"The Part Played by People" in Times of COVID-19: Interpersonal Communication about Media Coverage in a Pandemic Crisis.

ABSTRACT

The study presented in this article examined individuals' interpersonal communication about media coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic. In times of a severe public health crisis, people rely heavily on media coverage to stay informed. Communicating with others about this coverage can help them gain deeper insights and evaluate pandemic-related information. According to the two-step flow of communication, opinion leaders, such as health experts, play an important role in interpersonal communication by disseminating information, influencing others, and providing orientation. To examine the nature of interpersonal communication about pandemic-related media coverage, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews. We explored a) the communicative roles within the informal social network, b) the functions of the communication for the individual, and c) the potential transformations in the trajectory of the pandemic. Findings show that communication with close and more distant social contacts occurred largely on an equal basis, while the rare opinion leaders mainly emerged as information brokers. Communication about media coverage serves the functions of information sharing and retrieving, information validation, and coping with negative emotions. Finally, communication partners, roles, and conversational topics partly changed over time. Our study extends existing research on interpersonal communication about health topics, as well as on the COVID-19 pandemic.