Images as Communication of a New Normality. The Representation of the New Social Habits Introduced by the Covid19 Emergency in Public Spaces

In a constantly evolving society where radical socio-cultural changes have been introduced in the last year, as a consequence of the world health emergency linked to the spread of the Covid 19 virus, the centrality of images in the daily life of individuals has been reconfirmed. In situations of risk for the community, such as in the case of a health emergency due to the spread of a highly contagious virus, the role of communication is particularly important for public institutions, to obtain the cooperation of the population in procedures aimed at preventing the spread or slowing down the contagion, using images that describe the recommendations to be followed. The image confirms its social role in contemporary culture, as a means of communication and a channel for the rapid and direct dissemination of information, regardless of cultural level, language, or age. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

"Who can help me?": Knowledge Infused Matching of Support Seekers and Support Providers during COVID-19 on Reddit

During the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, subreddits on Reddit, such as r/Coronavirus saw a rapid growth in user's requests for help (support seekers - SSs) including individuals with varying professions and experiences with diverse perspectives on care (support providers - SPs). Currently, knowledgeable human moderators match an SS with a user with relevant experience, i.e, an SP on these subreddits. This unscalable process defers timely care. We present a medical knowledge-infused approach to efficient matching of SS and SPs validated by experts for the users affected by anxiety and depression, in the context of with COVID-19. After matching, each SP to an SS labeled as either supportive, informative, or similar (sharing experiences) using the principles of natural language inference. Evaluation by 21 domain experts indicates the efficacy of incorporated knowledge and shows the efficacy the matching system.

PERCEPTION OF SCHOOL LEARNING DIGITALIZATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: RESEARCH OUTCOMES OF ONLINE FOCUS GROUPS WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS OF SCHOOLCHILDREN

Pandemic of COVID-19 speeded up the digitalization of school education which led to radical changes in educational, social, and communicative practices. To reveal trends in educational practices, related risks, and negative impacts of these transformations, in October 2020, the authors of this study conducted a series of online focus groups with schoolteachers and parents of students from different regions residing in large, medium-size, and small cities. The discussion was focused on the character and the scope of digitalization in school education, on the new role of teacher and parent, and on the digital communication practices. The focus group data were processed by categorizing the statements of participants, identifying the central trend and the general spectrum of opinions and practices. As a result, the authors identified three levels of the semantic-associative space for the digitalization perception — basic, intermediate, and advanced. Key challenges of the current transformations are the discrepancy between normative views of teachers and parents on their roles and a unified approach to introducing digital technologies for different educational grades. The vulnerable side of school digitalization is also the attitude of the main participants towards it;teachers and parents perceive school digitalization as fragmented, inconsistent process, lacking clearly defined purposes. Based on these data, the authors confirmed hypotheses about the reasons of negative views on school digitalization — the prevalence of top-down model in introducing digital instruments and procedures, the concentration of decision-making on top-management level, low involvement of parents and teachers in defining the agenda, timing, and specific means of digital transformations. As a result, undifferentiated approaches to digital learning at different levels are ineffective, and often inapplicable. Risks and drawbacks could be mitigated by more consistent and gradual approach to the transformations, use of customized rather than unified model of digitalization for each educational grade, taking into account the experience and needs of main actors. © 2022 Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VCIOM. All rights reserved.

Between Conflict and Solidarity: Pandemic Media Coverage of Romanian Intra-EU Labour Migrants

The Covid-19 pandemic affected Romanian intra-EU labour migrants in a particular way and challenged the established themes associated with and the social roles assigned to them in news discourses. During the first wave of the pandemic, Covid-19 hotspots were reported abroad in Romanian migrant communities, the most notorious example being at the Tönnies factory in Germany. The pandemic brought to prominence the precarious working conditions of labour migrants employed in agriculture and especially in the food industry. Wider discussions, conflicts, and solidarity actions were generated around this topic. In the present study, we identify the main themes and topics present in the Romanian media coverage of Romanian labour migrants, as well as the way foreign, particularly German, media perspectives were integrated into and domesticated in the Romanian coverage. Findings show that both the Romanian and German media used, to a certain extent, the media coverage of this exceptional pandemic situation to invite reflection on the general social costs of migration and on the responsibility of political actors in the migrants’ country of origin, in their country of destination, and at the level of EU institutions. However, the perspective of the migrants was underrepresented in the media coverage.

EDU Movies: using fiction movies for student-centered learning

Establishing a context for the application of knowledge, developing their sense of belonging, and using materials that play a social role in their lives engage undergraduates and makes them core of their own learning. However, this is complicated to achieve in courses without laboratories or under restrictions due to COVID-19 pandemic. Current work reports the implementation and impact of EDU Movies, a student-centered learning asynchronous activity to generate learning scenarios using fiction movies. It was carried out in the Ecological Processes for Human Development online course with 57 undergraduates (29 females and 28 males) enrolled in different programs. EDU Movies addressed the topics of environment, sustainable development and ethics and citizenship. To measure the impact, the participants perceptions were gathered using a survey and their answers were analyzed using statistics and text analysis. The evidence shows that over 69% of the students perceived that the movies were a great aid for learning the topics, particularly for female undergraduates. © 2022 IEEE.

Occupational changes during the COVID-19 lockdown in Jordan.

BACKGROUND: Measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 have disrupted the lives of countless millions of individuals worldwide. OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of occupational disruption and changing social roles among Jordanians during COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The specific aim was to explore the changing occupations, routines, roles and coping strategies. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This qualitative study used a digital ethnographic approach. Data collection included online observations of Jordanian's posts of comments, photos and videos on six public Facebook pages during the COVID-19 lockdown for the initial 3-week period. In addition, 150 Jordanians participated in an online interview answering four open-ended questions to achieve triangulation. Qualitative analyses included open coding of the photos, videos and text as well as the interviews independently and blindly by the research team. RESULTS: Four themes were identified: changing daily occupations; changing family roles; missing pre-lockdown life and coping strategies under lockdown. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions caused direct, significant and immediate changes to Jordanians' occupations, routines and roles; enforcing new obligatory occupations and eliminating desired ones. SIGNIFICANCE: Knowledge from this study highlight the kinds of strategies and supports during and after lockdowns that need to be considered in future planning of occupational therapy practice in Jordan.

PROMIS Scales for Assessment of Persistent Post-COVID Symptoms: A Cross Sectional Study.

OBJECTIVE: Persistent post-COVID symptoms are estimated to occur in up to 10% of patients who have had COVID-19. These lingering symptoms may persist for weeks to months after resolution of the acute illness. This study aimed to add insight into our understanding of certain post-acute conditions and clinical findings. The primary purpose was to determine the persistent post COVID impairments prevalence and characteristics by collecting post COVID illness data utilizing Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®). The resulting measures were used to assess surveyed patients physical, mental, and social health status. METHODS: A cross-sectional study and 6-months Mayo Clinic COVID recovered registry data were used to evaluate continuing symptoms severity among the 817 positive tested patients surveyed between March and September 2020. The resulting PROMIS® data set was used to analyze patients post 30 days health status. The e-mailed questionnaires focused on fatigue, sleep, ability to participate in social roles, physical function, and pain. RESULTS: The large sample size (n = 817) represented post hospitalized and other managed outpatients. Persistent post COVID impairments prevalence and characteristics were determined to be demographically young (44 years), white (87%), and female (61%). Dysfunction as measured by the PROMIS® scales in patients recovered from acute COVID-19 was reported as significant in the following domains: ability to participate in social roles (43.2%), pain (17.8%), and fatigue (16.2%). CONCLUSION: Patient response on the PROMIS® scales was similar to that seen in multiple other studies which used patient reported symptoms. As a result of this experience, we recommend utilizing standardized scales such as the PROMIS® to obtain comparable data across the patients' clinical course and define the disease trajectory. This would further allow for effective comparison of data across studies to better define the disease process, risk factors, and assess the impact of future treatments.

Gender-related sociocultural differences and COVID-19: what influence on the effects of the pandemic?

In the first stages of the pandemic, the adverse outcomes of COVID-19 were significantly higher in men than in women most likely as the effect of biological, hormonal, metabolic differences between the two sexes. However, gender-related differences in lifestyles and social roles can also greatly influence the course of disease. To fully understand the influence of gender in the COVID-19 outbreak, the collection and dissemination of disaggregated data must be enhanced to allow a better knowledge of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection in men and women, not only from a biomedical point of view, but also considering the risk factors associated with the different roles that they play in the society.