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Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners

BACKGROUND: A significant public health emergency has appeared worldwide since the beginning of 2020. The spread of negative information about COVID-19 on social media poses a challenge and threat to public health disposition and the credibility of government public opinion. OBJECTIVE: This study ai...

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Autores principales: Li, Zhigang, Wang, Manjia, Zhong, Jialong, Ren, Yiling
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9354850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35937264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.900776
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author Li, Zhigang
Wang, Manjia
Zhong, Jialong
Ren, Yiling
author_facet Li, Zhigang
Wang, Manjia
Zhong, Jialong
Ren, Yiling
author_sort Li, Zhigang
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: A significant public health emergency has appeared worldwide since the beginning of 2020. The spread of negative information about COVID-19 on social media poses a challenge and threat to public health disposition and the credibility of government public opinion. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyze the rules and characteristics of government media in disseminating information on public emergencies. In addition, find ways and means to improve government media's communication power and credibility. METHOD: Based on relevant theories and measures of information econometrics, 10 WeChat official accounts of the Chinese government were taken as examples. The Python crawler tool was used to collect data of 10 WeChat official accounts-related tweets. In addition, this study used various tools, such as ROST, UCINET, and SPSS, for statistical analysis and co-word analysis of the data. RESULT: From January 17 to March 31, 2020, 6,612 COVID-19-related tweets were published by 10 WeChat official accounts, which broadcast epidemic overview, epidemic prevention and control, science and disinformation, epidemic assistance, epidemic impact, and negative impact. By analyzing the posting time and content of the tweets, we found that changes in the number of articles posted by the WeChat and changes in content and the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic are nearly synchronized, and most tweets are published at 8:00 am. Furthermore, based on the analytics of high dissemination index and high-frequency words, we propose that there is a significant correlation between the strength of independence and the credibility of the WeChat official account. CONCLUSION: The three elements of WeChat communication (value, interest, and moving) and the degree of independent innovation of public numbers impact the communication power and credibility of government media. First, if the articles published by the WeChat official account are valuable, interesting, and moving, the communication power of the WeChat official account would get more powerful. Second, increased ability for independent innovation has a positive impact on enhancing the WeChat official account's credibility. Third, government media can improve its governance effects of public health emergencies by enhancing their communication power and credibility.
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spelling pubmed-93548502022-08-06 Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners Li, Zhigang Wang, Manjia Zhong, Jialong Ren, Yiling Front Public Health Public Health BACKGROUND: A significant public health emergency has appeared worldwide since the beginning of 2020. The spread of negative information about COVID-19 on social media poses a challenge and threat to public health disposition and the credibility of government public opinion. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyze the rules and characteristics of government media in disseminating information on public emergencies. In addition, find ways and means to improve government media's communication power and credibility. METHOD: Based on relevant theories and measures of information econometrics, 10 WeChat official accounts of the Chinese government were taken as examples. The Python crawler tool was used to collect data of 10 WeChat official accounts-related tweets. In addition, this study used various tools, such as ROST, UCINET, and SPSS, for statistical analysis and co-word analysis of the data. RESULT: From January 17 to March 31, 2020, 6,612 COVID-19-related tweets were published by 10 WeChat official accounts, which broadcast epidemic overview, epidemic prevention and control, science and disinformation, epidemic assistance, epidemic impact, and negative impact. By analyzing the posting time and content of the tweets, we found that changes in the number of articles posted by the WeChat and changes in content and the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic are nearly synchronized, and most tweets are published at 8:00 am. Furthermore, based on the analytics of high dissemination index and high-frequency words, we propose that there is a significant correlation between the strength of independence and the credibility of the WeChat official account. CONCLUSION: The three elements of WeChat communication (value, interest, and moving) and the degree of independent innovation of public numbers impact the communication power and credibility of government media. First, if the articles published by the WeChat official account are valuable, interesting, and moving, the communication power of the WeChat official account would get more powerful. Second, increased ability for independent innovation has a positive impact on enhancing the WeChat official account's credibility. Third, government media can improve its governance effects of public health emergencies by enhancing their communication power and credibility. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9354850/ /pubmed/35937264 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.900776 Text en Copyright © 2022 Li, Wang, Zhong and Ren. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Li, Zhigang
Wang, Manjia
Zhong, Jialong
Ren, Yiling
Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title_full Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title_fullStr Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title_full_unstemmed Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title_short Improving the Communication and Credibility of Government Media in Response to Public Health Emergencies: Analysis of Tweets From the WeChat Official Accounts of 10 Chinese Health Commissioners
title_sort improving the communication and credibility of government media in response to public health emergencies: analysis of tweets from the wechat official accounts of 10 chinese health commissioners
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9354850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35937264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.900776
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