Abstract
The COVID-19 disease outbreak has seen mixed information flows comprising top-down communication from health authorities to the public and citizen-to-citizen communication. This study aimed to identify mechanisms underlying the sharing of official versus unofficial information during the outbreak. Survey findings based on a nationally representative U.S. sample (N = 856) showed that individuals’ predispositions affected their information consumption and affective experiences, leading to distinct types of information-sharing behaviors. While anger toward the U.S. government’s outbreak response was directly associated with unofficial information sharing, anxiety was directly associated with official information sharing. These findings enhance our understanding of the propagation of different kinds of pandemic information and provide implications for public education on information verification based on source authoritativeness.
Highlights
ObjectivesThis study aimed to identify mechanisms underlying the sharing of official versus unofficial information during the outbreak
Recognizing the mediating effects of affective orientations (O2 ) on the consequences of information sharing from both official and unofficial sources, anxiety and anger were found to trigger distinct information-sharing behaviors. This finding supports the extant theorizing on emotions and information behaviors in crises or issues involving risk implications [51]. While both affective orientations are negative in nature, anxiety affected the sharing of official information, while anger toward the U.S governmental response affected the sharing of unofficial information
While most studies have found information seeking to be a key predictor of information sharing [30,69], our findings found a link between the use of liberal relative to conservative news media and official information sharing via anxiety
Summary
This study aimed to identify mechanisms underlying the sharing of official versus unofficial information during the outbreak. FDA [5], this study aimed to uncover the mechanisms behind the sharing of official versus
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