Parsing the Interactive Construction of Crisis Memory on Social Media: From a Memory-Agenda Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study applied agenda-setting and agenda-building theories to explore the interactive memory agendas facilitated by social media. Focusing on the crisis memory of SARS constructed on Chinese social media (Weibo) during COVID-19, two competing approaches (top-down versus bottom-up) to crisis memory construction were empirically tested. A content analysis was first conducted to identify various crisis memory narratives, and then, rank-order analysis, cross-lagged correlation analysis, and multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure were performed to evaluate the reciprocal influences of crisis memory agendas of the second level (narrative salience) and the third level (narrative network) among different users. Findings show reciprocal influences among certain users’ memory-agendas in constructing crisis memory: media users showed influences on publics in terms of crisis memory agendas of both levels, while this crisis memory construction online also follows a bottom-up direction.