A neglected reality of mass media during COVID-19: Effect of pandemic news on individual's positive and negative emotion and psychological resilience

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated that mass media platforms are playing a crucial role in disseminating information about the COVID-19 pandemic. As media coverage of pandemic using frightening language has been speculated to induce emotional disturbances in people and fluctuations in their resilience level, this study was performed to explore the effect of COVID-19 related news on individual's emotions and resilience. It was hypothesized that altering the type of news would produce varying levels of emotions and resilience in participants. Both the recruitment of participants and the conduction of the study were done online in September when the pandemic hit the peak in India. Randomly assigned participants were exposed to three conditions: positive news ( N = 56), negative news ( N = 59), and neutral news ( N = 60) related to COVID-19. Analyses revealed negative news significantly decreased positive emotions and resilience while positive news significantly reduced negative emotions and vice-versa. These finding suggest strong impact of mass media on individual's emotions and their own self-evaluation on resilience. The study highlights the responsibility of mass media and urges for bringing necessary changes in covering pandemic news and similar other uncertain situations in keeping people's emotions stable and increasing their psychological resilience.

The psychological impact of quarantine due to COVID-19: A systematic review of risk, protective factors and interventions using socio-ecological model framework

“…Therefore, it is the responsibility of mass media to take this seriously and cover pandemic news keeping in mind how it affects individuals’ mental health. The government should take necessary actions to ban contents which aggravates psychological difficulties among majority of the public ( Giri and Maurya, 2021 ). The review findings also reported other general public-level risk factors evoking psychological difficulties among individuals post quarantine.…”

Knowledge, Attitude, and Psychological Impacts of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia

“…The media, in general, updated and informed the public about COVID-19 with a focus on the publications that adversely affect people's life and health. When the media reporting negative stories constantly, the audience most likely to carry negative attitude toward the COVID-19 pandemic ( 24 ). It is known that attitude is associated with a person's response to the surrounding stimuli.…”

What Explains Natives and Sojourners Preventive Health Behavior in a Pandemic: Role of Media and Scientific Self-Efficacy

“…For instance, immigrants from non-native language-speaking countries encounter linguistic barriers to healthcare and access to service. Furthermore, recent literature emphasized the impact of the source of information (news) in China when defining readers' conceptualization of risk and fear of COVID-19 (Su et al, 2021); this source helps in the formulation of health orientation (Liu, 2021), drives negative emotion, and affects psychological resilience (Giri and Maurya, 2021). However, no previous report stated the use of the HBM in any setting to compare the sojourners and natives and to conceptualize the differences that can potentially drive practical implications and future research direction.…”