One Earth, One Humanity Versus the Virus: Examining the Global COVID-19 Social Partnership Communication Networks on Social Media

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed severe challenges that require collaborative efforts from multi-sector organizations. Guided by an institutional theory framework that considers how both organizational fields and national level contexts affect organizations' social partnership communication, the current study examines the COVID-19-related social partnership communication network on social media. The cross-national study using semantic network analysis and exponential random graph models (ERGMs) first maps the meaning of COVID-19 social partnership network, and then investigates the role of organizational fields and a country's political system, economic system, educational system, and cultural system on the formation of interorganizational communication ties surrounding the relief efforts of COVID-19. Results reveal the importance of the political system—such as the presence of populist government, economic disparity, and uncertainty avoidance cultural orientation in shaping the social media-based social partnership communication network. In addition, NGOs from multiple issue areas are actively engaged in the network, whereas corporations from manufacturing and financial industries are active players.

One Earth, One Humanity Versus the Virus: Examining the Global COVID-19 Social Partnership Communication Networks on Social Media

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed severe challenges that require collaborative efforts from multi-sector organizations. Guided by an institutional theory framework that considers how both organizational fields and national level contexts affect organizations' social partnership communication, the current study examines the COVID-19-related social partnership communication network on social media. The cross-national study using semantic network analysis and exponential random graph models (ERGMs) first maps the meaning of COVID-19 social partnership network, and then investigates the role of organizational fields and a country's political system, economic system, educational system, and cultural system on the formation of interorganizational communication ties surrounding the relief efforts of COVID-19. Results reveal the importance of the political system—such as the presence of populist government, economic disparity, and uncertainty avoidance cultural orientation in shaping the social media-based social partnership communication network. In addition, NGOs from multiple issue areas are actively engaged in the network, whereas corporations from manufacturing and financial industries are active players.

A text-mining study on emotional cognition, understanding, and preventative behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to look at emotions perceived about the attributes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases related to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that were widespread across the world and identify their relevance to knowledge about infectious diseases and preventative behaviors. METHODS: Texts to measure emotional cognition were selected through a pre-test, and 282 people were chosen as participants based on the survey conducted for 20 days from August 19 to August 29, 2020, created with Google Forms. IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 was used for the primary analysis, and the SNA package in R (version 4.0.2) was utilized to conduct the network analysis. RESULTS: It was found that universal negative emotions such as feeling "anxious" (65.5%), "afraid" (46.1%), and "scared" (32.7%) commonly appeared among most people. Also, they were found to be feeling both positive ("caring" [42.3%] and "strict" [28.2%]) and negative ("frustrating" [39.1%] and "isolated" [31.0%]) emotions about efforts to prevent and curb the spread of COVID-19. In terms of emotional cognition for the diagnosis and treatment of such diseases, "reliable" (43.3%) took the biggest ratio among the replies. The level of understanding about infectious diseases showed differences in emotional cognition, thereby affecting people's emotions. However, no differences were found in the practice of preventative behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Emotions associated with cognition in the context of pandemic infectious diseases have been found to be mixed. Furthermore, it can be seen that feelings vary depending on the degree of understanding of the infectious disease.

Moral foundations, ideological divide, and public engagement with u.S. Government agencies' covid-19 vaccine communication on social media

Guided by moral foundation theory, this study examined how moral framing interacted with local constituents' ideological leaning to affect public engagement outcomes of government agencies' COVID-19 vaccine communication on Facebook. We analyzed a dataset of over 5,000 U.S. government agencies' Facebook posts on COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 (N = 70,671), assessed their use of moral language using a newly developed computational method, and examined how political divide manifests itself at the collective level. Findings from both fixed and random effects models suggest that: 1) the use of moral language is positively associated with public engagement outcomes on government agencies' social media accounts;2) five types of moral foundations have distinct effects on three types of public engagement (affective, cognitive, and retransmission);3) moral foundations and local politics interact to affect public engagement, in that followers of government agencies in liberal states/counties prefer messages emphasizing the care/harm and fairness/cheating dimensions while those in conservative states/counties prefer the loyalty/betrayal dimension. The study demonstrates how a strategic employment of moral language can contribute to public engagement of government agencies' mass communication campaigns. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The Chimeric Adenovirus (Ad5/35) Expressing Engineered Spike Protein Confers Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in Mice and Non-Human Primates.

Several COVID-19 platforms have been licensed across the world thus far, but vaccine platform research that can lead to effective antigen delivery is still ongoing. Here, we constructed AdCLD-CoV19 that could modulate humoral immunity by harboring SARS-CoV-2 antigens onto a chimeric adenovirus 5/35 platform that was effective in cellular immunity. By replacing the S1/S2 furin cleavage sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein mounted on AdCLD-CoV19 with the linker sequence, high antigen expression was confirmed in various cell lines. The high levels of antigen expression contributed to antigen-specific antibody activity in mice and non-human primates (NHPs) with a single vaccination of AdCLD-CoV19. Furthermore, the adenovirus-induced Th1 immune response was specifically raised for the S protein, and these immune responses protected the NHP against live viruses. While AdCLD-CoV19 maintained neutralizing antibody activity against various SARS-CoV-2 variants, it was reduced to single vaccination for ß and ο variants, and the reduced neutralizing antibody activity was restored with booster shots. Hence, AdCLD-CoV19 can prevent SARS-CoV-2 with a single vaccination, and the new vaccine administration strategy that responds to various variants can maintain the efficacy of the vaccine.

The mediating effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between communication skills and practices of preventing infectious diseases among daycare center teachers in South Korea

Purpose This study investigated the practices of preventing infectious diseases by daycare center teachers. The focus was on the mediating effects of self-efficacy in the relationship between communication skills and practices of preventing infectious diseases. Methods This study used a descriptive correlational design. The participants were 164 daycare center teachers. Hierarchical regression was used to test the mediating effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between communication skills and practices of preventing infectious diseases. Data were analyzed using the independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation coefficients, and hierarchical regression. The mediation effect was analyzed using an SPSS Macro program, PROCESS. Results Significant relationships were found between communication skills and practices of preventing infectious diseases (β=.19, p<.001), self-efficacy and practices of preventing infectious diseases (β=.59, p<.001), and communication skills and self-efficacy (β=.27, p<.001). Self-efficacy had a significant mediating effect (β=.17, 95% confidence interval=0.07-0.29) on practices of preventing infectious diseases. Conclusion In order to improve practices of preventing infectious diseases among daycare teachers, it is necessary to develop and apply interventions and methods that can increase effective communication skills and self-efficacy.

Changes in Physical Activity Compared to the Situation before the Outbreak of COVID-19 in Korea.

The purpose of this study is to examine changes in physical activity in Korean society, after the outbreak of COVID-19. Method This study was conducted using the Korean Community Health Survey conducted in 2019 and 2020. Subjects that have been diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes were excluded; a total of 355,914 cases were involved for analysis. In terms of the analysis method, General Linear Model (GLM) was conducted to examine the changes in physical activities in 2019 and 2020 depending on the presence of a spouse, educational status, and economic activities. In addition, the GLM was adopted to divide the subjects by gender and age, and analyze their physical activity changes in 2019 and 2020 with spouse presence, educational status, and economic activities as adjusted variables. Result In terms of Koreans, those without a spouse, high educational attainment, and economically inactive were less engaged in physical activities. Differences were found in subjects regarding moderate-intensity physical activities after social distancing following the spread of COVID-19. Senior females without a spouse, both males and females with low educational attainment, economically inactive adult females, and economically active senior males showed a greater drop in physical activities. For walking hours, both adult males and females without a spouse, adult females with all educational attainment level excluding elementary and middle school graduates, and economically inactive adult males and females also showed a downward trend. Conclusion The study recommends that people develop a strategy to increase their post-outbreak physical activity, taking into account the sociodemographic.

Organizational sensemaking in tough times: The ecology of NGOs' COVID-19 issue discourse communities on social media.

NGOs are important civil actors in societies' emergency and disaster responses, and they come together on social media to identify prominent issues and coordinate issue responses. This research explores how U.S. NGO form topic-driven communities on social media to discuss and build representational strategic networks around issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from Issue Niche Theory, we examined how NGOs' networks and discourse evolved before and after the general public paid great attention to the COVID-19 issue and how such patterns changed across the whole issue niche and sub-issue niches. We analyzed the evolution of Twitter-based networks and discourse of 2,588 NGOs in the first five months of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Our analysis revealed important factors that shape tie formation patterns in the NGOs' communities in this novel issue niche. The findings show that NGOs' discourses help to orient the organizational community to identify most salient issues. Finally, changes in the discourse patterns reflected changes in the communication networks in the NGO community.