The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis.
<h4>Introduction</h4>Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplificati...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257428 |
| _version_ | 1798032088714182656 |
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| author | Suellen Hopfer Emilia J Fields Yuwen Lu Ganesh Ramakrishnan Ted Grover Quishi Bai Yicong Huang Chen Li Gloria Mark |
| author_facet | Suellen Hopfer Emilia J Fields Yuwen Lu Ganesh Ramakrishnan Ted Grover Quishi Bai Yicong Huang Chen Li Gloria Mark |
| author_sort | Suellen Hopfer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <h4>Introduction</h4>Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplification risk framework offers insight into how a risk event interacts with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural communication processes to shape Covid-19 risk perception.<h4>Methods</h4>Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 7,024 mask tweets reflecting 6,286 users between January 24 and July 7, 2020, to identify how citizens expressed Covid-19 risk perception over time. Descriptive statistics were computed for (a) proportion of tweets using hyperlinks, (b) mentions, (c) hashtags, (d) questions, and (e) location.<h4>Results</h4>Six themes emerged regarding how mask tweets amplified and attenuated Covid-19 risk: (a) severity perceptions (18.0%) steadily increased across 5 months; (b) mask effectiveness debates (10.7%) persisted; (c) who is at risk (26.4%) peaked in April and May 2020; (d) mask guidelines (15.6%) peaked April 3, 2020, with federal guidelines; (e) political legitimizing of Covid-19 risk (18.3%) steadily increased; and (f) mask behavior of others (31.6%) composed the largest discussion category and increased over time. Of tweets, 45% contained a hyperlink, 40% contained mentions, 33% contained hashtags, and 16.5% were expressed as a question.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Users ascribed many meanings to mask wearing in the social media information environment revealing that COVID-19 risk was expressed in a more expanded range than objective risk. The simultaneous amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception on social media complicates public health messaging about mask wearing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T20:07:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9c9e17194c924d339e31892078051a4c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T20:07:18Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-9c9e17194c924d339e31892078051a4c2022-12-22T04:05:17ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032021-01-01169e025742810.1371/journal.pone.0257428The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis.Suellen HopferEmilia J FieldsYuwen LuGanesh RamakrishnanTed GroverQuishi BaiYicong HuangChen LiGloria Mark<h4>Introduction</h4>Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplification risk framework offers insight into how a risk event interacts with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural communication processes to shape Covid-19 risk perception.<h4>Methods</h4>Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 7,024 mask tweets reflecting 6,286 users between January 24 and July 7, 2020, to identify how citizens expressed Covid-19 risk perception over time. Descriptive statistics were computed for (a) proportion of tweets using hyperlinks, (b) mentions, (c) hashtags, (d) questions, and (e) location.<h4>Results</h4>Six themes emerged regarding how mask tweets amplified and attenuated Covid-19 risk: (a) severity perceptions (18.0%) steadily increased across 5 months; (b) mask effectiveness debates (10.7%) persisted; (c) who is at risk (26.4%) peaked in April and May 2020; (d) mask guidelines (15.6%) peaked April 3, 2020, with federal guidelines; (e) political legitimizing of Covid-19 risk (18.3%) steadily increased; and (f) mask behavior of others (31.6%) composed the largest discussion category and increased over time. Of tweets, 45% contained a hyperlink, 40% contained mentions, 33% contained hashtags, and 16.5% were expressed as a question.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Users ascribed many meanings to mask wearing in the social media information environment revealing that COVID-19 risk was expressed in a more expanded range than objective risk. The simultaneous amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception on social media complicates public health messaging about mask wearing.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257428 |
| spellingShingle | Suellen Hopfer Emilia J Fields Yuwen Lu Ganesh Ramakrishnan Ted Grover Quishi Bai Yicong Huang Chen Li Gloria Mark The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. PLoS ONE |
| title | The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. |
| title_full | The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. |
| title_fullStr | The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. |
| title_full_unstemmed | The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. |
| title_short | The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis. |
| title_sort | social amplification and attenuation of covid 19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior a longitudinal twitter analysis |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257428 |
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