Examining users’ emotional responses to YouTube content during the Covid-19 crisis: A cross-country experiment

Wednesday, March 11, 2020, was a catastrophic day for sports fans in the United States. This day began with a few minor athletic events being postponed, but ended with the world of sports ultimately being put on hold due to suspensions and cancellations of seasons and leagues because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. It is questionable whether the public recognized Covid-19 as a serious threat at this time, even with cases originating in China dating back to December of 2019. For the research upon which this chapter is based, 201 United States residents were surveyed in an attempt to ascertain which announcement caused them to believe this virus was “real.” In doing so, the chapter examines sport’s ability to impact public consciousness regarding a public health pandemic. The study’s findings – which reveal the degree to which participants chose a sport-related announcement (e.g., suspension of play) as the key instrument in their recognition of the seriousness of Covid-19 – illustrate the strength of sport as a cultural influencer and an effective public health communication medium.

This Special Issue was conceived and developed following a series of international conferences held in Asia, with a particular focus on critically reflecting upon higher education development in the region from broader social and political economy perspectives. Some of the papers in this Special Issue were selected from presentations in the East Asia Social Policy (EASP) Research Network Conference successfully held in Taiwan in 2018, while others were chosen from international events held at Lingnan University in Hong Kong presenting critical reviews and reflections on internationalization, marketization and graduate employment of higher education in Asia. This introductory article puts the discussions of the selected papers in this issue in context, with critical reflections on the key issues being examined in these papers. The Special Issue is published when the world is still confronting the unprecedented global health crisis resulted from the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article discusses the higher education development trends in Asia through the massification, diversification and internationalisation processes in transforming the higher education system and examines how these development trends are affected by the COVID‐19 crisis.

Technological developments led to the advancement of new tactics for terrorism that require risk and crisis communication initiatives. This chapter explores the historical trends of risk and crisis communication research, unraveling the rapid growth and evolution of both fields while noting similarities and differences between them, and reviews the development of academic research centers related to advancing the study and practice of risk and crisis communication. Large, eclectic arrays of federal agencies play a role in risk and crisis communication in the United States. Of special interest for risk and crisis communicators is the advent of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Risk and crisis communication both deal and address intentional as well as unintentional risks or crises. Recently efforts have been made to combine risk and crisis communication into an area of research and practice defined as crisis and emergency risk communication.

Helping Nursing Homes to Manage the COVID-19 Crisis: An Illustrative Example from France.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic led to the necessity of immediate crisis communication by public health authorities. In Germany, as in many other countries, people choose social media, including Twitter, to obtain real-time information and understanding of the pandemic and its consequences. Next to authorities, experts such as virologists and science communicators were very prominent at the beginning of German Twitter COVID-19 crisis communication.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to detect similarities and differences between public authorities and individual experts in COVID-19 crisis communication on Twitter during the first year of the pandemic.MethodsDescriptive analysis and quantitative content analysis were carried out on 8251 original tweets posted from January 1, 2020, to January 15, 2021. COVID-19–related tweets of 21 authorities and 18 experts were categorized into structural, content, and style components. Negative binomial regressions were performed to evaluate tweet spread measured by the retweet and like counts of COVID-19–related tweets.ResultsDescriptive statistics revealed that authorities and experts increasingly tweeted about COVID-19 over the period under study. Two experts and one authority were responsible for 70.26% (544,418/774,865) of all retweets, thus representing COVID-19 influencers. Altogether, COVID-19 tweets by experts reached a 7-fold higher rate of retweeting (t8,249=26.94, P<.001) and 13.9 times the like rate (t8,249=31.27, P<.001) compared with those of authorities. Tweets by authorities were much more designed than those by experts, with more structural and content components; for example, 91.99% (4997/5432) of tweets by authorities used hashtags in contrast to only 19.01% (536/2819) of experts’ COVID-19 tweets. Multivariate analysis revealed that such structural elements reduce the spread of the tweets, and the incidence rate of retweets for authorities’ tweets using hashtags was approximately 0.64 that of tweets without hashtags (Z=–6.92, P<.001). For experts, the effect of hashtags on retweets was insignificant (Z=1.56, P=.12).ConclusionsTwitter data are a powerful information source and suitable for crisis communication in Germany. COVID-19 tweet activity mirrors the development of COVID-19 cases in Germany. Twitter users retweet and like communications regarding COVID-19 by experts more than those delivered by authorities. Tweets have higher coverage for both authorities and experts when they are plain and for authorities when they directly address people. For authorities, it appears that it was difficult to win recognition during COVID-19. For all stakeholders studied, the association between number of followers and number of retweets was highly significantly positive (authorities Z=28.74, P<.001; experts Z=25.99, P<.001). Updated standards might be required for successful crisis communication by authorities.

The global spread of COVID-19 transforms the communication practices not only of business structures, but also of state institutions. Numerous crisis situations arose for the public administration, which were both specific and requiring coordinating communication actions with local authorities and related ministries. The experts in public communications in the structures of the state administration carry out relations with media, building relations with non-governmental organizations and representatives of the civil sector, organizing visits, coordination with other institutions. Following the pandemic crisis, PR professionals and crisis managers had to develop digital skills and competencies for strategic planning and online public communication.Purpose: The aim of the study is to analyse the Bulgarian institutions crisis communication infrastructure during the pandemic. The study aims to 1) provide information on the practical challenges for PR experts in designing and implementing online crisis communication strategies on social media; 2) to review the quality and quantity of the published content in the Facebook profiles of the state administration; 3) to present a conceptual framework for the quality of the communication strategies of the PA during a crisis.Methodology: The research methodology is based on of both qualitative and quantitative methods: 1) theoretical sources and research for peculiarities of the communication in the structures of the public administration, crisis communication in the public administration are analysed; 2) by the method of case study a qualitative analysis of the official Facebook profiles of 17 ministries and municipalities was made; 3) a representative empirical study was conducted with 182 communication specialists working in the Bulgarian public administration.Findings: The study identifies the most common crisis situations caused by the pandemic and systematizes traditional and online communication techniques. The results of the survey summarize the three stages of crisis communication management: 1) preliminary preparation (pre-crisis); 2) Crisis phase and response; 3) post-crisis period.Research limitations: Our study covers only the structures of the state administration in Bulgaria. The period of case analysis is March – December 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Bulgaria. The questionnaire was distributed only among communication specialists in municipal and state structures to achieve maximum accuracy in answering specialized questions.Originality: This is the first study in Bulgaria that highlights good practices and deficits in communication strategies of Bulgarian institutions during crisis.Discussion: The study raises research questions about the online communication strategies of the Bulgarian institutions during the pandemic and about the digital competencies of the communication specialists in the public administration.Conclusion: Deficits have been registered in terms of online communication strategies - there is no clear identification of stakeholders and vulnerable groups, the quality of the created online content is low, and in a number of institutions it is missing.

COVID-19 is a major infectious disease sweeping the world, and the United States is one of the most seriously affected countries. In this process, what is the main impact of populism on American leaders and people to guard against COVID-19? This paper mainly focuses on the medical prevention of COVID-19 and pure populism, and lacks joint research. Meanwhile, as the epidemic situation is still developing, there are still innovations in related research. This paper will further improve the research on preventing COVID-19, combine it with populist analysis, and explore the impact of populism on preventing COVID-19 in the United States. In terms of research methods, this article focuses on the media's propaganda on the situation of COVID-19 and its prevention and control measures, the specific policies and measures adopted by the Trump administration in relation to COVID-19 and the Republican Party's disregard. In conclusion, the populist government in the United States did not pay enough attention to COVID-19 from the very beginning but regarded it as a tool to get people’s support and play its political role. However, with the severe development of the epidemic, these behaviors led to the seriousness of COVID-19 in the United States. In addition, from the party point of view, Republicans’ relatively negative attitude and behavior of epidemic prevention have delayed the effective time of epidemic control.KeywordsCOVID-19PopulismThe United StatesRepublicansTrump

This study adds to the current literature on crisis communication by exploring differences in COVID-19 governmental crisis communication and variances in the media coverage of that communication through thematic quantitative content analysis across three countries: New Zealand, The United States and The United Kingdom. Specifically, this research seeks to find the extent to which media ideology plays a role in reporting health crises. Results demonstrated that universally, press conferences were based on scientific advice and relied upon symbols that contributed to the clarity of health communication about COVID-19. Conversely, media coverage stressed economic challenges overall, but conservative newspapers focused more on health and the economy, whereas liberal newspapers leaned more towards politics. These findings demonstrate that even in major health crises, the ideologies of newspapers can play an important role in the framing of information.

COVID-19 communication has drawn a sharp focus across the globe and elicited varied publicperceptions. This study sought to assess the influence of covid-19 crisis communication onpublic perception of the Kenyan government communication strategy with a case of Kibra subcounty Nairobi, Kenya, from March 2020 to December 2020. The main objective was to assesshow the government's daily speeches influenced the public interpretation of the COVID-19crisis. The rationale was based on assessing the public perception of the government’scommunication strategy. The findings of this study will be be helpful to communicationexperts and will help in improving the existing crisis communication strategies. This waslimited to Lindi ward in Kibra sub-county. Source Credibility Theory (CT) and SituationalCrisis Communication Theory (CCT) were used for understanding perception. This studyadopted a survey design to collect quantitative data involving 123 household heads sampledpurposively in Lindi, Kibra through a modified Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication(CERC) questionnaire. Averagely, 1% of the respondents disagreed with questions regardingCOVID-19 daily speeches, 8.5% indicated neutrality, and 90.5% agreed with the statements.The study concluded that the public's perceptions of government communication strategyregarding the COVID-19 crisis were favorable. The study recommends investigating theimpact of the centralization of the Kenyan government communication departments on crisiscommunication.Keywords: Crisis Communication, Public Perception, Communication Strategy

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LettersFull AccessPsychiatry and Crisis Communication During COVID-19: A View From the TrenchesKatherine A. Koh, M.D., M.Sc., Giuseppe Raviola, M.D., M.P.H., Frederick J. Stoddard Jr., M.D.Katherine A. KohSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., M.Sc., Giuseppe RaviolaSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., M.P.H., Frederick J. Stoddard Jr.Search for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:5 May 2021https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202000912AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail TO THE EDITOR: Despite the importance of effective crisis communication to promote mental health, inconsistent public messaging and misinformation have abounded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public messaging is an evidence-based field within public health, shaping public perceptions and health behaviors during disasters (1). As psychiatrists working on the front lines throughout this pandemic in the United States and globally, we believe that psychiatry and psychiatrists can play a vital role as leaders in crisis communication and public messaging—a role that is currently underdeveloped.The American Psychiatric Association Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster (CPDD) recently released guidance on communicating with the public during this pandemic (2). Evidence suggests that in a crisis, affected people process and act on information differently than they do otherwise, such as by misinterpreting messages, holding onto preexisting beliefs, or believing the first message heard (1). The CPDD messaging guidelines provide key elements of effective crisis communication to help overcome these biases. The principles call on providers to “use trusted messengers, avoid jargon, use culturally sensitive messages, convey accurate scientific and mental health information, deliver messaging according to a defined schedule, and avoid excessive reassurance” (2). The guidelines state that principle-based messaging should help vulnerable populations, promote desired behaviors and sense of control, reduce distress, and offer realistic hope for positive interventions, change, and recovery (2).With individual patients, psychiatrists can activate these principles and be important crisis communicators during virtual or in-person clinical encounters. Understanding the nuances of patients’ cognitive and social situations, psychiatrists can naturally play the role of trusted messengers who use culturally sensitive approaches. Practically, psychiatrists can discuss with patients their understanding and application of mask wearing, physical distancing, vaccination, and daily routines to mitigate mental health risks, and they can create specific instructions for those who are severely mentally ill, homeless, limited in understanding language, disabled, or elderly. Patients can leave a clinical encounter equipped with a correct scientific understanding as well as realistic hope for positive interventions to reduce mental health risks.On a public health level, psychiatrists are also poised to be leaders who interface with allied mental health professionals, other medical specialties, the community, and media. Yet relatively few psychiatrists have spoken out concerning the pandemic response, perhaps because interacting with the public involves a different skill set than that used to communicate with a patient during a clinical encounter. Public communication and media training are common in business and government but lacking in psychiatric education (3)—an important gap that should be addressed.A core feature of effective pandemic responses is communication between governments, health professionals, scientists, the media, and the public (4). As clinicians working with patients and as potential leaders for populations, psychiatrists have a critical role to play in communicating science accurately and in evaluating performance during this and future disasters. With a new Administration and widespread vaccine dissemination under way, the opportunity for psychiatrists to improve pandemic-related public messaging must be grasped to help end this pandemic. There is no time to lose.Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (all authors); Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, Boston (Koh); Partners in Health, Boston (Raviola).Send correspondence to Dr. Koh ([email protected]).The authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.References1 Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication: Psychology of a Crisis. Atlanta, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019 Google Scholar2 Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster : Communicating With the Public During the COVID-19 Pandemic . Washington, DC , American Psychiatric Association , 2021 . https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/APA-Guidance-Communicating-with-Public-During-COVID-19.pdf Google Scholar3 Morris NP , Johansen SL , May M , et al. : Media-related education in psychiatry residency programs . Acad Psychiatry 2018 ; 42 : 679 – 685 Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar4 Wang H , Cleary PD , Little J , et al. : Communicating in a public health crisis . Lancet Digit Health 2020 ; 2 : e503 Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 72Issue 5 May 01, 2021Pages 615-615 Metrics KeywordsCommunity psychiatryDisastersPublic healthPDF download History Received 16 December 2020 Revised 26 January 2021 Accepted 29 January 2021 Published online 5 May 2021 Published in print 1 May 2021

This study was conducted to analyze crisis communication strategy conducted by Samsung in handling Samsung Galaxy Note 7 explosion cases in the United States and South Korea occurred in August to October 2016. Samsung utilized internet-based organization’s media such as website and social media Twitter as communication channel during and after the crisis. This study attempted to discover how effective Samsung’s crisis communication through website and Twitter to address the global issues which threaten the company’s reputation is. This study used content analysis method which is suitable for Samsung Galaxy Note 7 case. Content analysis is used to identify crisis and post-crisis communication strategies conducted by Samsung by utilizing website and social media Twitter. The data in this study are taken from the content of Samsung’s Website and Twitter during and after the crisis. The findings of the study show that Samsung used the methods and strategies of crisis communication proposed by W. Timothy Coombs aimed at minimizing the negative impact of the crisis, striving to maintain the company’s operations, and how to improve reputation after the crisis. Through Twitter, Samsung is also doing post-crisis communications by creating innovations as they learned from the crisis.

Building on job demands-resources (JD-R model) and the social support theory, this study investigates how perceived quality of crisis communication and social support influence perceived uncertainties, emotional exhaustion, and resilience among college students in Kenya and the United States during the COVID-19 crisis. Data were collected using a survey (N= 394). The results indicate that higher perceived quality of crisis communication is associated with lower perceived uncertainties about the COVID-19 crisis. Both peer and advisor support are found to reduce students' perceived uncertainties. Notably, Kenyan students reported receiving more peer support compared to American students, while American students reported higher levels of advisor support. Additionally, perceived uncertainties mediated the relationship between advisor support and emotional exhaustion. Contrary to expectations, organizational intransigence did not moderate the relationship between social support and perceived uncertainties. Finally, a positive association was observed between perceived quality of crisis communication and resilience among students. These findings suggest the importance of effective crisis communication and social support in fostering resilience among students, with implications for both policy and practice across different cultural contexts.

Although formal communication from an organization’s management is crucial during a crisis to reduce the uncertainties of employee, less is known about the moderating role of social support that could make employees rely less on formal communication to reduce those uncertainties. Grounded in uncertainty reduction theory, this research examines the role of crisis communication on the perceived uncertainties and emotional exhaustion of employees who work at private international universities that have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, this research explores the moderating effect of social support in terms of supervisor support and coworker support on the association between crisis communication and perceived uncertainties. Questionnaire data were collected from 300 employees from two private international universities in Thailand. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. The analysis shows that perceived uncertainties mediate the negative association between crisis communication and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the moderating effect analysis shows that the association between crisis communication and perceived uncertainties is significantly moderated by coworker support, but not by supervisor support. Simple slope analysis also clearly shows that the negative association between crisis communication and perceived uncertainties only presents in employees with a low level of coworker support. For employees with high coworker support, crisis communication does not associate negatively with perceived uncertainties. This research implies that the informal communication that employees obtain from social support could play a compensatory role for their need to rely on formal communication to reduce uncertainties during the crisis.

The coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has changed daily life dramatically since early 2020. Although COVID-19 vaccines are available in the United States, many express distrust in this primary prevention measure and doubt both the seriousness of COVID-19 and its associated morbidity and mortality. Vaccine hesitancy, also described as the reluctance or refusal of vaccines despite availability, exists on a continuum and was a known public health threat prior to the coronavirus pandemic. This narrative review examines studies related to the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among adults in the United States. Also explored are the factors related to COVID-19 vaccine risk communication and available interventions to address COVID-19. Perceived severity of and susceptibility to COVID-19, trust in public health authorities and government in general, educational attainment, income, race, and sex were found to be significant determinants of vaccine hesitancy. Due to lack of available evidence-based interventions to counter COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, peer-reviewed commentaries and other health communication principles formed the basis of additional recommendations for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy interventions. Recommendations included trust-building efforts at the community, national, and institutional levels, as well as addressing social determinants of health. These findings may be limited by recent vaccine mandates related to education and to employment. Future research is needed to identify any changes in acceptance, uptake, and trust in institutions such as public health agencies and universities, and representatives of those institutions.

BackgroundPublic transportation plays a major role in the transmission of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, due to the confined spaces in vehicles. It is therefore very crucial to apply COVID-19 prevention measures in public transportation to reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission. The implementation of these measures depends largely on the public transportation users. We explored the awareness, perceptions and challenges among public transport operators during the implementation of COVID-19 preventive measures in Eastern Uganda.MethodsThis qualitative study was done in Eastern Uganda in January and February 2021. We conducted four focus group discussions, six in-depth interviews and three key informant interviews to document the awareness, perceptions and challenges faced by public transport operators including 10 boda boda riders, 19 taxi operators and 11 truck (cargo) transporters. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed with the help of NVIVO software version 12 plus using a thematic framework approach.ResultsWe relied on the health belief model to report on four broad themes including: Perceived threat, perceived benefits, perceived barriers and cues to action.Perceived threatParticipants were aware of the gravity / seriousness of COVID-19. They were aware that it is an unusual flu whose symptoms are severe and clearly distinguishable from the common flu. They also knew that COVID-19 is easily and quickly transmitted. However they were not aware of the cause of COVID-19. Perceived benefits: the participants perceived a number covid 19 preventive measures as beneficial in preventing COVID-19. These included: COVID 19 vaccination, observing hand hygiene, avoiding touching the ‘soft parts’ (eyes, nose and mouth), quarantining in a hospital setting, wearing a face mask, social distancing,. Perceived barriers: participants reported barriers to implementing COVID 19 preventive measures included Misconceptions about COVID 19, scepticism about COVID-19 vaccination, not breathing well or respiratory problems hinders use of face masks, fear of covid 19 transmission during home isolation, design of the vehicles do not favour social distancing, passengers unwilling to pay the fare, natural reflexes come in the way of not touching soft parts, financial constraints, hostility from passengers due to increased transport fares, law enforcement officials prioritizing the driving permit over implementation of the measures, hostility from law enforcement officials, religious beliefs against the use of alcohol, competing for passengers among public transporters.Cues to action includedMass sensitization by the Ugandan government through the ministry of health with the help of media platforms like television.Conclusions and recommendationOur study brings to light the likely barriers that impede the use of preventive measures in public transportation use during an epidemic / pandemic like COVID-19 which could potentially escalate transmission. During cues to action like sensitization through media, focus should be put to the demystification of myths on COVID-19, highlighting on benefits of using preventive measures and risk of disease. Public transport passengers should be sensitized on risk of COVID-19 transmission during public transportation use and on the importance of complying with COVID-19 preventive measures. We recommend further exploration on the challenges faced by the public transportation passengers in implementing preventive measures in the event of an epidemic like COVID-19. Future research is required to establish a more robust transport model in crisis situations such as a pandemic. In addition, there is need for integration between the public health and public transportation sectors to foster epidemic preparedness for future crises in the context of public transportation.