Exploring the Relationship Between Trust-Building Strategies and Public Engagement on Social Media During the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Communication is critical in a new health emergency because it motivates the public to take preventive actions. Prior research has shown that strategies including source credibility, information transparency and uncertainty reduction actions could enhance trust in health communication on social media. Yet research on how the government in China used these trust-building strategies to engage the public during the outbreak of COVID-19 is limited. Therefore, our exploratory study developed an integrated framework for conducting quantitative content analysis to examine how the most popular government-owned newspaper in China, People's Daily, utilized a major social media platform, to engage the public. Our findings showed that accessibility to external links, provision of emotional support, and information on skills and resources were associated with increased public engagement with government COVID-19 posts. Insights gained can enable public health organizations and governments to focus on specific strategies to enhance public engagement.

Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Social Media Virality: Content Analysis of Message Themes and Writing Strategies.

BACKGROUND: Vaccines serve an integral role in containing pandemics, yet vaccine hesitancy is prevalent globally. One key reason for this hesitancy is the pervasiveness of misinformation on social media. Although considerable research attention has been drawn to how exposure to misinformation is closely associated with vaccine hesitancy, little scholarly attention has been given to the investigation or robust theorizing of the various content themes pertaining to antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 and the writing strategies in which these content themes are manifested. Virality of such content on social media exhibited in the form of comments, shares, and reactions has practical implications for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether there were differences in the content themes and writing strategies used to disseminate antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 and their impact on virality on social media. METHODS: We constructed an antivaccine misinformation database from major social media platforms during September 2019-August 2021 to examine how misinformation exhibited in the form of content themes and how these themes manifested in writing were associated with virality in terms of likes, comments, and shares. Antivaccine misinformation was retrieved from two globally leading and widely cited fake news databases, COVID Global Misinformation Dashboard and International Fact-Checking Network Corona Virus Facts Alliance Database, which aim to track and debunk COVID-19 misinformation. We primarily focused on 140 Facebook posts, since most antivaccine misinformation posts on COVID-19 were found on Facebook. We then employed quantitative content analysis to examine the content themes (ie, safety concerns, conspiracy theories, efficacy concerns) and manifestation strategies of misinformation (ie, mimicking of news and scientific reports in terms of the format and language features, use of a conversational style, use of amplification) in these posts and their association with virality of misinformation in the form of likes, comments, and shares. RESULTS: Our study revealed that safety concern was the most prominent content theme and a negative predictor of likes and shares. Regarding the writing strategies manifested in content themes, a conversational style and mimicking of news and scientific reports via the format and language features were frequently employed in COVID-19 antivaccine misinformation, with the latter being a positive predictor of likes. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to a richer research-informed understanding of which concerns about content theme and manifestation strategy need to be countered on antivaccine misinformation circulating on social media so that accurate information on COVID-19 vaccines can be disseminated to the public, ultimately reducing vaccine hesitancy. The liking of COVID-19 antivaccine posts that employ language features to mimic news or scientific reports is perturbing since a large audience can be reached on social media, potentially exacerbating the spread of misinformation and hampering global efforts to combat the virus.

Exploring drivers for public engagement in social media communication with medical social influencers in China.

Social networking sites offer an important means for increasing the accessibility and enabling new forms of health communication between the public and medical social influencers (MSIs). MSIs have a social presence and are perceived as a credible source of health-related information. A research gap, however, exists in understanding the communication strategies employed by MSIs and the factors driving the public to engage in health communication with MSIs. This study, therefore, developed a new conceptual framework incorporating health communication, dialogic and interpersonal communication by employing quantitative content analysis to examine public engagement with MSI communication on the largest microblogging site in China, Sina Weibo. The analysis yielded insights into how the usefulness of health-related information provided alongside the interactive dialogue and affective practices played an active role in engaging the public. The public sought health-related information primarily to address issues of concern for well-being and a high level of engagement in terms of online shares, likes, and comments was found. The use of multimedia made the site more appealing, resulting in likes while the expression of emotions by MSIs generated likes and comments. The need to connect with other online users and have a sense of community was reflected in engagement through sharing useful MSI posts by the public. By identifying influential MSIs on social networking sites, health information providers such as organizations and the government can raise awareness of health issues to foster a healthy lifestyle and contribute to better living in the community.

Grappling With the COVID-19 Health Crisis: Content Analysis of Communication Strategies and Their Effects on Public Engagement on Social Media.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has posed an unprecedented challenge to governments worldwide. Effective government communication of COVID-19 information with the public is of crucial importance. OBJECTIVE: We investigate how the most-read state-owned newspaper in China, People's Daily, used an online social networking site, Sina Weibo, to communicate about COVID-19 and whether this could engage the public. The objective of this study is to develop an integrated framework to examine the content, message style, and interactive features of COVID-19-related posts and determine their effects on public engagement in the largest social media network in China. METHODS: Content analysis was employed to scrutinize 608 COVID-19 posts, and coding was performed on three main dimensions: content, message style, and interactive features. The content dimension was coded into six subdimensions: action, new evidence, reassurance, disease prevention, health care services, and uncertainty, and the style dimension was coded into the subdimensions of narrative and nonnarrative. As for interactive features, they were coded into links to external sources, use of hashtags, use of questions to solicit feedback, and use of multimedia. Public engagement was measured in the form of the number of shares, comments, and likes on the People's Daily's Sina Weibo account from January 20, 2020, to March 11, 2020, to reveal the association between different levels of public engagement and communication strategies. A one-way analysis of variance followed by a post-hoc Tukey test and negative binomial regression analysis were employed to generate the results. RESULTS: We found that although the content frames of action, new evidence, and reassurance delivered in a nonnarrative style were predominant in COVID-19 communication by the government, posts related to new evidence and a nonnarrative style were strong negative predictors of the number of shares. In terms of generating a high number of shares, it was found that disease prevention posts delivered in a narrative style were able to achieve this purpose. Additionally, an interaction effect was found between content and style. The use of a narrative style in disease prevention posts had a significant positive effect on generating comments and likes by the Chinese public, while links to external sources fostered sharing. CONCLUSIONS: These results have implications for governments, health organizations, medical professionals, the media, and researchers on their epidemic communication to engage the public. Selecting suitable communication strategies may foster active liking and sharing of posts on social media, which in turn, might raise the public's awareness of COVID-19 and motivate them to take preventive measures. The sharing of COVID-19 posts is particularly important because this action can reach out to a large audience, potentially helping to contain the spread of the virus.

Relationship between persuasive metadiscoursal devices in research article abstracts and their attention on social media.

Research article abstracts often convince readers that the article is worth reading. Therefore, they rely not only on the quality of arguments or novelty of findings to persuade readers but also linguistic markers in the form of metadiscourse to assert a position on an issue, increase readability of a text, engage readers, and avoid objection to the writer's interpretations, thereby enhancing the credibility of the text. Given that research article abstracts are often published online and their newsworthiness would affect whether they would be ultimately read, Altmetric.com, which emerged in 2010, can help quantify the popularity of research article abstracts by counting views on social media and other platforms such as news and policy documents. Yet a study on how metadiscoursal devices are used to persuade readers, and how they are correlated with Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) provided by Altmetric.com, merits attention. In our study, we examined 241 abstracts from 50 top journals in 12 disciplines with the highest AAS from 2014-2018 and performed a quantitative analysis of the interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers exhibited in the abstracts. Overall, we found a positive correlation between the use of metadiscourse and AAS. Furthermore, we noticed that each discipline used distinct metadiscourse markers in abstracts with high AAS, which contributed to its respective discipline-specific conventions. It has been previously shown that the use of an array of interactive and interactional metadiscourse renders the abstract more worthy of attention. Being knowledgeable of rhetorical choices in relation to metadiscoursal devices will enable writers to construct more persuasive abstracts by making informed judgments about the appropriate use of metadiscourse to draw the attention of readers in their respective disciplines.

A discourse analysis of the macro-structure, metadiscoursal and microdiscoursal features in the abstracts of research articles across multiple science disciplines.

The abstract of a scientific research article convinces readers that the article deserves to be read. Abstracts can also determine the success of publications and grant applications. In recent years, there has been a trend of cross-disciplinary collaborations in the science community. Scientists have been increasingly expected to engage not only experts of their own disciplines, but also other disciplines with the scope of interest extending to non-experts, such as policy-makers and the general public. Thus, the macro-structure, metadiscoursal and microdiscoursal features exhibited in scientific article abstracts merit attention. In our study, we examined 500 abstracts of scientific research articles published in 50 high-impact journals across five science disciplines (Earth, Formal, Life, Physical and Social Sciences), and performed quantitative analysis of the move structure as well as use of boosters and linguistic features. We found significant interdisciplinary variations in the move structure, boosters and linguistic features employed by these science disciplines. We confirmed that each science discipline possesses a distinct set of macro-structural, metadiscoursal and formalization features, which contribute to its own unique discipline-specific convention. Understanding and observing the disciplinary rhetorical choices and communication conventions will allow scientists to align the abstracts of their studies with the expectations of the targeted audience.