ABSTRACT
Understanding the media effect on behavioral outcomes is critical during a health crisis. Mechanisms explaining the mediation effect of media induced risk perception on individual fears and preventive behavior adoption rarely attend to the assumptions and methods to make a causal inference, nor to explore how the effect differs by socioeconomic status. We applied a causal framework to estimate how differential media exposure motivates fear and behavioral reaction, and to what extent these effects can be explained by risk susceptibility and risk severity perceptions in Israel and China, and whether the effects are conditional on socioeconomic situation. Our results suggest that media consumptions are explanatory predictors for increased fear and behavior through provoked risk perceptions. Moreover, socioeconomic status is a pronounced moderator in differentiating the media effect. These findings emphasize the media effects in the context of pandemic and have potential implications for media campaign and policy making. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Media & Society is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
During COVID-19, the banking industry saw a paradigm shift of customers from "traditional” to "online” platforms. This research explored the moderation effect of age and gender in the relationship between online banking service quality and customer satisfaction during COVID-19. The study used explanatory and accurate novel methods to study the relationship between online banking service quality and customer satisfaction in the Indian banking industry. Structural equation modeling was used for testing the relationship. Multi-group moderation technique was employed to explain the moderation effect. The study highlighted that age significantly moderated the relationship between responsiveness, competence, and customer satisfaction. Gender significantly moderated the relationship between competence and customer satisfaction. The study's novelty lies in finding the critical determinant of customer satisfaction in online banking during COVID-19 and explaining the moderation effect of age and gender. Moreover, this study addressed feedback and complaint management, which has not been studied widely in the context of quality and satisfaction. © 2022, Associated Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) remain some of the most effective measures for coping with the ever-changing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Pandemic fatigue, which manifests as the declined willingness to follow the recommended protective behaviors (e.g., keeping social distance policies, wearing masks), has commanded increasing attention from researchers and policymakers after the prolonged NPIs and COVID-19 worldwide. However, long-term changes in pandemic fatigue are not well understood, especially amidst the ever-changing pandemic landscape. Built environment factors have been shown to positively affect mental and physical health, but it is still unclear whether built environments can moderate pandemic fatigue. In this study, we used Google mobility data to investigate longitudinal trends of pandemic fatigue in social distance since the onset of NPIs enforcement in the United States. The results indicated that pandemic fatigue continuously worsened over nearly two years of NPIs implementation, and a sharp increase occurred after the vaccination program began. Additionally, we detected a significant moderation effect of greenspace and urbanicity levels on pandemic fatigue. People living in areas with high levels of greenness or urbanicity experienced lower levels of pandemic fatigue. These findings not only shed new light on the effects of greenness and urbanicity on COVID-19 pandemic fatigue, but also provide evidence for developing more tailored and effective strategies to cope with pandemic fatigue.
ABSTRACT
Background: The government's COVID-19 pandemic response lockdown strategy had a negative psychological and physical impact on individuals, which necessitated special care to pregnant women's mental health. There has been no large-scale research on the underlying relationship between perceived stress and insomnia symptoms in pregnant Chinese women up to this point. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to see if there was an association between perceived stress and insomnia symptoms, as well as the moderating impact of resilience for Chinese pregnant women. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined 2115 pregnant women from central and western China using multi-stage sampling methodologies. A systematic questionnaire was used to collect information on sleep quality, perceived stress, and resilience using the Insomnia Severity Index, Perceptual Stress Scale, and Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale. To assess the moderating influence of resilience, hierarchical regressions were used. Results: During the COVID-19 pandemic, 18.53% of respondents (N = 2115) reported experiencing sleeplessness. In pregnant women, perceived stress was positively linked with insomnia symptoms (p < 0.001). Furthermore, resilience significantly attenuated the influence of perceived stress on insomnia symptoms in Chinese expectant mother (ßinteraction = -0.0126, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Pregnant women with strong resilience were less influenced by perceived stress than those with poor resilience. The findings of this study might give empirical proof that health care professionals should identify the relevance of reducing perceived stress in pregnant women with poor resilience and provide better treatment and support when necessary.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: COVID-19 pandemic is a significant threat toward the public health. However, the discussion of the mechanism of media literacy's effect in fighting against pandemic is limited. Thus, this study aims to explore the mechanism with a sociocognitive perspective. Methods: A survey was administrated to 420 college students in China. PROCESS macro of SPSS was applied to analyze the data and test the moderated mediation effect. Results: The moderated mediation model of media literacy, proxy efficacy, self-efficacy, and official media use was tested and supported. Official media use was a negative moderator on the association between media literacy and proxy efficacy. Conclusion: The study explored the media literacy's role as a determinant of proxy efficacy and self-efficacy, which contributed to the sociocognitive theory.
ABSTRACT
We explore the moderating role of trade openness (TO) by gauging its main and interaction effects on the economic growth and environmental quality nexus. In this direction, we implement a novel approach by using three different measures of pollution emissions (CO2-CH4-PM2.5) in the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis and applying a structural equation modelling methodology to 115 countries, grouped into low-, middle- and high-income countries, spanning the period 1992-2018. The evidence suggests that energy consumption has a positive impact on CO2 emissions for all income panels whilst the moderating effect of TO appears to be a key degrading factor of environmental quality in low- and middle-income countries. In addition, TO's interaction with GDP growth is found to negatively affect environmental quality across all income groups. Given that global economies are on the verge of returning to pre-pandemic levels of industrial operations along with emissions in the wake of the failure of COP26 and that COVID-19 has reminded the world the urgency of developing sustainable approaches in fostering 'green economic growth' models; a host of policy measures are proposed in support of this whilst their likely implications are discussed with reference to different income level countries.