Science communication and information behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of survey data and interviews Communication scientifique et comportement en matière d'information pendant la pandémie de COVID-19: une analyse de données d'enquête et d'interviews

ABSTRACT

The corona pandemic, like many other crises, caused a high demand for information among citizens. At the same time, a large amount of science information was disseminated through various channels, often includ¬ing social media. Thus, new opportunities to observe users arose for research on information behaviour, but also new methodological challenges to relate this behaviour to other consumption of news and science communication. This paper presents a mixed-methods approach that combines a survey on the use and evaluation of information sources with observations from a user study. For the latter, result lists of various web and video searches were used in an ex¬periment as a starting point to determine selection methods and quality criteria for science communication. Both meth¬odological approaches showed that the reliability and fa¬miliarity of a source play a dominant role in selection de¬cisions. © 2023 De Gruyter Saur. All rights reserved.