scholarly journals Vulnerability to misinformation and Covid-19 infodemic in French-speaking Belgium (French version)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grégoire Lits ◽  
Louise-Amélie Cougnon ◽  
Alexandre Heeren ◽  
Bernard HANSEEUW

The main objective of this report is to test the hypothesis that the adoption of an active information-seeking practice related to the health crisis on social networks can be understood as a risk practice in the Covid-19 infodemic. A second objective is to identify the existence of different vulnerability profiles in the infodemic and to understand the information practices associated with these different profiles at risk of misinformation. The approach adopted is therefore firstly a comparative approach between different types of profile. It is not a question of carrying out a longitudinal study representative of the evolution of the French-speaking Belgian population's experience of the crisis. The CoviCom survey is a four-wave questionnaire survey that was conducted in French-speaking Belgium between 30 March 2020 (i.e. 12 days after the entry into force of the first containment in Belgium) and 29 March 2021. In total, the survey collected 10,148 responses to the four waves of the survey (April 2020 containment, May 2020 decontainment, November 2020 second wave epidemic and March 2021 third wave epidemic).

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-84
Author(s):  
Rony Maharjan ◽  
Dipesh Mangal Joshi

Nepal is experiencing second wave of COVID-19 infection leading to major health impacts and crisis. Despite the development of vaccine against COVID-19 and its wider coverage, many countries have already experienced third wave. After vaccination against COVID-19 antibodies has been seen to be present till eight months in different studies, evidences beyond that is yet to come. Looking at the trends of reinfections and mathematical models for prediction of COVID-19 infection, there is high chances that Nepal will face third wave, and children will be affected more due to unavailability of vaccine for this age group. There is no fixed definite time to detect when the third wave hit. From the health crisis experience during second wave, Nepal should stress on implication of various strategic and evidence-based measures for third wave preparedness and mitigation to minimize the morbidity, post COVID-19 infection complications and mortality.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Jean Philippe Décieux ◽  
Philipp Emanuel Sischka ◽  
Anette Schumacher ◽  
Helmut Willems

Abstract. General self-efficacy is a central personality trait often evaluated in surveys as context variable. It can be interpreted as a personal coping resource reflecting individual belief in one’s overall competence to perform across a variety of situations. The German-language Allgemeine-Selbstwirksamkeit-Kurzskala (ASKU) is a reliable and valid instrument to assess this disposition in the German-speaking countries based on a three-item equation. This study develops a French version of the ASKU and tests this French version for measurement invariance compared to the original ASKU. A reliable and valid French instrument would make it easy to collect data in the French-speaking countries and allow comparisons between the French and German results. Data were collected on a sample of 1,716 adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a good fit for a single-factor model of the data (in total, French, and German version). Additionally, construct validity was assessed by elucidating intercorrelations between the ASKU and different factors that should theoretically be related to ASKU. Furthermore, we confirmed configural and metric as well as scalar invariance between the different language versions, meaning that all forms of statistical comparison between the developed French version and the original German version are allowed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Zenovich ◽  
Shane T. Moreman

A third wave feminist approach to feminist oral history, this research essay blends both the visual and the oral as text. We critique a feminist artist's art along with her words so that her representation can be seen and heard. Focusing on three art pieces, we analyze the artist's body to conceptualize agentic ways to understand the meanings of feminist art and feminist oral history. We offer a third wave feminist approach to feminist oral history as method so that feminists can consider adaptive means for recording oral histories and challenging dominant symbolic order.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4442
Author(s):  
Marcos Cabezas-González ◽  
Sonia Casillas-Martín ◽  
Ana García-Valcárcel Muñoz-Repiso

The global public health crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that digital competence in education is no longer an option, but a necessity. Online communication with friends using social networks is an activity in which young people very frequently and at increasingly early ages engage. This article presents the results of a study analyses digital-competence levels in the area of communication of Spanish basic-education students (aged 12–16) and establishes whether online communication with friends and the use of social media impact it. A quantitative methodology with a descriptive and cross-sectional design was used. The sample comprised 807 students, and data collection was based on a problem-solving test. Findings show that students who use online communication with their friends very often and that those who use social networks a lot have lower levels of digital competence. Education centres should reflect on this in order to implement curricular programs that may strengthen this type of competence.


Author(s):  
Josianne Scerri ◽  
Alexei Sammut ◽  
Sarah Cilia Vincenti ◽  
Paulann Grech ◽  
Michael Galea ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major health crisis associated with adverse mental health consequences. This study examined 2908 calls made to a national mental health helpline over a 10 month period, 2 months prior to (Pre-COVID) and 8 months during the pandemic phase, that incorporated the imposition of a partial lockdown, followed by the removal and reintroduction of restrictive measures locally. Data collected included reason/s for call assistance, gender, age and number of daily diagnosed cases and deaths due to COVID-19. In the Pre-COVID phase, calls for assistance were related to information needs and depression. With the imposition of a partial lockdown, coupled with the first local deaths and spikes in number of diagnosed cases, a significant increase in number of calls targeting mental health, medication management and physical and financial issues were identified. Following the removal of local restrictions, the number of calls decreased significantly; however, with the subsequent reintroduction of restrictions, coupled with the rise in cases and deaths, assistance requested significantly targeted informational needs. Hence, whilst calls in the initial phase of the pandemic mainly targeted mental health issues, over time this shifted towards information seeking requests, even within a context where the number of deaths and cases had significantly risen.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
Valentina Y. Guleva ◽  
Polina O. Andreeva ◽  
Danila A. Vaganov

Finding the building blocks of real-world networks contributes to the understanding of their formation process and related dynamical processes, which is related to prediction and control tasks. We explore different types of social networks, demonstrating high structural variability, and aim to extract and see their minimal building blocks, which are able to reproduce supergraph structural and dynamical properties, so as to be appropriate for diffusion prediction for the whole graph on the base of its small subgraph. For this purpose, we determine topological and functional formal criteria and explore sampling techniques. Using the method that provides the best correspondence to both criteria, we explore the building blocks of interest networks. The best sampling method allows one to extract subgraphs of optimal 30 nodes, which reproduce path lengths, clustering, and degree particularities of an initial graph. The extracted subgraphs are different for the considered interest networks, and provide interesting material for the global dynamics exploration on the mesoscale base.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Steven Ruggles

AbstractQuantitative historical analysis in the United States surged in three distinct waves. The first quantitative wave occurred as part of the “New History” that blossomed in the early twentieth century and disappeared in the 1940s and 1950s with the rise of consensus history. The second wave thrived from the 1960s to the 1980s during the ascendance of the New Economic History, the New Political History, and the New Social History, and died out during the “cultural turn” of the late twentieth century. The third wave of historical quantification—which I call the revival of quantification—emerged in the second decade of the twenty-first century and is still underway. I describe characteristics of each wave and discuss the historiographical context of the ebb and flow of quantification in history.


2004 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Price ◽  
Faith Yingling ◽  
Eileen Walsh ◽  
Judy Murnan ◽  
Joseph A. Dake

This study assessed differences in response rates to a series of three-wave mail surveys when amiable or insistently worded postcards were the third wave of the mailing. Three studies were conducted; one with a sample of 600 health commissioners, one with a sample of 680 vascular nurses, and one with 600 elementary school secretaries. The combined response rates for the first and second wave mailings were 65.8%, 67.6%, and 62.4%, respectively. A total of 308 amiable and 308 insistent postcards were sent randomly to nonrespondents as the third wave mailing. Overall, there were 41 amiable and 52 insistent postcards returned, not significantly different by chi-square test. However, a separate chi-square test for one of the three studies, the nurses' study, did find a significant difference in favor of the insistently worded postcards.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique de Quervain ◽  
Amanda Aerni ◽  
Ehssan Amini ◽  
Dorothée Bentz ◽  
David Coynel ◽  
...  

The results of the third survey of the Swiss Corona Stress Study refer to the period from November 11-19, 2020, during which 11,612 people from all over Switzerland participated. Stress levels have increased significantly compared to the first survey during lockdown in April 2020. While the proportion of people reporting maximum stress levels was around 11% during the April lockdown, it rose to 20% in the second pandemic wave in November. The increase in stress was accompanied by an increase in depressive symptoms. The main drivers of psychological stress and depressive symptoms included burden due to a Covid-19-related change in work, school, or education, Covid-19-related financial losses, and fears about the future. These stressors have increased significantly, compared to the time of the April lockdown. Further factors were the fear that someone in the closest circle would become seriously ill or die from COVID-19, as well as the burden of social restrictions and burden from an increase in conflicts at home. While the proportion of respondents with moderately severe or severe (PHQ-9 ≥15) depressive symptoms was 3% before the pandemic, 9% during the April lockdown, and 12% during May, it increased to 18% in November. The risk for moderately severe or severe depressive symptoms was associated with age (with younger people showing the highest risk) and was increased in people experiencing financial losses due to the pandemic. In addition, people from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which was most affected by the pandemic during the second wave, were at higher risk than people from the rest of Switzerland.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document