“Help Us!”: a content analysis of COVID-19 help-seeking posts on Weibo during the first lockdown

Abstract

Background Social media is playing an increasingly important role in public emergencies for help-seekers, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Wuhan, China, firstly official reported COVID-19 cases and implemented lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the virus. People during the first lockdown were restricted from seeking help face-to-face. Social media is more prominent as an online tool for people seeking help, especially for patients, than in other stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This study aimed to explore the urgent needs presented in help-seeking posts in Wuhan during the first COVID-19 lockdown, the content features of these posts, and how they influenced online user engagement. Methods This study collected posts from Weibo posted with specific help tags during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan: from 23 January 2020 to 24 March 2020, and eventually received 2055 data, including textual content, comments, retweets, and publishing location. Content analysis was conducted, and manual coding was performed on help-seeking typology, narrative mode, narrative subject, and emotional valence. Results The result showed that help-seeking posts primarily were seeking medical (97.7%). Features of these posts were mainly adopting a mixed narrative mode (46.4%), released by relatives of patients (61.7%), and expressing negative emotions (93.2%). Chi-square tests suggested that help-seeking posts with mixed narrative modes released by relatives express more frequent negative emotions. Results of negative binomial regression indicated posts of seeking information (B = 0.52, p < .001, e0.52 = 1.68), with mixed narrative mode (B = 0.63, p < .001, e0.63 = 1.86), released by themselves (as referential groups) and with neutral emotions increased comments. Posts of seeking medical (B = 0.57, p < .01, e0.57 = 1.77), with mixed narrative mode (B = 1.88, p < .001, e1.88 = 6.53), released by people of unrelated patients (B = 0.47, p < .001, e0.47 = 1.60) and with neutral emotions increased retweets. Conclusions This study provides evidence of what actual public demands are to be considered and addressed by governments and public administrators before implementing closure and lockdown policies to limit the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, our findings offer strategies for people help-seeking on social media in similar public health emergencies.

A multidimensional comparative study of help-seeking messages on Weibo under different stages of COVID-19 pandemic in China

“…For example, people spread information rapidly through social media when a disaster occurs (11), and donate supplies and money to those affected by the disaster, which plays an important role in disaster relief (12). Social media is also widely used as a channel for people to seek help during public health emergencies, such as hurricanes (13), heavy rains (14)(15)(16)(17), earthquakes (18,19), and COVID-19 pandemic (3,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29).…”

“…Scholars have already examined the help-seeking messages on Weibo (3,(20)(21)(22)(23)(26)(27)(28)(29), Zhihu (24), and Baidu Tieba (25) during the COVID-19 pandemic (Table 1). Until now, the COVID-19 virus has not disappeared and may even exist in people's lives forever, but most of the current studies on help-seeking messages collected data is limited to 2020 (3,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29).…”

“…Scholars have already examined the help-seeking messages on Weibo (3,(20)(21)(22)(23)(26)(27)(28)(29), Zhihu (24), and Baidu Tieba (25) during the COVID-19 pandemic (Table 1). Until now, the COVID-19 virus has not disappeared and may even exist in people's lives forever, but most of the current studies on help-seeking messages collected data is limited to 2020 (3,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29). According to Table 1, only li et al (24) extend the timeframe (1/1/2020 -6/30/2020) to the middle period of the pandemic, but the social platform of their study, Zhihu, is different from the Weibo in this paper.…”