Abstract
As the country where the COVID-19 was first reported and initially broke out, China has controlled the spread of the pandemic well. The pandemic prevention process included emergency response and risk communication, both of which could notably increase public participation, people’s anxiety has been alleviated, their confidence in the government has been enhanced, and the implementation of prevention and control measures has been understood. This study selected 157,283 articles published by 447 accounts across 326 cities in February 2020 from WeChat, the largest social media application in China, to systematically compare the spatial distributions in the effectiveness of emergency responses and risk communication. The results showed that there were significant regional differences in the effectiveness of emergency response and risk communication during the pandemic period in China. The effectiveness of emergency response and risk communication are related to the exposure risk to the COVID-19, the level of economy, culture, and education of the region, the type of accounts and articles, and the ranking of the articles in posts. The timeliness and distribution types of articles should take into account the psychological changes in communication recipients to avoid the dissemination of homogenized information to the masses and the resulting information receiving fatigue period.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
This study aims to analyze the regional differences in China by reviewing the development of emergency response and risk communication in different parts of China, so as to provide a reference for future crisis management
One of the most effective ways to effectively control the pandemic in Wuhan, where the pandemic first broke out, promotes public participation through risk communication and facing the uncertain pandemic situation together [84]. This is the first study investigating the spatial distribution of the effectiveness of emergency response and risk communication via social media in China in February 2020, when the existing COVID-19 infected cases peaked in China
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which first broke out in Wuhan, China, quickly spread across the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has a profound impact on economic development, industrial manufacturing, and public wellbeing [1,2]. By January 2021, the accumulative detected COVID-19 infections had exceeded 100 million worldwide. The prevention and control of the COVID-19 is a governance issue, which requires the coordination of central and local governments, various social organizations, and the public [3]
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