William Kinnally, P. Kohl, S. Collins, M. Eichholz, Chelsea Schafer
{"title":"COVID-19: Examining the Roles of Traditional and Social Media Attention in the Amplification of Risk","authors":"William Kinnally, P. Kohl, S. Collins, M. Eichholz, Chelsea Schafer","doi":"10.1177/09732586231172045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231172045","url":null,"abstract":"This study used a nationally representative survey of U.S. residents (N = 1,969) to examine whether attention to information about COVID-19 in traditional news media sources and on social media correlated with a higher perceived risk of personal and public harm. As anticipated, we found a positive association between attention to COVID-19 information in traditional news media sources and the perceived risks of COVID-19. We also found a positive association between attention to COVID-19 social media posts and perceived risks but only among Republicans. Other predictors of increased risk perception included age, being female and awareness of a local stay-at-home order.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"133 - 148"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45840138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Poorna Fernando, R. Ranwala, I. K. R. Ashoranga, M. D. de Silva, Sonali A. Lunuwila
{"title":"Analysis of the Engagement with COVID-19 Vaccination-Related Posts in Sri Lankan Health-Oriented Social Media: A Social Listening Approach","authors":"Poorna Fernando, R. Ranwala, I. K. R. Ashoranga, M. D. de Silva, Sonali A. Lunuwila","doi":"10.1177/09732586231170056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231170056","url":null,"abstract":"With the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccination, there was a rise in anti-vaccine narratives leading to vaccine hesitancy. Social media platforms like Facebook have introduced policies to control the spread of these narratives. However, the comments section is frequently ignored. A preliminary anti-vaccination codebook was created using criteria identified in international literature and completed using the comments on the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB)’s Facebook page, which is the centre for health education and publicity of health information in Sri Lanka. Next, the most commented vaccine-related posts for each quarter were extracted from the HPB Facebook page and the comments were coded according to the finalised codebook and were analysed. The finalised codebook contained a total of 24 codes that were organised into six primary categories. A total of 7,316 comments were extracted. The comments that were against vaccination constituted 47.3% of all vaccine-related comments. The most commonly occurring code was ‘health hazards’. It was evident that the number of comments against vaccination has increased with time. This may indicate that anti-vaccination movements are becoming more prevalent in. It is essential to engage in extensive social listening in order to forestall the propagation of anti-vaccine sentiments and conspiracy theories.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"183 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43903094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communication in the Time of Uncertainty and Misinformation","authors":"Yangsun Hong, Rajat Roy","doi":"10.1177/09732586231173129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231173129","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic presents many challenges for public communication, including widespread misinformation and political polarisation of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 vaccine. However, public communication has played a vital role in addressing the challenges (Mani et al., In press; Paek & Hove, 2021; Torres et al., 2021). Since the health emergency was declared, fake news, conspiracy theories and misleading information have been broadly circulated. In the current digital environment, misinformation spreads quickly and widely at unprecedented levels. COVID-19 misinformation has caused mistrust in governmental and health authorities, resulting in undesirable health outcomes such as rejection of preventive measures and vaccine hesitancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) have declared the widespread dissemination of COVID-19 misinformation an ‘infodemic’. This is not a new phenomenon; Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation about health, risk, science and environmental issues persisted in mediated and interpersonal communication channels. The current special issue provides insights into the phenomenon of misinformation based on evidence from around the world and discusses potential communication strategies to reduce the spread of misinformation and to combat its effects. The first article, titled ‘COVID-19: Examining the Roles of Traditional and Social Media Attention in the Amplification of Risk’ by Kinnally, examines attention to media channels as a source of COVID-19 news and perceived risk of COVID-19 in the United States. Using a nationally representative sample, the study finds that attention to traditional news media was positively associated with perceived risk, while attention to social media as a news source was not associated with risk perception. The study demonstrates that the relationship between attention to social media for COVID-19 information and perceived risk was contingent on one’s political party affiliation, which presents implications regarding political polarisation of COVID-19 information and social media misinformation. Potential communication research avenues around misinformation are offered in the article titled ‘Bibliometric","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"131 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45392187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bibliometric Review of Research on Misinformation: Reflective Analysis on the Future of Communication","authors":"Swetabh Pandey, Munmun Ghosh","doi":"10.1177/09732586231165577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231165577","url":null,"abstract":"The communication channels driving misinformation often carry the misinformation to elicit responses, which can turn into big threats. Users’ extensive availability and convenience in creating and facilitating user-provided content in online social media enable people with common interests, worldviews and narratives to come together and spread information/misinformation. This research aims to create an intellectual structure through reflective analysis that will help us identify the existing communication pattern that led to misinformation during recent times, also considering the pandemic times. This study analyses and reviews the emerging literature on misinformation using a bibliometric analysis approach. A total of 1,363 papers published from January 2008 to June 2022 from the Scopus database were extracted for analysis in VOS viewer, revealing 10 clusters derived from the keyword, finally coming under four broad themes. The findings revealed that the earlier studies in this area were more expressive and theoretical, and there is a need to provide simple and scientific solutions to counter the misinformation. Considering all possible adversities, this article draws concrete conclusions by offering directions and propositions to create more comprehensive systems and policies to drive a conclusive future.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"149 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41800053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communication Strategies in Relation to COVID-19 in South Africa and Ghana: A Systematic Review","authors":"Akwasi Bosompem Boateng, Nkonzo Gumede","doi":"10.1177/09732586231168945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231168945","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 is a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SAR–CoV-2) spread from person to person through infected air droplets of saliva and discharged from sneezes and coughs. This study seeks to contribute to knowledge and understanding of how coronavirus outbreaks could be addressed by examining communication and media strategies used by governments and public health institutions in South Africa and Ghana during the coronavirus pandemic. The study systematically analysed published data on COVID-19 in South Africa and Ghana from 2019 to 2020 to identify recurring themes to discuss issues regarding communication strategies in response to the outbreak. This study found various inadequacies and challenges to communication and media strategies to address the spread of COVID-19. The governments and public health institutions in South Africa and Ghana used multiple mass media channels to communicate different messages and create awareness about COVID-19. This article recommends the improvement of communication and media engagements between governments and health stakeholders in South Africa and Ghana to increase public awareness of the risks, threats and outcomes of COVID-19. The media in South Africa and Ghana must conduct fact finding of information about coronavirus from official sources in government and health institutions before dissemination to the public to minimise fake news, misinformation and disinformation. The governments and health institutions must not rely solely on traditional mass media strategies but also integrate indigenous communication strategies for engagements to address the challenges of mass media to increase public awareness about COVID-19 in South Africa and Ghana.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"214 - 229"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47466767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lyounghee Kim, Yangsun Hong, Sumaira Abrar, C. Fitzgerald
{"title":"Relationships Between Social Media Use, Exposure to Vaccine Misinformation and Online Health Information Seeking Behaviour","authors":"Lyounghee Kim, Yangsun Hong, Sumaira Abrar, C. Fitzgerald","doi":"10.1177/09732586231166111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231166111","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the relationships between social media use for health information, exposure to HPV vaccine misinformation, and online health information-seeking behaviours from institutional sources (i.e., professional health websites and search engines) among college students. The results show that people who seek health information from social media tend to have more experiences of encountering HPV vaccine misinformation during their social media use, while there was no significant relationship between general social media use and exposure to HPV vaccine misinformation. This study also found that people with many experiences of encountering HPV misinformation on social media are more likely to use professional health websites when they look for health information online. However, there was no relationship between exposure to misinformation on social media and the use of search engines for health information seeking.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"18 1","pages":"199 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41396523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Consumption Patterns of Female Lifestyle Influencers During Covid-19 Pandemic: A Thematic Sentiment Analysis Based on the Comments of Selected YouTube Videos","authors":"M. Deori, F. Nisha, Nitesh Kumar Verma, M. Verma","doi":"10.1177/09732586231168489","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231168489","url":null,"abstract":"The Covid-19 pandemic has affected every walk of human life in unprecedented ways. During the lockdown, social media tools became a driving force leading to their best usage and receiving recognition for entertaining, learning and influencing daily lifestyles. Social Media Influencers have been admired and acknowledged for influencing people and providing innovative solutions to day-to-day problems maintaining a standard livelihood. This study evaluates the engagement of Indian female influencers during the pandemic extracting the reaction of audiences towards the content uploaded to YouTube through sentiment analysis, by classifying the influencers into five categories, such as Beauty & Fashion, Comedy, Food, Health & Fitness and Travel. The study reveals upload of content to YouTube increased rigorously during the pandemic however comments posted by audiences decrease simultaneously. Yet, the sentiment of the audience is substantially positive, primarily towards the food category. The duration of content uploaded is short and conveniently less time-consuming for the audience, attracting their attention and leading to prompt mention, feedback and comments within the 24-h of uploading content to YouTube. The study highlights that females are abruptly adapting to the social changes and also making it resourceful for the community by practising social media.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44778746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does Social Media Exposure Shape Consumer Response in the Form of Panic Buying?","authors":"Archi Dubey, Somesh Kumar Sinha","doi":"10.1177/09732586231160589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231160589","url":null,"abstract":"This study took an effort to analyse the impact of social media exposure on the panic buying behaviour of people towards health and personal care products during COVID-19 times. The study also analyses the mediating role of anxiety between social media exposure and panic buying. This study attempts to explain the connection between social media exposure, anxiety, and panic buying using the social proof theory, the S–O–R model, and the behavioural inhibition system theory. The study includes a sample of 433 people. The data was collected from 24 items structured questionnaire distributed online. A total of 433 responses were collected online. The relationship between variables was analysed through structural equation modelling using Smart PLS-3. The results revealed that there is a direct effect of social media exposure on panic buying but when anxiety mediates the relationship between media and panic buying then a condition of partial mediation was observed. The result suggests that social media exposure directly affects panic buying among customers but it also affects generating anxiety among the customer. The study contributes by exploring the relationship between social media exposure, anxiety and panic buying. This study has a practical implication towards policymaking and the functioning of appropriate social media communication during an unstructured and disastrous situation.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49567315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coercive Communication: Compliance with Government Policies to Reduce COVID-19 Spread in Indonesia","authors":"L. Mani, M. Aras, I. Rahyadi","doi":"10.1177/09732586221144683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586221144683","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to explain the direct and indirect effects of coercive communication on the increase of public compliance with Indonesian government policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This study employed a quantitative method. The data were collected for 11 days (29 May–8 June 2020). This research involved 580 respondents who were aged 15 years and over and willingly answered the questionnaire. The research questionnaire was distributed through social media platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp group and Instagram. The research data were analysed using statistical path analysis with SEM WarpPLS7.0. The findings indicate that coercive communication significantly and directly affects public compliance with seeking information and performing attitudes to suppress the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia. Thus, coercive communication can be practically applied as an important alternative strategy in other public policy communications to get a fast response, encourage information seeking and trigger public compliance.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47877658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Cross-cultural Comfort Food Narratives in Beryl Shereshewsky’s YouTube Videos","authors":"Nayana George, Smita Dhantal","doi":"10.1177/09732586231155497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586231155497","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how certain food and the stories linked to the same are capable of evoking feelings of comfort and security. Food binds people together. The rituals and practices surrounding food inspire and sustain the association of various memories, experiences and emotions. The area of food studies is especially interested in how these linkages translate into the practice of nourishment. The narratives surrounding comfort food take on a cross-cultural flavour in the videos from Beryl Shereshewsky’s YouTube channel. This article analyses these narratives through the lens of Symbolic Interactionism to explicate how these food narratives bring people together from across the world by evoking the universal needs of food and comfort. Consequently, it is seen that even though it is true that the experience of consuming comfort food is extremely personal, it is also rendered as a universal phenomenon through the narratives that are created and shared.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43617417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}