Public and Private Information Sharing under "New Normal" of COVID-19: Understanding the Roles of Habit and Outcome Expectation.

Information sharing is critical in risk communication and management during the COVID-19 epidemic, and information sharing has been a part of individual prevention and particular lifestyles under the "New Normal" of COVID-19. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore influencing factors and mechanisms in public and private information sharing intention among people under the regular risk situation. This study investigated an information sharing mechanism based on a cross-sectional design. We collected 780 valid responses through a sample database of an online questionnaire platform and utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to further analyze the data. To explore the difference caused by news frames, we divided respondents into two groups according to the news frame (action frame vs. reassurance frame) and proceeded with the multi-group analysis. The results showed that four types of outcome expectations (information seeking, emotion regulation, altruism and public engagement) and habit had impacts on public and private information sharing intention. Two paths influencing information sharing proposed in this study were supported. The results showed that outcome expectations were positively related to habit, which implies that the cognitive mechanism was positively relevant to the formation of habit. The results proved that habit played a mediating role between outcome expectations and information sharing. This research found that emotion regulation and public engagement outcome expectations only affected two types of information sharing intention mediated by habit. Regarding the role of the news frame, this study found no significant difference between the group exposed to action-framed news and the group exposed to reassurance-framed news. By exploring influencing factors and the mechanism of information sharing under the "New Normal", these findings contribute to understanding of information sharing and have implications on risk management. The proposed mechanism classifying public and private information sharing complements risk information flowing by considering online risk incubation.

The digital divide behind the news spread of novel coronavirus.

At the end of 2019, Novel Coronavirus appeared, accompanied by massive epidemic information which reveals the digital divide of global concern. Through a questionnaire and interviews, the situation of the intergenerational digital divide, provincial digital divide and urban and rural digital divide behind the epidemic can be preliminarily concluded. In addition to the great help provided by new media, traditional media also played an important role in the spread of information about the epidemic. To continue to narrow the digital divide in the spread of information about the epidemic, the government should work to control rumors, and new media and traditional media should cooperate more scientifically in order to give play to their respective advantages. In addition, it is suggested that the elderly should also be helped in terms of their ability of using new media.