Predicting the antecedents of discontinuous usage intention of mobile government social media during public health emergencies

Abstract

Mobile government social media (GSM) plays a crucial role in facilitating government–citizen crisis communication and pandemic-related information delivery during public health emergencies. However, the lack of interaction and supervision, as well as deviations from the government's crisis communication position, can lead to some mobile GSM accounts gradually becoming “zombie” and “empty shell” accounts, resulting in high discontinuance rates. To investigate the underlying mechanism of mobile GSM discontinuous usage intention during public health emergencies, this study utilized hybrid structural equation modeling with an artificial neural network approach to estimate linear and non-linear relations. Data were collected from 748 Chinese mobile GSM users during the COVID-19 pandemic from August to September 2021. The findings revealed that perceived risks and barriers, information overload, information irrelevance, and social media fatigue significantly affected mobile GSM users' discontinuous usage intentions during public health emergencies, while perceived internet censorship and information equivocality did not. The hybrid method predicted mobile GSM discontinuous usage intention during public health emergencies with an accuracy of 87.9%. This study provides a holistic understanding of the antecedents of mobile GSM discontinuous usage intention during public health emergencies. Practical insights were presented for mobile GSM managers to avoid user churn during public health emergencies.