An exploratory study on content and style as driving factors facilitating dialogic communication between corporations and publics on social media in China

Ngai, Cindy Sing Bik; Einwiller, Sabine; Singh, Rita Gill

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.101813

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Different dimensions may function synergistically to impact public engagement. As has been found in a study, an interaction effect between content and style of communication on public engagement in brand social media communication was observed [ 68 ]. It is, therefore, likely that interaction effects might exist between some of the dimensions or subdimensions on public engagement in COVID-19 communication.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…A previous study has demonstrated an interaction effect between content and style [ 68 ], and therefore, we expected an interaction between these two dimensions. Indeed, our data showed a significant interaction between content and style on the number of likes ( Table 2 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…To determine whether the narrative style of communication was employed, we examined if the post had a temporal or spatial sequence and revealed the writer’s feelings or thoughts. Last, we built on prior public relations studies [ 27 , 38 , 68 ] and coded the number of interactive features used to facilitate the creation of the interactive dialogic loop. These interactive features included (1) links to external sources , (2) use of hashtags , (3) use of questions to solicit feedback , and (4) use of multimedia (see Multimedia Appendix 1 for the exemplifications of coding items and examples extracted from the collected posts).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Ngai¹,

Singh²,

Lu³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

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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.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Ngai¹,

Singh²,

Lu³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To investigate differences in public engagement with health information posted by the government in response to COVID-19, our second RQ is posed: Different dimensions may function synergistically to impact public engagement. As has been found in a study, an interaction effect between content and style of communication on public engagement in brand social media communication was observed [68]. It is, therefore, likely that interaction effects might exist between some of the dimensions or subdimensions on public engagement in COVID-19 communication.…”

Section: Interactive Features Dimensionsupporting

confidence: 65%

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

Ngai¹,

Singh²,

Lu³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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BACKGROUND 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 investigated how the most-read government-owned newspaper in China, People’s Daily, utilized a social networking site, Sina Weibo, to communicate about COVID-19 and whether this could engage the public. The specific objective of this study was to develop an integrated framework to examine the effects of content frames in health crisis, message style and interactive features on public engagement on the largest social media network in China. METHODS Content analysis was employed to scrutinize 608 COVID-19 posts, and the public’s engagement in the form of the number of shares, comments and likes on People’s Daily’s Sina Weibo account from 20 January 2020 to 11 March 2020 to reveal the association between different levels of public engagement and communication strategies. RESULTS We found that although the content frames of new evidence, action and reassurance delivered in a non-narrative style were predominant in COVID-19 communication by the government, posts related to new evidence and a non-narrative 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 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.

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“…In recent years, scholars have started to study public engagement and perception in an online context due to the arrival of global social media platforms [ 59 , 60 ], such as Weibo, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, which all include the common feature of real-time public interaction. Social media includes a variety of functions to engage with the public (e.g., blogs, photo sharing, video sharing, live chatting, and co-generation of content), and offers the ability to express attitudes via reaction buttons, appearing at the bottom of the relevant content: Like, Share, and Comment [ 60 ]. “Like” is an indicator to express awareness and interest, which can be used to identify the popularity of messages [ 61 , 62 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Genuineness in Public Engagement—An Exploratory Study of Pediatric Communication on Social Media in China

Ngai

Yang

2020

IJERPH

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There is a growing need for the public to interact with pediatricians through social media in China, and genuineness is a crucial factor contributing to effective communication, but few studies have examined the relationship between genuineness and its effect on public engagement. This study developed a four-dimension framework including self-disclosure, genuine response, functional interactivity, and genuineness in Chinese culture to investigate the effect of genuineness in the communication of Chinese social media influencers in pediatrics on public engagement. Content analysis was employed to examine these dimensions and the related public engagement in 300 social media posts on the largest microblogging site in China. The findings indicate that genuine response was positively associated with the number of comments and positive comments, while negatively related to the number of shares. Functional interactivity made the site more appealing, resulting in likes and shares. Genuineness in Chinese culture was reflected in engagement through sharing posts by the public. This study is the first to develop an integrated framework to measure genuineness in online health communication and contributes to the understanding of the effect of genuineness on Chinese public engagement in social media.

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An exploratory study on content and style as driving factors facilitating dialogic communication between corporations and publics on social media in China

Cited by 18 publications

References 61 publications

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

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

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

The Importance of Genuineness in Public Engagement—An Exploratory Study of Pediatric Communication on Social Media in China

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