Exploring the impacts of media use and media trust on health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of traditional media, social media, and media trust on people’s compliance with health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. A total of 3000 Chinese adults filled online questionnaire using quota sampling method. Results show that use of central government media and use of WeChat are positively related to compliance with health behaviors, while use of local media and use of Weibo are negatively related to the levels of compliance. In addition, trust in the media amplified the effects of media use on levels of compliance.

Would You Rather Be Safe or Free? Motivational and Behavioral Aspects in COVID-19 Mitigation

“…A detailed distribution of our sample by location/region is in Supplementary Table 1. We also reasoned that individuals might have different levels of concern and knowledge about COVID-19: Correct information is a necessary (though not sufficient) element to promote healthy behaviors (Tan et al, 2015;Wu and Shen, 2021). Furthermore, whereas some individuals might have been directly affected by COVID-19, others might have only had an indirect experience of the virus.…”

COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy in China: A Case Study

“…In dealing with a public health threat, crisis communication, which refers to effective and precise communication to a variety of people during emergency situations, is critical [53]. In case of emerging infectious diseases, the risks and uncertainties can arouse public emotions and change behaviors in either positive or negative ways [54].…”

“…Generally, in China, central government media, namely CCTV, People's Daily, and Xinhua News Agency pay more attention to news about national policies and the state's and leadership's image. Local news agendas, on the other hand, are set to and interested in local interests [53].…”

“…However, during the pandemic in China, generally the media, at governmental and local levels, was a significant source of information during the COVID-19 outbreak, specifically in the first stage of the outbreak [60] as the authorities issued regular COVID-19 updates via news media coverage in order to raise awareness about the disease and recent NPIs [53].…”

“…Additionally, a study in Hubei province shows that if the amount of information in the media decreases, the number of cases would significantly rise [61]. This may be as a result of people's great trust and reliability on the governmental media for health-related information and the fact that they followed the advised interventions during the pandemic [53].…”