COVID-19 Communication Ecology: Visualizing Communication Resource Connections During a Public Health Emergency Using Network Analysis

J Brian Houston,Esther Thorson,Murali K Mantrala,Eunjin (Anna) Kim

doi:10.1177/0002764221992811

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019 and soon became a global pandemic, resulting in major public health consequences for countries across the world. As the COVID-19 outbreak evolved, individuals were challenged to understand the risk of COVID-19 and to identify ways to stay safe. This understanding was accomplished through COVID-19 communication ecologies that consist of interpersonal, organizational, and mediated communication resources. In the current study, we examine the U.S. COVID-19 communication ecology in September 2021. We introduce the communication ecology network (CEN) model, which posits that similar useful communication resources will cluster in a communication ecology, and we use network analysis for visualization of the ecology. Our results indicate a robust COVID-19 communication ecology. The most important communication resources in the ecology were partisan and organizational communication resources. We identify and discuss five clusters within the COVID-19 communication ecology and examine how use of each of these clusters is associated with belief in COVID-19 misinformation. Our use of network analysis illustrates benefits of this analytical approach to studying communication ecologies.

Highlights

A new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged in December 2019 to quickly become a global public health threat (Fauci et al, 2020)
We introduce the communication ecology network (CEN) model, which posits that utilization of related communication resources will cluster together within an overall CEN
This figure illustrates the associations between communication resource behaviors related to finding out about COVID-19 reported by participants from the U.S states of Michigan and Texas

Summary

Introduction

A new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged in December 2019 to quickly become a global public health threat (Fauci et al, 2020). Ascertaining the best protective behaviors to utilize during the COVID-19 pandemic can be difficult, as public health recommendations related to COVID-19 often changed in real time as scientific understanding of the disease evolved. During a public health emergency like COVID-19, individuals may seek to understand an emerging disease through an evolving communication ecology that includes interpersonal, organizational, and mediated communication resources. The current study examines the use of a variety of COVID-19 communication resources by U.S adults to gather information about the novel and evolving COVID-19 pandemic. In studying this case, we introduce the communication ecology network (CEN) model, which posits that utilization of related communication resources will cluster together within an overall CEN. Using more communication resources may provide information triangulation (Greyson, 2018), which can provide an individual more confidence that the information received is accurate and trustworthy

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion