Sungsu Kim (PhD alum), Sung In Choi (PhD candidate), Chiara Valentini, Mark Badham, and Yan Jin. (forthcoming). “How Motivation to Reduce Uncertainty Predicts COVID-19 Behavioral Responses: Strategic Health Communication Insights for Managing an Ongoing Pandemic.” American Behavioral Scientist.
Abstract: During highly uncertain times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital to understand and predict individuals’ responses to governments’ crisis and risk communication. This study draws on the Orientation-Stimulus-Orientation-Response (O-S-O-R) model to examine (1) whether uncertainty reduction motivation (a pre-orientation factor) drove Americans to turn to traditional news media and/or social media (stimuli) to obtain COVID-19 information; (2) if these media preferences shaped their COVID-19 knowledge, cognitive information vetting, and trust in government communication (post-orientation factors); and finally (3) whether these factors contributed to their intended and actual behaviors (responses), such as getting vaccinated. Thus, this study explores how multiple communicative and cognitive mechanisms contribute to public compliance with government health recommendations during a pandemic. Mediation analyses showed positive indirect effects between uncertainty reduction motivation and behavioral outcomes via use of social media (in relation to traditional news media) and COVID-19 knowledge and cognitive information vetting. This study discusses theoretical and practical health communication implications of these findings.
Chiara Valentini, Elanor Colleoni, Yan Jin and Sung In Choi (PhD candidate) (2023, May). “Public’s Health Information Consumption During a Prolonged Pandemic: The Competing Roles of Journalists and Digital Influencers and Their Effects in Combating Message Fatigue.” Journalism Division, International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada.
Abstract: This study empirically investigates COVID-19 information consumption behaviors of individuals who show pandemic fatigue indications. Particularly, this study examines the relation between the type of information source—journalist versus digital influencer—, how people feel about the pandemic, how they cognitively cope with the information they receive, and in their overall message fatigue. Data collection took place in spring 2022 through a market research company on a representative sample of the population in Australia, Finland, Italy, Sweden, South Korea, and the United States of America. The sample comprises over 3000 respondents stratified by age, gender, education, and house income. Results show that consuming more journalists’ information helps people reduce cognitive coping and subsequent message fatigue, if individuals think those messages are highly credible. On the other hand, consuming more digital influencers’ information increases cognitive coping behavior and message fatigue. This study contributes to expand our understanding of the role of journalists vis-à-vis that of digital influencers during a global pandemic.
Tench, R., Meng, J., & Moreno, A. (Eds.). (2023). Strategic Communication in a Global Crisis: National and International Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic. London: Routledge. ISBN: 9781032026954. Website: https://www.routledge.com/Strategic-Communication-in-a-Global-Crisis-National-and-International-Responses/Tench-Meng-Moreno/p/book/9781032026954
Abstract: This edited volume makes a unique and timely contribution by exploring in depth the topic of strategic communication and COVID-19 from a global perspective. It is widely agreed that effective and timely communication and leadership are crucial to the successful management of any pandemic. With the ongoing and possibly long-lasting impact COVID-19 has had on many aspects of communication and multiple sectors of our societies, it is critical to explore the role of strategic communication in change management during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. This book addresses such a need and is thoroughly grounded in rich empirical evidence gained through a global study of COVID-19 communication experiences and strategies. The book was published on Oct. 20, 2022, with the copyright year of 2023. This book is included in the series of Routledge New Directions in PR and Communication Research.
Kate Fortmueller. “‘Picture it, U.S. 2020…’: The Golden Girls and sitcom nostalgia during the pandemic,” in The Golden Age of Television: The Golden Girls Reader. Edited by Taylor Cole Miller and Alfred Martin. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Abstract: In 2020 the coronavirus swept across the world, shutting down scripted media production and thwarted streaming premiers. With many shows postponed or on unplanned hiatus, and audiences clamoring for lockdown content, streamers began licensing more programming. During the pandemic vintage network sitcoms found renewed popularity with streaming audiences. This chapter considers the importance of nostalgia to contextualize the industrial and cultural significance of The Golden Girls in the streaming era and during the Covid pandemic.
Glen Nowak is a co-Principal Investigator on a $1 million National Science Foundation Development Grant supported under NSF’s Phase 1 funding for projects involving Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention. This is an 18-month long multi-investigator, multi-institution project interdisciplinary project to design and evaluate new approaches to infectious disease modeling to better forecast how outbreaks and pandemics will evolve or change, including based on beliefs and intentions regarding public health actions and recommendations. The project is led by University of Georgia Regents’ Professor John Drake of the Odum School of Ecology and includes several faculty members from UGA as well as researchers from the University of Michigan and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. The researchers will follow an approach pioneered to solve complex engineering problems, collaborating on six demonstration projects that are based upon their core expertise. Nowak and Michael Cacciatore will lead a project that involves designing and implementing a Fall 2022 national survey and then working with infectious disease modelers to incorporate key survey findings into mathematical forecasting models.
Abstract: This study investigates to understand the impact of potential tourists’ risk perception on natural disaster in Japan and risk information seeking on visit intention to Japan, the Olympic Games host country, under uncertain circumstances. Implications on the effect of environmental risk perception are discussed.
Dr. Meng serves as an invited panelist to discuss how the double pandemic—the virus and racial reckoning—is continuing to shape resilience, resourcefulness and reform in our industry and how educators can help students test and stretch their resilience in the classroom.
Abstract: The world is subject to many an affliction and pandemic, as seen most recently with COVID-19. This study, in an attempt to better understand the trends and workings of the past, conducted deep-dive narrative and trend analyses of three prominent virus afflictions: the 1918 Flu, Polio, and HIV/AIDs. Through the lens of public health communicators and public relations practitioners, the communications about each virus are explored and later analyzed through a lens of Nel Noddings’ ethic of care–examining the supposed cultivation of caring relationships developed between those communicating (or not communicating) and those who desperately need the message (the cared-for).
Taylor Voges (Grady PhD Student), LaShonda Eaddy (Grady PhD Alum), Shelley Spector, and Yan Jin.
Glen Nowak, Michael Cacciatore, Bart Wojdynski, Glenna Read, and Itai Himelboim are part of a University of Georgia proposal submitted in response to a National Institutes of Health call for proposals to establish Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CIERR). As part of UGA’s proposal to establish a UGA Center for Influenza Disease and Emergence Research (CIDER), the Grady College Center for Health & Risk Communication could receive approximately $2,352,975 to undertake survey, message and material testing involving eye-tracking and psychophysiological measures, and social media monitoring-related research related to pandemic influenza beliefs and intentions over the course of seven years. The overall UGA contract proposal is approximately $57 million for the seven-year period.
Yan Jin (PI). Grant from Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication: ($4,500, 2020-2021). [Co-PIs: Shelley Spector and Lashonda Eaddy (Grady PhD Alum)] “Ethical and Effective Multi-Agency Public Crisis Communications: Lessons Learned from Recent U.S. History and through the Lens of Practitioners Who Fought in the Trench Warfare against the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
