ABSTRACT
This study explored perceptions and effects of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system for COVID-19 public health messaging after a message was sent to Pennsylvania residents in November 2020. Survey and interview research were conducted to understand the targeted publics' reactions to this message and factors impacting potential behavior change. Findings showed residents who received the WEA expressed greater feelings of anger and surprise about the COVID-19 threat compared to those who did not. Additionally, for participants who did not receive the WEA message, higher arousals of fear and perceptions of threat severity predicted a higher likelihood that they would have changed their Thanksgiving plans. Interview data suggested positive emotions toward using WEAs for public health crises in general. Copyright 2023 Authors.
ABSTRACT
Media coverage of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has played a critical role throughout the pandemic: sharing news about the novel virus, policies and practices to mitigate it, and the race to create and distribute 4 vaccines. The media coverage, however, has been critiqued as stigmatizing. Although this critique is not new, there is limited understanding of how and why new stigmas emerge from exposure to media coverage. Drawing upon the model of stigma communication (Smith et al., 2019) and the attribution model of stigma (Corrigan et al., 2003), we investigated a novel model of stigma emergence that delineates two kinds of longitudinal processes: (a) a message-effects process, in which exposure to mediated messages about COVID-19 leads to public stigma through danger appraisal and (b) a coping process in which stress and rumination shape later perceptions of public stigma. To test the model, we tracked an emerging COVID-19 stigma with a two-wave survey of a prospective, longitudinal cohort living in one county in a mid-Atlantic state (N = 883). The results supported this model. The longitudinal processes of stigma emergence and implications for COVID-19 stigma are discussed.