Grassroots Emergency Health Risk Communication and Transmedia Public Participation: H1N1 Flu, Travelers from Epicenters, and Cyber Vigilantism

Grassroots risk reduction tactics took new forms in the era of social media. Chinese netizens mobilized human flesh searches (HFS), or cyber vigilantism, to reduce the risks posed by international travelers who might import the H1N1 flu virus into China. My study suggests that at the beginning of the H1N1 flu epidemic, rigorous transmedia intervention efforts were made to discipline the early irresponsible overseas Chinese who traveled extensively after arriving in China, but much less attention was paid to risks posed by foreign travelers. The grassroots risk tactics employed emotional appeals, valuative judgment, and moral condemnation to criticize the irresponsible travel of the earliest imported H1N1 flu cases. These transmedia risk tactics got quickly appropriated by regional and national governments to reduce alienation of overseas Chinese and to discipline overseas returnees. Analysis of the HFS episodes reveals the need to create an interface of interaction between authorities and the public for open systems of communication and to consider local public health practices, emotion needs, and values and beliefs when designing health risk communication messages

Preparing millennials as digital citizens and socially and environmentally responsible business professionals in a socially irresponsible climate

As of 2015, a millennial born in the 1990's became the largest population in the workplace and are still growing. Studies indicate that a millennial is tech savvy but lag in the exercise of digital responsibility. In addition, they are passive towards environmental sustainability and fail to grasp the importance of social responsibility. This paper provides a review of such findings relating to business communications educators in their classrooms. The literature should enable the development of a millennial as an excellent global citizen through business communications curricula that emphasizes digital citizenship, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. The impetus for this work is to provide guidance in the development of courses and teaching strategies customized to the development of each millennial as a digital, environmental and socially responsible global citizen

Cyberemotions in the Era of New Media

The introduction of new media has accelerated changes in the generation and delivery of information. Cyberemotions, as a new type of public opinion, can be more contagious and propagate in more diverse ways than traditional public sentiments. The emotions of internet users have a rising influence on the progression of recent significant social events. In order to spark additional discussion on online sentiment modulation and online public opinion tracking, this article presented an overview of cyberemotions definition and key analytical methodologies in existing online sentiment research, as well as a synopsis of major components of cyberemotions

I am what I am – Convergence Behaviors on Online Discussion About the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

Using data from an online discussion on the risk of getting blood clot from Johnson & Johnson vaccine moderated by the New York Times Facebook page, we investigated the presence of eleven convergence behaviors, and the interaction between them. While recent research focuses on misinformation or fake news as the object of analysis, we argue in this exploratory research that it is equally important to analyze who and, whenever possible, why people engage in information exchange given a particular crisis, hence their convergence behaviors. Mapping the types of postings to their authors would be an additional step to design, develop, implement, and possibly, regulate online discussions for a more effective and just civic engagement. As we witness a mass manipulation of public opinion, our findings suggest that the number of netizens that seek to correct misinformation is growing. If the society goal is to swiftly rebut as many conspiracy theories as possible, we advocate for a dual social media control strategy: restrain as much as possible the misinformation spreaders/manipulators and encourage correctors to help propagate countervailing facts

Trust and Public Health Emergency Events:A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review

The systematic review examined the phenomenon of trust during public health emergency events. The literature reviewed was field studies done with people directly affected or likely to be affected by such events and included quantitative, qualitative, mixed-method, and case study primary studies in English (N = 38) as well as Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish (all non-English N = 30). Studies were mostly from high-and middle-income countries, and the event most covered was infectious disease. Findings from individual studies were first synthesized within methods and evaluated for certainty/confidence, and then synthesized across methods. The final set of 11 findings synthesized across methods identified a set of activities for enhancing trust and showed that it is a multi-faceted and dynamic concept

Development and early implementation of a public communication campaign to help adults to support children and adolescents to cope with coronavirus-related emotions: A community case study

Epidemics and pandemics can traumatically impact the emotional wellbeing of adults, children, and adolescents in diverse ways. This impact can be reduced by applying a range of evidence-based coping strategies. Based on previous research, we created a pamphlet-based communication campaign designed to assist adults to provide support for young people confronted with emotional distress associated with the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)] and the related disease [coronavirus disease (COVID-19)] in 2020. We developed a pamphlet describing the common emotions children and adolescents report feeling in the face of disasters and the coping strategies that have proven effective in mitigating them. The target population was adults who interact with children and adolescents in both formal and informal settings. The pamphlet included basic information on this specific emergency, emotions that might be commonly experienced, and coping strategies for dealing with negative emotions. The aim of this paper is to describe the planning, development, and implementation of the campaign. First, we monitored how the media gave visibility to the campaign during the 40 days following the release of the pamphlet: it potentially reached a large audience at a national and international level through at least 216 media channels included the HEMOT\uae (Helmet for EMOTions) website. Second, Google Analytics\u2122 data from the HEMOT\uae website enabled us to examine the characteristics of the visitors to the website and the behavior of those who viewed the pamphlet. More than 6,000 visitors, most from Europe followed by the Americas, visited the website in the first 40 days after the pamphlet publication. The webpage including the pamphlet obtained over 6,200 views, most directly or via other websites. A cluster analysis suggested that the access to the webpage did not mirror the trend concerning the new cases of COVID-19 in Italy (which increased during the central phase of the campaign) or worldwide (which continued to increase across the 40 days). Third, data gathered with a convenience sample of adults who had consulted the pamphlet provided a perspective on the comprehensibility of the messages conveyed by the pamphlet and on the utility for children and adolescents. The process we have demonstrated in this example could be replicated in different communities and settings to respond to the spread of the COVID-19 or to respond to other widespread or more localized disasters