Using Local Community to Ease Long Haul Uncertainty During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of unprecedented hardship worldwide, bringing uncertainty to new levels as people’s routines were disrupted and what was once considered normal was called into question. Citizens initiated online local communities to support information-seeking amidst the pandemic. In this paper, we explore what types of information were sought and how people engaged in uncertainty reduction with others in their area during the initial phase of COVID-19. We conducted content analysis on a pandemic-relief online local community. We found that people leveraged local networks to get updates about timely situations in local areas, clear confusion around local COVID-19 regulations, and seek confirmation on emerging social norms. However, there existed inaccurate information exchange about regulations and conflicting opinions on social norms. We provide design suggestions to increase the potentials of uncertainty management through online local communities. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.