scholarly journals Social Media Insights During Health Crisis Events: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic in Vietnam (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huyen Thi Thanh Tran ◽  
Shih-Hao Lu ◽  
Ha Thi Thu Tran ◽  
Bien Van Nguyen

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic is still undergoing complicated developments in Vietnam and around the world. The amount of information about the COVID-19 pandemic is enormous, especially in cyberspace, where people can create and share information quickly. This can lead to an "infodemic," which is a challenge every government might face in the fight against pandemics. OBJECTIVE This study aims to understand public attention towards the pandemic (from December 2019 to November 2020) through 7 types of sources: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, blogs, news sites, forums, and e-commerce sites. METHODS We collected and analyzed nearly 38 million pieces of text data from the sources listed above via SocialHeat, a social listening platform developed by YouNet Group. We described not only public attention volume trends, discussion sentiments; top sources, top posts that gained the most public attention, and hot keyword frequency; but also hot keywords’ co-occurrence as visualized by the VOSviewer software tool. RESULTS In this study, we reached 4 main conclusions. First, based on changing discussion trends regarding the subject of COVID-19, 7 periods were identified based on events that can be aggregated into two pandemic waves in Vietnam. Second, community pages on Facebook were the source of the most engagement from the public. However, the sources with the highest average interaction efficiency per article are government sources. Third, people’s attitudes when discussing the pandemic have changed from negative to positive emotions. Fourth, the type of content that attracts the most interactions from people varies from time to time. Besides that, the issue-attention cycle theory occurred not only once but four times during the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that online resources can help the government quickly identify public attention to public health messages during times of crisis. We also determined the hot spots that most interested in the public as well as public attention communication patterns, which can help the government get practical information to make more effective policy reactions to help prevent the spread of the pandemic.


10.2196/18825 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. e18825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxin Zhao ◽  
Sixiang Cheng ◽  
Xiaoyan Yu ◽  
Huilan Xu

Background Since the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic in China in December 2019, information and discussions about COVID-19 have spread rapidly on the internet and have quickly become the focus of worldwide attention, especially on social media. Objective This study aims to investigate and analyze the public’s attention to events related to COVID-19 in China at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic (December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020) through the Sina Microblog hot search list. Methods We collected topics related to the COVID-19 epidemic on the Sina Microblog hot search list from December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020, and described the trend of public attention on COVID-19 epidemic-related topics. ROST Content Mining System version 6.0 was used to analyze the collected text for word segmentation, word frequency, and sentiment analysis. We further described the hot topic keywords and sentiment trends of public attention. We used VOSviewer to implement a visual cluster analysis of hot keywords and build a social network of public opinion content. Results The study has four main findings. First, we analyzed the changing trend of the public’s attention to the COVID-19 epidemic, which can be divided into three stages. Second, the hot topic keywords of public attention at each stage were slightly different. Third, the emotional tendency of the public toward the COVID-19 epidemic-related hot topics changed from negative to neutral, with negative emotions weakening and positive emotions increasing as a whole. Fourth, we divided the COVID-19 topics with the most public concern into five categories: the situation of the new cases of COVID-19 and its impact, frontline reporting of the epidemic and the measures of prevention and control, expert interpretation and discussion on the source of infection, medical services on the frontline of the epidemic, and focus on the worldwide epidemic and the search for suspected cases. Conclusions Our study found that social media (eg, Sina Microblog) can be used to measure public attention toward public health emergencies. During the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, a large amount of information about the COVID-19 epidemic was disseminated on Sina Microblog and received widespread public attention. We have learned about the hotspots of public concern regarding the COVID-19 epidemic. These findings can help the government and health departments better communicate with the public on health and translate public health needs into practice to create targeted measures to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.



Author(s):  
Yuxin Zhao ◽  
Huilan Xu

AbstractBackgroundSince the new coronavirus epidemic in China in December 2019, information and discussions about COVID-19 have spread rapidly on the Internet and have quickly become the focus of worldwide attention, especially on social media.ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate and analyze the public’s attention to COVID-19-related events in China at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic in China (December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020) through the Sina Microblog hot search list.MethodsWe collected topics related to the COVID-19 epidemic on the Sina Microblog hot search list from December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020 and described the trend of public attention on COVID-19 epidemic-related topics. ROST CM6.0 (ROST Content Mining System Version 6.0) was used to analyze the collected text for word segmentation, word frequency, and sentiment analysis. We further described the hot topic keywords and sentiment trends of public attention. We used VOSviewer to implement a visual cluster analysis of hot keywords and build a social network of public opinion content.ResultsThe study has four main findings. First, we analyzed the changing trend of the public’s attention to the COVID-19 epidemic, which can be divided into three stages. Second, the hot topic keywords of public attention at each stage are slightly different. In addition, the emotional tendency of the public toward the COVID-19 epidemic-related hot topics has changed from negative to neutral, with negative emotions weakening and positive emotions increasing as a whole. Finally, we divided the COVID-19 topics with the most public concern into five categories: new COVID-19 epidemics and their impact; (2) frontline reporting of the epidemic and prevention and control measures; (3) expert interpretation and discussion on the source of infection; (4) medical services on the frontline of the epidemic; and (5) focus on the global epidemic and the search for suspected cases.ConclusionsThis is the first study of public attention on the COVID-19 epidemic using a Chinese social media platform (i.e., Sina Microblog). Our study found that social media (e.g., Sina Microblog) can be used to measure public attention to public health emergencies. During the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, a large amount of information about the COVID-19 epidemic was disseminated on Sina Microblog and received widespread public attention. We have learned about the hotspots of public concern regarding the COVID-19 epidemic. These findings can help the government and health departments better communicate with the public on health and translate public health needs into practice to create targeted measures to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxin Zhao ◽  
Sixiang Cheng ◽  
Xiaoyan Yu ◽  
Huilan Xu

BACKGROUND Since the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic in China in December 2019, information and discussions about COVID-19 have spread rapidly on the internet and have quickly become the focus of worldwide attention, especially on social media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate and analyze the public’s attention to events related to COVID-19 in China at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic (December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020) through the Sina Microblog hot search list. METHODS We collected topics related to the COVID-19 epidemic on the Sina Microblog hot search list from December 31, 2019, to February 20, 2020, and described the trend of public attention on COVID-19 epidemic-related topics. ROST Content Mining System version 6.0 was used to analyze the collected text for word segmentation, word frequency, and sentiment analysis. We further described the hot topic keywords and sentiment trends of public attention. We used VOSviewer to implement a visual cluster analysis of hot keywords and build a social network of public opinion content. RESULTS The study has four main findings. First, we analyzed the changing trend of the public’s attention to the COVID-19 epidemic, which can be divided into three stages. Second, the hot topic keywords of public attention at each stage were slightly different. Third, the emotional tendency of the public toward the COVID-19 epidemic-related hot topics changed from negative to neutral, with negative emotions weakening and positive emotions increasing as a whole. Fourth, we divided the COVID-19 topics with the most public concern into five categories: the situation of the new cases of COVID-19 and its impact, frontline reporting of the epidemic and the measures of prevention and control, expert interpretation and discussion on the source of infection, medical services on the frontline of the epidemic, and focus on the worldwide epidemic and the search for suspected cases. CONCLUSIONS Our study found that social media (eg, Sina Microblog) can be used to measure public attention toward public health emergencies. During the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, a large amount of information about the COVID-19 epidemic was disseminated on Sina Microblog and received widespread public attention. We have learned about the hotspots of public concern regarding the COVID-19 epidemic. These findings can help the government and health departments better communicate with the public on health and translate public health needs into practice to create targeted measures to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.



2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 462-468
Author(s):  
Latika kothari ◽  
Sanskruti Wadatkar ◽  
Roshni Taori ◽  
Pavan Bajaj ◽  
Diksha Agrawal

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a communicable infection caused by the novel coronavirus resulting in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV). It was recognized to be a health crisis for the general population of international concern on 30th January 2020 and conceded as a pandemic on 11th March 2020. India is taking various measures to fight this invisible enemy by adopting different strategies and policies. To stop the COVID-19 from spreading, the Home Affairs Ministry and the health ministry, of India, has issued the nCoV 19 guidelines on travel. Screening for COVID-19 by asking questions about any symptoms, recent travel history, and exposure. India has been trying to get testing kits available. The government of India has enforced various laws like the social distancing, Janata curfew, strict lockdowns, screening door to door to control the spread of novel coronavirus. In this pandemic, innovative medical treatments are being explored, and a proper vaccine is being hunted to deal with the situation. Infection control measures are necessary to prevent the virus from further spreading and to help control the current situation. Thus, this review illustrates and explains the criteria provided by the government of India to the awareness of the public to prevent the spread of COVID-19.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.



2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-274
Author(s):  
Janette Maria Pinariya ◽  
Carelyn Josephine ◽  
Wulan Yulianti ◽  
Anita Yunia

The world is in the grip of a health crisis due to the unforeseen consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic causing a substantial increase in distress associated with pain, depression, and loss. Indonesia is not handling the epidemic properly at this early stage due to a lack of planning and readiness on the part of the country. The government subsequently established the COVID-19 national task force, a COVID-19 assistance centre that reflects the government's readiness and urgency in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. At the national and regional levels, the task force reports directly to the president, organizes and encourages all connected agencies to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. The task force's other responsibility is to raise awareness about COVID-19 to the general public. The study aims to determine how Indonesia's COVID-19 task force volunteers can act as a communication aid for the public as a source of empowerment during the pandemic, as well as to examine risk communication and community engagement. This research uses a qualitative approach using the theory of social support. As a result, this study has identified new volunteering approaches for Indonesia's COVID-19 task force that could act as a support system as well as improvements on their approach on community engagement with the public.



2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (07) ◽  
pp. A09
Author(s):  
Reymund Flores ◽  
Xavier Venn Asuncion

This study mainly explores the communication preferences of the public; their level of trust in the government; and the factors affecting their risk/crisis perception amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The key findings —derived from the data collected through an online survey and analysis using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), provide insights on how Local Government Units (LGUs) can improve their risk/crisis communication in this current health crisis. Among the key takeaways include the use of social media platforms, like Facebook, and native/local language for effective risk/crisis communication which may, consequently, foster trust building between the LGUs and the public.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gio Eiron Villanueva

When faced with new and threatening events like a global health crisis, the public tends to draw inferences from news media to make sense of the uncertainties of the situation. This study explores how online news media in the Philippines and Malaysia depicted the outbreak of COVID-19 during the early period of its spread. The study analyzes the discourse around the outbreak based on a large corpus of Facebook news posts between January and March 2020. Using a corpus-based approach called Keyness Analysis, salient themes & topics, and framings around the disease were identified and interpreted. The results show the differences in the reporting of the outbreak between the two countries. News reports in the Philippines depicted the disease in an enigmatic lens which explains the alarmist angle of news reports and the reassuring tone of the government, versus the war framing of Malaysian news that depicted the disease as an enemy to be fought and defeated. In reporting about the bid to contain the spread of the virus, Philippine news reports dealt mostly with the restrictions and regulations of movement while the Malaysian news covered more issues on personal hygiene and safety protocols. Lastly, concerns for Filipino seafarers and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) that needs to be repatriated was a recurring theme in Philippine news reports regarding COVID-19, while concerns for the economy was prominent in the Malaysian news reports. The study therefore shows that the depiction of COVID-19 in Malaysia and the Philippines are shaped by each country’s present social and political conditions.



2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 312-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel, H. T. Ling ◽  
Christina Mee Chyong Ho

The health crisis of the COVID-19 outbreak has global impacts on humanity and theeconomy. Such pandemic effects are believed to have influenced human behaviour; issues ofpanic buying (overbuying) and noncompliance among individuals are shown evident. However,the underlying understanding on such behaviours due to the pandemic remains unclear.Therefore, this perspective paper adopts the social dilemma theory and microeconomics conceptsto analyse and explain the effects of COVID-19 on social behavioural reactions. It attempts toaddress the questions of what and why are the behaviours of individuals shown during thecoronavirus pandemic and showcase how the theory is associated with current social phenomena.Real scenarios based on media reporting from the sociodemographic context of Malaysia,concerning the following issues; (i) competition over daily essentials; (ii) self-honesty ofindividuals; and (iii) adherence to government policies and measures enforcement (governance)were discussed. A conceptual framework was developed to illustrate interrelationships betweensocial dilemma concepts and the phenomena. In essence, due to fear, uncertainty and greed, selfinterestand opportunistic (defective/unethical) behaviours of most individuals prevailing oversocietal collective interest amid the pandemic have been prevalently observed in the aboveinstances, although a cooperative choice can eventually result in a better outcome for everyone.Not only do these non-cooperative behaviours of individuals create inconveniences,dissatisfactions and other forms of negative externalities, they also incentivise others to actselfishly, if no restrictions are imposed, that may eventually cause government interventionsfailures. This paper demonstrates the relevancy of the social dilemmas theory in betterunderstanding fundamental human behavioural reactions amid the health crisis and theimportance of incorporating the findings into government policymaking. Thesesociopsychological considerations help the government formulate holistic measures, namelystringent sanctions and monitoring enforcement, as well as incentivising cooperative andcompliant behaviours of the public, which then contribute to curbing the COVID-19 pandemicmore effectively.



Author(s):  
Meilanny Budiarti Santoso ◽  
Moch Zainudiin ◽  
Dessy Hasanah Siti Asiah

ABSTRAKPandemi Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) masih menjadi ancaman bagi masyarakat dunia termasuk Indonesia. Peningkatan kasus belum memperlihatkan adanya penurunan angka penyebaran virus. Pemerintah dalam menanggapi krisis kesehatan telah melakukan beberapa kebijakan untuk menekan penyebaran infeksi COVID-19. Adaptasi Kebiasaan Baru (AKB) menjadi salah satu kebijakan baru yang dikeluarkan oleh pemerintah dalam merespon situasi pandemi. AKB bertujuan agar masyarakat dapat melaksanakan protokol kesehatan ketika terpaksa beraktivitas di luar rumah dalam masa pandemi COVID-19. Upaya preventif dan promosi ini harus disebarluaskan kepada setiap masyarakat agar semakin banyak masyarakat menjalankan protokol kesehatan. Kegiatan sosialisasi secara daring melalui media sosial menjadi metode yang ditempuh dalam kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat di masa pandemi COVID-19. Tingginya intensitas penggunaan media sosial menjadi media paling efektif dalam penyebaran edukasi mengenai AKB. ABSTRACTPandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is still a threat to the global community, including Indonesia. The increase in cases has not shown a decrease in the spread of the virus. The government in response to the health crisis has implemented several policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 infection. Adaptasi Kebiasaan Baru (AKB) or adapting to new habits is one of the new policies issued by the government as a response in a pandemic situation. The AKB aims for the public to implement health protocols when they have to do activities outside the home during the COVID-19 pandemic. These preventive and promotional moves should be disseminated to every community so there would be more people who can implement health protocols. Social media is one of the most effective platforms used for this community service program during the COVID-19 pandemic. The high amount of people using social media during this time is the most effective media in disseminating education about AKB.



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