THE USE OF METAPHOR IN DEFINING THE PANDEMIC PHENOMENON

Although pandemics are perceived as scientific and technical problems, their multi-layered political implications trigger an ideologyladen debate. In this paper, we argue that in the face of the upheavals caused by Covid-19, a considerable part of the political and media systems has used narratives rooted in neo-nationalist and neo-liberal ideologies. On the one hand, neo-nationalism is visible through the portrayal of stereotypical « others » in mainstream media. On the other hand, the health emergency has tested and will continue to test institutions and their ability to find and implement solutions that minimise harm without restricting individual freedoms. Those entrusted with the institutional and political responsibility to inform the public once again communicated on the event using the primal rhetorical figures. First in China, then in Italy and Europe, and finally throughout the world, politicians, journalists, doctors, economists and opinion leaders have defined the health emergency as "war". The metaphor of war has been used and abused from the beginning, and the first and most vocal disseminators of the term « war » and its associated concepts have been politicians. This paper proposes an extension of the concept of Orientalism as a possible key to understanding the construction of stereotypical representations of Covid-19 as the 'enemy' and the pandemic as 'war' during the lockdown. Furthermore, it is argued that political positions and conflicts over pandemic measures are not random and nor do they depend on the idiosyncrasy of individuals. Rather, they represent certain material interests and socio-cultural and ideological backgrounds.

How I learned to hate you. Parasocial interactions in echo chambers and their spillover effects

This article analyzes the most influential posts on Facebook related to COVID-19, for the first two years of the pandemic, to explain how parasocial opinion leaders created echo chambers, in the Romanian public sphere, and to discuss the cumulative spillover effects these echo chambers had on society at large. A database of the 233,242 most influential posts in Romanian about COVID-19, from the first two years of the pandemic, is investigated using a mixed methods approach, to 1) verify statistically if issue-related echo chambers existed and 2) to describe, qualitatively, how they functioned. A special focus is devoted to trolling in the form of reactions to posts, such as haha reactions for messages about COVID-related deaths. Using the literature on parasocial interaction, inoculation theory, online disinhibition effect and echo chambers, the article shows how echo chambers supported trolling behavior, for radicalized Facebook users, how they polluted the public discussion and how they made dialog impossible for social groups that ended up identifying each other as the enemy. Based on these research results, the author proposes two policy recommendations for social platforms.

Mega-Influencers as Online Opinion Leaders: Establishing Cosmetic Brand Engagement on Social Media

The prominent growth of social media users, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, allows social media to become a potential platform for product promotion. The presence of digital influencers as online opinion leaders has been proven to influence brand value perception, establish brand engagement, and encourage consumer purchase intention. As the country with the fourth-largest population globally, Indonesia is a lucrative market for cosmetic products. In addition to the rising number of the millennial generation who is interested in beauty products, the male segment which is no less concerned about appearance also expands the cosmetics market. A quantitative method was applied using an online questionnaire to 220 samples. The findings reveal that perceived influence has a positive effect on purchase intention with brand engagement in self-concept and brand expected value as the mediating variables. Likewise, brand engagement in self-concept has a positive effect on brand expected value. This study recommends XYZ Cosmetics to continue enrolling Tasya Farasya, considering that, as a mega-influencer with enormous Instagram followers in Indonesia, she can drive the perception and behavior of her followers.

Intra and Interreligious Dialogue before and after the Pandemic Distancing

The article describes the results of a study that explores the effects of pandemic distancing on the dialogue experienced within religious communities and between believers of different religious backgrounds. The design of the research conducted on Key Informants identified among opinion leaders of different religious communities residing in Italy is presented, after having defined the concepts of dialogue, as a method of encounter/clash between identities, and of secularism, as a critical attitude and as a field of game on which to develop dialogue. The analysis of the interviews reveals dialogue practices that show a distinction between dialectical conversation and a dialogic conversation that made it possible to continue the dialogue during and after the pandemic distancing.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Policy Texts and Media Narratives of COVID-19 Vaccine in Indonesia

This article aimed to discuss the discourse conveyed by the opinion leader regarding the policy tests used with regard to COVID-19 vaccine. This article used a qualitative research design with critical discourse analysis approach, accessed and retrieved data from the narratives displayed by online media using N-Capture on the N Vivo 12 plus. The conclusion derived was that the critical discourse of opinion leaders shows the existence of an ideology of interest, such as business vaccines or monopoly vaccines originating from one country, so the term "hammer and sickle vaccine" appears. There are manipulative deconstructions, such as the term “vaccine drama”. Although the social practices carried out by opinion leaders in the critical discourse, there are also constructive ones, such as support for domestically produced vaccines and free vaccines. Thus, the social practices carried out by opinion leaders are not completely destructive in dismantling the dominant discourse related to the COVID-19 vaccine. In short, the study found several policies that enjoyed the support of opinion leaders. © 2022 EJAL & the Authors.

On Designing a Time Sensitive Interaction Graph to Identify Twitter Opinion Leaders

What happened on social media during the recent pandemic? Who was the opinion leader of the conversations? Who influenced whom? Were they medical doctors, ordinary people, scientific experts? Did health institutions play an important role in informing and updating citizens? Identifying opinion leaders within social platforms is of particular importance and, in this paper, we introduce the idea of a time sensitive interaction graph to identify opinion leaders within Twitter conversations. To evaluate our proposal, we focused on all the tweets posted on Twitter in the period 2020-21 and we considered just the ones that were Italian-written and were related to COVID-19. After mapping these tweets into the graph, we applied the PageRank algorithm to extract the opinion leaders of these conversations. Results show that our approach is effective in identifying opinion leaders and therefore it might be used to monitor the role that specific accounts (i.e., health authorities, politicians, city administrators) have within specific conversations. © 2022 ACM.

Identification and Analysis of Opinion Leaders for COVID-19 Related Rumor Spreading in Social Media

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, thousands of rumors have occurred on social media, and it is significant to identify opinion leaders who play decisive roles during rumor spreading. However, existing literature lacks such opinion leaders identification and following analysis of COVID-19 background. So this paper takes a COVID-19 case as an example and collects data from Sina Weibo, which is a popular twitter-like social media in China. Then three different centrality measures are applied. Finally, a venn diagram is used to analyze opinion leaders identified, and profiles of them on Weibo are taken into consideration. In conclusion, the paper finds that opinion leaders identified during rumor spreading are institutional and individual accounts with a huge number of followers. But in terms of numbers, government institutions spread information to more people;in terms of breadth, impactful individual accounts deliver more information to more people from all walks of life. © VDE VERLAG GMBH - Berlin - Offenbach.

Disputas políticas y prácticas digitales de youtubers durante la pandemia de covid-19

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar a los youtubers que generan y comparten contenido político. Se distingue entre dos grupos: quienes defienden las acciones gubernamentales y quienes son detrac-tores. Se busca comprender cómo estos youtubers se construyen, cuáles son sus recursos, estrategias y relatos para persuadir a sus audiencias y, por último, cuál es la cultura política de esos líderes de opinión. Esto se observa en las publicaciones realizadas durante los primeros meses de la pandemia de covid-19 en México. Se utiliza el método de estudio de caso y una metodología cualitativa de análisis de contenido online. Se propone una definición del youtuber, un marco conceptual para su análisis y evidencia acerca de un fenómeno sociológico en ciernes.Alternate :The aim of this research is to analyze the youtubers who generate and share political content. A distinction is made between two groups: those who defend government actions and those who are detractors. It seeks to understand how these youtubers are constructed, what their resources, strategies and stories are to persuade and influence their audience and, finally, what the political culture underlying the participation of these opinion leaders is. This was observed in the publications produced during the first months of the covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. The case study method and a qualitative methodology involving online content analysis are used. The author proposes a definition of youtubers, a conceptual framework for their analysis and evidence of a nascent sociological phenomenon.

Research on Universities’ Control of Online Discourse Power in the Period of COVID-19: A Case Study of Shanghai Universities

Under the situation of the normalization of the prevention and control of COVID-19, related online public opinion occurs from time to time. University administrators must grasp the right of online discourse to guide the direction of online public opinion and ensure the stability of campus order. This paper analyzes the necessity and feasibility of university administrators to grasp the right of online discourse from the basis of reality, compares two kinds of measures and their combinations through questionnaires and computer simulation experiments: publishing authoritative information and focusing on opinion leaders, argues the effectiveness of these two types of measures, and puts forward specific countermeasure suggestions on this basis. © 2022, The Author(s).

Medical Affairs/Medical Science Liaison: Organizational Structure and Medical Contributions

Objective: To identify the organizational structure and medical contributions of Medical Affairs/Medical Science Liaison (MA/MSL) and its impact on the spread of the coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) infection. Method: We conducted a web-based survey for 45 pharmaceutical companies based in Japan. The outcome of 43 questions related to organizational structure, business activities, key performance indicators (KPI), and indicators of medical contribution were analyzed and compared. Results: Responses were received from 43 pharmaceutical companies (95.6%;26 Japanese and 17 foreign). The total number of MSLs exceeded 1,000 with an average of 30.1 MSLs/company. MSLs supervised an average of 21.8/MSL Key Opinion Leaders/Key Thought Leaders (KOLs/KTLs). There were eight MSL organizations per company on average, and Phase II/III had the most number of MSL organizations. Further, 22 companies (56.4%) had MSL organizations in the oncology area. All the companies were independent from departments mainly engaged in "sales and promotion activities," and the most common KPI was “collection insight from KOL/KTL.” Despite having medical qualifications and highly specialized degrees, training was provided continuously to improve expertise. Based on the life cycle of products, Japanese companies are promoting evidence generation and medical events with KOL/KTL supported by internal and external insights and foreign companies are promoting medical-education activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of “in person” activities have significantly decreased and that of "online" activities have increased considerably, and this trend might continue even after the end of the pandemic. Conclusion: The organizational structure and medical contribution of MA/MSL are partially different between Japanese and foreign companies. MSL continued to increase;however, the organization and activities were affected by the product.

KOMPLO TEORÍLERÍ BAĞLAMINDA COVID-19 AŞI KARARSIZLIĞI VE AŞI KARŞITLIĞI

Aşılar 19. Yüzyıldan itibaren halk sağlığı politikası olarak salgınlarla mücadele etme aracı olarak kullanılmaktadır. 2020 yılı itibariyle COVID-19 salgınının ortaya çıkmasıyla da çeşitli aşı üretim ve uygulama çalışmaları başlamıştır. Fakat bilimsel ve siyasi otoritelerin bütün olumlu yönlendirmelerine rağmen aşılara yönelik şüphelerin farklı gruplarda kararsızlığa ve karşıtlığa sebep olduğu görülmektedir. Dünyada olduğu gibi Türkiye'de de COVID-19 aşılarına dair olumsuz yaklaşımlar ortaya çıkmıştır. Son yıllarda özellikle internet ve sosyal medya kullanımının artışı, aşı karşıtı fikirlerin yaygınlaşmasına hız kazandırmıştır. Bununla ilişkili olarak COVID-19 pandemisi ile ilgili online ortamlarda oluşan yoğun bilgi akışını tanımlamak üzere infodemi kavramı kullanılmaktadır. Ínfodemi sonucu komplo anlatıları da yaygınlık kazanmaktadır. Bu makalede Türkiye özelinde COVID-19 aşı kararsızlığı ve karşıtlığı özellikle komplo teorileri bağlamında değerlendirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışma nitel bir çalışma olup 20 kişiyle derinlemesine görüşme yapılmıştır. Elde edilen veriler MAXQDA yardımıyla, betimsel ve tematik olarak analiz edilmiştir. Katılımcıların yarısı COVID-19 aşılarına yönelik kararsızlık yaşadığını, diğer yarısı ise COVID19 aşılarına karşıt olduğunu belirtmiştir. Görüşmeler sonucu komplo teorilerine olan inancın, kişilerin risk algısını arttırabileceği, risk algısının ise güvensizliklere ve aşı olmamaya sebep olabileceği gözlemlenmiştir. Bunun da ötesinde, kanaat önderleri ve sosyal medya aracılığı komplo teorilerinin bütünsel bir anlatı haline gelerek alternatif bir sosyal gerçeklik inşası yarattığı vurgulanmış ve bunun bireylere sağladığı imkanlar tartışılmıştır.Alternate :Vaccines have been used to combat epidemics as a public health policy since the 19th century. Various vaccine production studies have started with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. However, despite all the positive messages of scientific and political authorities, suspicions about vaccines cause hesitancy and anti-vaccination in different groups. Negative approaches to COVID-19 vaccines have appeared in Turkey as well as in the world. In recent years, the increase in the use of the internet and social media has accelerated the spread of anti-vaccine ideas. In relation to this, the concept of infodemic is used to describe the intense flow of information about the COVID-19 pandemic on online platforms. Conspiracy theories are spreading as a result of the infodemic. In this article, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination in Turkey have been studied, especially in the context of conspiracy theories. It is a qualitative study and in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 people. The obtained data were analyzed descriptively and thematically with the help of MAXQDA. Half of the participants stated that they are COVID-19 vaccinehesitant, while the other half stated that they are COVID-19 anti-vaccinist. As result, it has been observed that belief in conspiracy theories can increase people's risk perception, and risk perception can cause insecurity and not being vaccinated. Moreover, this study emphasizes that conspiracy theories become a holistic narrative through opinion leaders and social media, creating an alternative social reality construction, and discusses how this creates opportunities for individuals.

Narratives of Anti-Vaccination Movements in the German and Brazilian Twittersphere: A Grounded Theory Approach

Since February 2020, the world has been facing a global pandemic of the SARS-CoV2 virus. All over the world, people have been urged to take protective measures. It is hoped that the implementation of widespread vaccination campaigns will defeat the pandemic in the long term. While many people are eager to be vaccinated against Covid-19, other voices in the population are highly critical of vaccination and protective measures, circulating much misinformation on social media. The movements opposing pandemic response measures are heterogeneous, including right-wing groups, spiritualists who deny science, citizens with existential fears, and those who equate vaccination with a loss of individual freedom. This study aims to map and compare the social media communication of anti-vaccination movements that defy social cohesion and circulate online misinformation in Germany and Brazil. By following a grounded theory approach suggested by Webb and Mallon (2007), we coded content from social media communication of opinion leaders on Twitter with extended narrative analysis methodology finding different narratives that were mapped within the inhomogeneous anti-vaccination movements. The results show that both countries’ main narratives against vaccination are very similar, but the main difference stems from Brazil’s stronger politicization of vaccines.

When Politicians Meet Experts: Disinformation on Twitter About Covid-19 Vaccination

The Covid-19 vaccination has meant a huge challenge for crisis communication. After months of lockdowns, mass vaccination was a silver lining moment, but it was under threat from disinformation boosted by misinformation on social media. This research explores how opinion leaders among political leaders and health experts used Twitter to create and manage messages about the vaccination process. Specifically, we show the issues (issue frame) and strategies (game frame) applied by these actors. This study employs a corpus on the words “Covid-19” and “vaccines” used on Twitter by the heads of government and 10 recognized health experts (two for each country) in the US, the UK, France, Portugal, and Spain. We also analyze the accounts of fact-checking projects on those countries (@PolitiFact, @FullFact, @decodeurs, @JornalPoligrafo, and @maldita). The sample allows the comparison of countries with different political cultures that participated differently in the production of vaccines. The data were captured from the beginning of the vaccination drive (December 14th, 2020) until most of the population above 60 were vaccinated (May 14th, 2021). A manual content analysis was performed on the tweets (n = 2,607). The results illustrate that the politicians mostly disagreed with experts regarding issues and strategies. This finding can foster distrust in the elites and, therefore, threatens the long-term success of a public health campaign. Our study contributes to discussions on the role of networks for social cohesion, arguing that the public conversation on Twitter about the vaccination has revealed high levels of controversy.

Digital opinion leaders in the time of COVID-19: the role of the National Association of Health Reporters on Twitter in the struggle against the pandemic

The National Association of Health Informants is one of the largest sectoral press associations in Spain, with more than 700 members. During the COVID-19 crisis, its role in the management and dissemination of information can be considered fundamental. The overall objective of this research was to analyze how communication occurs between members of the National Association of Health Informants regarding COVID-19 on Twitter. All tweets and interactions between associates were downloaded and the network generated by them was analyzed;the most influential members were identified through measures of centrality and the content of the tweets with the highest diffusion and engagement was examined. After identifying expressions that appeared more frequently, a semantic analysis was made to extract the most relevant topics. The data showed a poorly cohesive network, where users interact little with each other. Both the Association and its members focus mainly on the dissemination of awareness-raising messages, with relevant information related to the disease, training, social denunciation and humor. A more coordinated and interactive use of the social network by the members of the Association would be desirable to increase the reach and dissemination of their messages. © 2022, Centro Nacional de Informacion de Ciencias Medicas. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Community Perspectives on Hotel Community-Related CSR: A Position Paper

The purpose of this position paper is to present an opinion on the importance of understanding host community perspectives in any community-based corporate social responsibility initiative. A host community is essentially the consumer of any community-based CSR, yet they each have unique cultures, features, needs, and expectations, which may or may not fit a business’s CSR initiative, unless the community perspectives are accounted for prior to the implementation of the CSR project. Focusing on the hotel sector context, the paper develops its position by reviewing supporting literature and highlighting the outcomes of a qualitative case study that involved face-to face semistructured interviews with 15 local opinion leaders who represented several local communities. The paper concludes with a firmer opinion on its position, and it offers some of the implications of its findings.

Sustainable Marketing and Strategy

Discussion In this context, eight articles were accepted for publication which discuss the topics of determinants of marketing in globalization, employer branding as a marketing tool for strategic talent management, new ways of working and the analysis of employee engagement, the sustainability of the supply chain and purchasing policies, a new strategy to measure the behaviour of wine tourists, the opinion leaders’ influence on the sustainable development of corporate-led consumer advice networks, and the influence of cross-listing on the relationship between financial leverage and R&D investment. Keywords: sustainability;supply chain;purchasing policies;coffee business and production;Delta Cafés;Grupo Nabeiro;sustainable business;sustainable practices;food safety;buying process;agrifood products. [...]of recent hard times, consumer markets and business markets look toward new examples of ethical behaviour and seek new heroes.

Depicting the Emotion Flow: Super-Spreaders of Emotional Messages on Weibo During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study collected 2 million posts and reposts regarding the early stage of COVID-19 in China on Weibo from 26 December 2019 to 29 February 2020. Emotion analysis and social network analysis were used to examine the flow of emotional messages (emotion flow) by comparing them with the flow of general messages (information flow). Results indicated that both emotional messages and general messages present a multilayer diffusion pattern and follow network step flow models. In our dataset, emotion network has a higher transmission efficiency than information network;officially verified accounts were more likely to become super-spreaders of emotional messages;good emotions were predominant but isolated from other six emotions (joy, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, anger) in online discussions;finally, government played a vital role in spreading good emotions.

The Influence of Farmers’ Socio-Economic Characteristics on Their Choice of Opinion Leaders: Social Knowledge Systems

Smallholder farmers’ social knowledge systems are evolving in connecting key actors within and outside their knowledge systems. These key actors play a vital role in navigating the complexity and the dynamics of organisations, and effectively influence the community. This study identified the opinion leaders of smallholder farmers and measured the extent of their influence on the quality of these farmers’ knowledge of agriculture. Furthermore, the study explored the reasons why farmers choose their opinion leaders. A structured questionnaire was administered to 219 purposively selected smallholder farmers in the rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data were captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and STATA to run multinomial logistic regression model (MNL). The results showed that farmers participated in field visits and attended farmers’ group meetings to communicate with agricultural advisors and group leaders. In addition, the findings showed that interactions could be a crucial element of knowledge and learning for farmers. This showed that the farmers required a consistent flow of material resources and knowledge. The time and energy spent by farmers building social relationships with these opinion leaders reflected the accumulation of information and resources gathered. Issues related to accessibility, availability and, quick feedback regarding farmers’ problems emerged, which seemed to influence the farmers’ choice of an opinion leader. The language and accessibility to sources of knowledge and feedback were crucial to the smallholder farmers included in the study. Furthermore, the results revealed that farmers’ educational level, farmers who engaged in agriculture for household consumption, and opinion agricultural skills have statistical significance on farmers’ choice of opinion leaders. Considering the findings, it is suggested that efforts to improve farmers’ active knowledge systems and access to the opinion leaders within these active knowledge systems should take into consideration the socio-economic factors that influence farmers’ choices and participation in social systems and social interactions. These findings may help agents develop a better understanding of the dynamics of local communities and the social complexity that shapes farmers’ environments and decisions. To be a progressive and effective opinion leader, constant, continuous assessment is needed to increase leadership skills. In addition, the enhancement of programmes, which will recognise the active opinion leaders within the communities, are needed to strengthen the efforts and impact for more resilient outcomes.

EndorseGram: Interactive Visualization of Influencer Endorsement Marketplace

Trend of competitive online commerce tends to be escalated by the power of influencer endorsements. Many studies agreed that influencers, as the key opinion leader, can 'naturally' persuade customers' intention to buy a product in terms of social commerce. Therefore, decision-making in choosing the most suitable influencer is an essential part of business analysis, especially for surviving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the novel-coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic crisis. Effective visual analysis of influencer endorsements is needed, as it has a significant impact on SMEs' finances. This paper presents EndorseGram, an interactive visualization system, that could visually analyze a large collection of online influencer data on Instagram. The new visual representation of endorsement marketplace is built on two-dimensional visualization by establishing a radial stacked bar chart, zoomable sunburst, and radial dendogram. The data was collected from SociaBuzz, a marketplace site for influencers in Indonesia. This research applied the system into the influencer marketplace in Jember and Surabaya for convenience purposes. Aside from data visualization on influencer endorsements, our system could also be applied to visually analyze models or make-up artists on other marketplaces. © 2021 IEEE.

Identifying Early Opinion Leaders on COVID-19 on Twitter

This study aims to empirically identify opinion leaders on Twitter from the lens of Innovation Diffusion theory. We analyzed pandemic-specific tweets from casual users as well as from the US President to map their conversation for the purpose of finding opinion leaders over a three month period at the onset of the pandemic. By applying network analysis following with cluster enrichment as well as sentiment analysis, we recognize potential thought leaders, but we could not find strong evidence for opinion leaders according to the Innovation Diffusion theory. We interpret that users tweet for two different purposes - tweets to elicit agreement and tweets to elicit debate. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.