COVID-19 in social media: the effect of fear appeal messages in Facebook on users’ perception of hygienic measures to prevent contracting the disease

Abstract

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, a massive wave of fear appeal messages related to this disease was published on social media platforms, including Facebook. This research uses the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) to explore the impact of COVID-19 related fear appeal messages in Facebook on the perception of hygienic measures of Facebook users in Afghanistan. A nationwide paper-and-pen survey was conducted among Facebook users exposed to fear appeal messages related to COVID-19 in five highly populated cities in Afghanistan. The EPPM questionnaire was developed using the World Health Organization’s recommendations for preventive hygiene. By using the stratified random sampling method, 425 participants were selected. Pearson correlation coefficients and multilinear regression tests were used to analyze the data. The results show a significant relationship between exposure to fear appeal messages related to COVID-19 and perceptions of threat severity, susceptibility to COVID-19, self-efficacy, and response efficacy. The multilinear regression results show that exposure to fear appeal messages can help us predict the perception of threat severity and susceptibility. Finally, Facebook users in this study perceived a higher level of threat of COVID-19 than their level of perception of self-efficacy, so they were led to the process of fear control.