ways in which current news organisations operate. Over recent years, a growing environmental promotion industry has emerged, alongside an increasing emphasis on environmental advocacy within the commercial sector. A number of information crises (notably, the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989) have forced sections of industry to take a more proactive approach to environmental communications as potent media imagery has directly contradicted assurances that environmental protection is not compromised by their activities. Particular issues or events that capture attention tend to be highly visually appealing and resonate with deeply held beliefs and values that operate at a symbolic level. This paper examines the preliminary findings of an international online survey of environmental reporting distributed to key environmental journalist news groups and generalist journalist news groups during June and July 2002. In particular, it focuses upon the following: journalists’ views about what makes a newsworthy story; their degree of scientific training; the constraints under which they work; their main sources of information; their relationships with news sources; and the impact of editorial policy. Interviews with environment correspondents reveal that relatively few possess scientific training and they tend to rely heavily upon official sources of information. The news agendas of broadcasters closely mirror that of print journalists and there is remarkable consensus concerning ‘news values’ – the taken for granted notions about what constitutes a ‘good’ news story. Having presented the main findings of the survey, the paper concludes by arguing that what is needed is greater communication between scientists, industry and journalists leading to an increased mutual recognition of the specific constraints under which they operate.

scholarly journals The Internet as a Moral Mediator. The Quest for Democracy

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-238
Author(s):  
Emanuele Bardone ◽  
Lorenzo Magnani
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Cognitive Framework ◽  
Access Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
The Web

Recently the impressive growth of the Web, and the Internet in general, has been considered as a promise that may both challenge and boost our representation of democratic institutions. It is well known that modern democracies are based on the possibility to control and even replace who rules by the force of the best arguments. More generally, the control of the government, and the effectiveness of democracy, is possible, if the citizens can access information. Hence, the promise of the Internet mainly relies on the fact that people may more freely access information, because it seems it cannot be controlled or manipulated by the political power. In the first part of this outline we will depict a cognitive framework to deal with the relationships between Internet and democracy. We shall show that Internet, as an information technology, can be considered as a cognitive and moral mediator; it can provide stories, texts, images, combined with sounds, so that the information fosters not only a cognitive, but also an emotional and moral understanding. In this sense, the Internet represents a kind of redistribution of the moral effort through managing objects and information to overcome the poverty and the unsatisfactory character of the options available. In the last part we will illustrate that Internet, as a moral mediator, may enhance democracy in two respects. First, it affords civic engagement and participation; second, it allows people to face different sources of information so that almost everyone can verify and test the information delivered by traditional media.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and Portuguese Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 565-570
Author(s):  
Cristina P. Albuquerque ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Difficulty Level ◽  
Life Domains ◽  
Daycare Centers ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Adults With Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of people all over the world, including in Portugal. This study explores the impact of the pandemic on several life domains of Portuguese adults with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and their families; identifies the difficulty level in the implementation of the most common preventive measures by adults with ID; addresses the consequences of health authorities’ guidelines in the activities carried out in daycare centers for people with disabilities. A total of thirty-three daycare centers participated; they were attended by a total of 1192 adults at the time the study took place (between the 15th of September 2020 and the 15th of October 2020), and a professional belonging to the daycare center answered an online survey. The results showed that: 1) participants agreed that the pandemic had a negative impact on adults with ID and their families, although only in a percentage of them; 2) in the cases of the adults and families where that negative impact occurred, it was generalized, expressing itself in various life domains; 3) almost all of the preventive measures where considered difficult to apply by adults with ID; 4) the participants agreed that the health authorities' guidelines influenced the activities that were performed in the daycare centers, i.e., there were less activities, and the existing ones were less diversified, more sedentary and occurring indoors more often. The implications of the negative impact of the pandemic on adults with ID, their families, and the services provided have to be addressed.

scholarly journals Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260961
Author(s):  
Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen ◽  
Hans H. Tung ◽  
Wen-Chin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Media Audiences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
Official Sources ◽  
Practical Measure

During the outbreak of an epidemic, the success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures depends on the public’s trust in the government. In this study, we aim to understand how media audiences update their trust in the government during the COVID-19 outbreak depending on the information they received. We conducted an online survey experiment in February 2020 in Hong Kong (n = 1,016) in which respondents were randomly provided with a government press release and an endorsement either from an official or a non-official source. This study shows that the information from a non-official source enhances the credibility of official government messages. Our findings imply that dictators can actually “borrow credibility” from their citizen journalists and even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Allowing information flow from non-official sources can be a practical measure for governments to address the problem of a credibility deficit during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Unwillingness to engage in behaviors that protect against COVID-19: the role of conspiracy beliefs, trust, and endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Soveri ◽  
Linda C. Karlsson ◽  
Jan Antfolk ◽  
Mikael Lindfelt ◽  
Stephan Lewandowsky
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Medicine ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Conventional Medicine ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Conspiracy Beliefs ◽  
The Government ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

Abstract Background We investigated if people’s response to the official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with conspiracy beliefs related to COVID-19, a distrust in the sources providing information on COVID-19, and an endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Methods The sample consisted of 1325 Finnish adults who filled out an online survey marketed on Facebook. Structural regression analysis was used to investigate whether: 1) conspiracy beliefs, a distrust in information sources, and endorsement of CAM predict people’s response to the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) conspiracy beliefs, a distrust in information sources, and endorsement of CAM are related to people’s willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Results Individuals with more conspiracy beliefs and a lower trust in information sources were less likely to have a positive response to the NPIs. Individuals with less trust in information sources and more endorsement of CAM were more unwilling to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Distrust in information sources was the strongest and most consistent predictor in all models. Our analyses also revealed that some of the people who respond negatively to the NPIs also have a lower likelihood to take the vaccine. This association was partly related to a lower trust in information sources. Conclusions Distrusting the establishment to provide accurate information, believing in conspiracy theories, and endorsing treatments and substances that are not part of conventional medicine, are all associated with a more negative response to the official guidelines during COVID-19. How people respond to the guidelines, however, is more strongly and consistently related to the degree of trust they feel in the information sources, than to their tendency to hold conspiracy beliefs or endorse CAM. These findings highlight the need for governments and health authorities to create communication strategies that build public trust.

scholarly journals Kansans in the Middle of the Pandemic: Risk Perception, Knowledge, Compliance with Preventive Measures, and Primary Sources of Information about COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 160-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mugur Geana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Beliefs ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Midwest United States ◽  
The Times ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Introduction. As we conduct this study, the world is in the grasp of a deadly pandemic. In less than six months since its first diagnosis in Wuhan, China, the COVID-19 infectious disease due to the novel coronavirus has infected over 5,000,000 people and claimed over 350,000 lives. In the United States, most of the cases are in large urban settings along the coasts, but the disease is slowly progressing through the mainland. Kansas, with its particular location in the midwest United States, has seen a relatively small number of cases, but these are increasing. The Kansas government took radical measures to prevent the spread of the disease. According to the Health Beliefs Model, an individual’s perception of risk will dictate engagement with preventive behaviors. Knowledge about the disease and preventive measures drive the risk assessment. Knowledge is dependant on the sources of information used. This study explored these metrics in a sample of Kansans living in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods. A combination of snowball samples and random distribution through social media was used to recruit participants to an online survey. The risk and knowledge instrument was developed and validated by WHO Europe. Data collection lasted 96 hours. Results. The attitudes and behaviors of Kansans concerning COVID-19 were consistent with its location in an area of the country with a relatively lower incidence of the disease. Participants had good knowledge about the disease and preventive measures and were willing to comply with recommendations from local authorities. Conclusion. Localized information sources that cater to the community are often primary, while social media is not a valuable source for information pertinent to COVID-19.

scholarly journals Pathways Improving Compliance with Preventive Behaviors during the Remission Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3512
Author(s):  
Jingjing Wang ◽  
Nanyue Rao ◽  
Buxin Han
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Mediation Model ◽  
Preventive Behaviors ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Public Health Authorities ◽  
The Government ◽  
One Year

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a significant threat to people’s lives. Compliance with preventive behaviors, recommended by public health authorities, is essential for infection control. In the remission stage, one year after the initial COVID-19 outbreak in China, we advanced a moderated parallel mediation model of the link between risk perception and compliance with preventive behaviors as well as a serial mediation model of the link between optimism and compliance with preventive behaviors, explaining the roles of various psychosocial factors in these associations. In January 2021, 200 participants under 50 years of age, located in 80 Chinese cities, participated in an online survey assessing risk perception, compliance with preventive behaviors, fear, anxiety, political trust, government dependency, and dispositional optimism. The results showed that the effect of risk perception on compliance with preventive behaviors was mediated by political trust and fear, and was moderated by government dependency. Anxiety and fear serially mediated the effect of optimism on compliance with preventive behaviors. Our study provided implications for future research to reduce negative emotions, strengthen confidence in the government, and sustain moderate government dependency accompanied by individual self-efficacy.

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