Mesfin A Bekalu
Biographic Data
| ID | 3093109 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mesfin A Bekalu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mesfin A |
| FAMILY NAME | Bekalu |
| SIGNATURE | BEKALU M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1243-5813 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Toward an Extended Infodemiology Framework
This study aims to extend the infodemiology framework by postulating that effective use of digital data sources for cancer communication should consider four components: (a) content: key topics that people are concerned with, (b) congruence: how interest in cancer topics differ between public posts (i.e., tweets) and private web searches, (c) context: the influence of the information environment, and (d) information conduits. We compared tweets (…
Beyond Educating the Masses
Public health communication has long been a key component of tobacco control efforts. However, little is known whether and how such an effort could address disparities in tobacco risk perceptions among population subgroups. In this study, using data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey of Ethiopia, we examined if tobacco risk perceptions varied across socioeconomic and urban vs. rural population subgroups, and whether and how exposure to anti-smo…
Measuring What Matters
The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism-the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability-is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies towar…
Individual and social determinants of Covid-19 vaccine uptake
Our study identified race/ethnicity, risk perceptions, exposure to different media for COVID-19 news, party identification and confidence in scientists as factors that would be affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The good news is that these are addressable through strategic public health communications, but a lot of work remains to be done with some urgency
Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness
Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in‐person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered…
Past Debates, Fresh Impact on Nano-Enabled Food
Informed by the notion of spillover effects between two phenomena, this study examines how differences in prior attitudes would influence the relationships posited by the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) model. Specifically, this study examines how pre-existing favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward genetically modified (GM) food are associated with audiences’ intention to consume nano-enabled food. The results of a nationally rep…
Comparing the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore
This study examines the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore in the context of nanotechnology. This study proposes that academic discipline serves as a better indicator than education levels in predicting nanotechnology knowledge gaps. To reflect the contemporary media landscape, this study examines how attention to online media and documentaries alongside traditional news outlets affect individuals’ nanotechnology knowledg…
Association of Social Media Use With Social Well-Being, Positive Mental Health, and Self-Rated Health
Most studies addressing social media use as a normal social behavior with positive or negative effects on health-related outcomes have conceptualized and measured social media use and its effects in terms of dose–effect relations. These studies focus on measuring frequency and duration of use, and have seldom considered users’ emotional connections to social media use and the effects associated with such connections. By using a scale with two dim…
Smoking portrayal in Ethiopian movies
Considerable research from high-income countries has characterized the amount, nature and effects of movie smoking depiction. However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where tobacco use and tobacco-related diseases are growing, little research has investigated smoking imagery in movies. This study examined the extent and nature of smoking portrayal in locally produced Ethiopian movies, and estimated the number of tobacco impressions mo…
Adolescents’ Conformity to the Television Viewing Behaviour of their Classmates
While it is well understood that demographic, cultural, and personality characteristics predict adolescents’ television viewing, little is known about adolescents’ conformity to the television viewing behaviour of their peers. In particular, there is a lack of research that investigates the similarity in television programme preferences among adolescents and their classmates. The current three-wave panel study involving 732 adolescents showed tha…
Media use and HIV/Aids knowledge
Despite the widespread utilization of the mass media in HIV/AIDS prevention, little is known about the knowledge gap that results from disparities in mass media use. This study examined the relationship between HIV/AIDS-related mass media use and HIV/AIDS-related knowledge among urban and rural residents of northwestern Ethiopia. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that HIV/AIDS-related mass media use has both sequestering and mainstream…
The role of communication inequality in mediating the impacts of socioecological and socioeconomic disparities on HIV/Aids knowledge and risk perception
It was concluded that communication inequality might form part of the socioecologically and socioeconomically embedded processes that affect HIV/AIDS-related outcomes. The findings suggest that the media and message effects that are related to HIV/AIDS behavior change communication can be viewed from a structural perspective that moves beyond the more reductionist behavioral approaches upon which most present-day HIV/AIDS communication campaigns …
Exposure to HIV/Aids-Related Media Content and HIV Testing Intention
© 2015, Mass Communication & Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Despite considerable evidence of an association between mass communication efforts and HIV testing behavior, the mechanisms through which this association may be established have been less extensively studied. Drawing on the integrative model of behavioral prediction, this study assessed the relationship between exposure to HIV/AID…
Communicating Ideologies
This study reports an analysis of definitional examples of country names posted on the World Wide Web (WWW). It aims at shedding some critical light on a sample of 33 definitional examples with an expectation of some sort of patterns which are indicative of ideological processes. The sample definitional examples were compared and conceptually labelled as positive, negative, and neutral within discourse analytic and Grounded Theoretic frameworks. …
Presupposition in news discourse
This study analyses five news articles extracted from three Ethiopian newspapers published in the English language in order to examine the type of knowledge journalists presuppose in news discourse and, in Relevance Theoretic terms, the amount of processing effort that readers are required to invest in accessing and/or activating what has been presupposed. The article also aims to reveal the existence of possible ideological reasons behind journa…
Presupposition in news discourse
This study analyses five news articles extracted from three Ethiopian newspapers published in the English language in order to examine the type of knowledge journalists presuppose in news discourse and, in Relevance Theoretic terms, the amount of processing effort that readers are required to invest in accessing and/or activating what has been presupposed. The article also aims to reveal the existence of possible ideological reasons behind journa…
Measuring What Matters
The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism-the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability-is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies towar…
Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness
Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in‐person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered…
Exposure to HIV/Aids-Related Media Content and HIV Testing Intention
© 2015, Mass Communication & Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Despite considerable evidence of an association between mass communication efforts and HIV testing behavior, the mechanisms through which this association may be established have been less extensively studied. Drawing on the integrative model of behavioral prediction, this study assessed the relationship between exposure to HIV/AID…
Presupposition in news discourse
This study analyses five news articles extracted from three Ethiopian newspapers published in the English language in order to examine the type of knowledge journalists presuppose in news discourse and, in Relevance Theoretic terms, the amount of processing effort that readers are required to invest in accessing and/or activating what has been presupposed. The article also aims to reveal the existence of possible ideological reasons behind journa…
Communicating Ideologies
This study reports an analysis of definitional examples of country names posted on the World Wide Web (WWW). It aims at shedding some critical light on a sample of 33 definitional examples with an expectation of some sort of patterns which are indicative of ideological processes. The sample definitional examples were compared and conceptually labelled as positive, negative, and neutral within discourse analytic and Grounded Theoretic frameworks. …
Media use and HIV/Aids knowledge
Despite the widespread utilization of the mass media in HIV/AIDS prevention, little is known about the knowledge gap that results from disparities in mass media use. This study examined the relationship between HIV/AIDS-related mass media use and HIV/AIDS-related knowledge among urban and rural residents of northwestern Ethiopia. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that HIV/AIDS-related mass media use has both sequestering and mainstream…
The role of communication inequality in mediating the impacts of socioecological and socioeconomic disparities on HIV/Aids knowledge and risk perception
It was concluded that communication inequality might form part of the socioecologically and socioeconomically embedded processes that affect HIV/AIDS-related outcomes. The findings suggest that the media and message effects that are related to HIV/AIDS behavior change communication can be viewed from a structural perspective that moves beyond the more reductionist behavioral approaches upon which most present-day HIV/AIDS communication campaigns …
Exposure to HIV/Aids-Related Media Content and HIV Testing Intention
© 2015, Mass Communication & Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Despite considerable evidence of an association between mass communication efforts and HIV testing behavior, the mechanisms through which this association may be established have been less extensively studied. Drawing on the integrative model of behavioral prediction, this study assessed the relationship between exposure to HIV/AID…
Adolescents’ Conformity to the Television Viewing Behaviour of their Classmates
While it is well understood that demographic, cultural, and personality characteristics predict adolescents’ television viewing, little is known about adolescents’ conformity to the television viewing behaviour of their peers. In particular, there is a lack of research that investigates the similarity in television programme preferences among adolescents and their classmates. The current three-wave panel study involving 732 adolescents showed tha…
Association of Social Media Use With Social Well-Being, Positive Mental Health, and Self-Rated Health
Most studies addressing social media use as a normal social behavior with positive or negative effects on health-related outcomes have conceptualized and measured social media use and its effects in terms of dose–effect relations. These studies focus on measuring frequency and duration of use, and have seldom considered users’ emotional connections to social media use and the effects associated with such connections. By using a scale with two dim…
Smoking portrayal in Ethiopian movies
Considerable research from high-income countries has characterized the amount, nature and effects of movie smoking depiction. However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where tobacco use and tobacco-related diseases are growing, little research has investigated smoking imagery in movies. This study examined the extent and nature of smoking portrayal in locally produced Ethiopian movies, and estimated the number of tobacco impressions mo…
Past Debates, Fresh Impact on Nano-Enabled Food
Informed by the notion of spillover effects between two phenomena, this study examines how differences in prior attitudes would influence the relationships posited by the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) model. Specifically, this study examines how pre-existing favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward genetically modified (GM) food are associated with audiences’ intention to consume nano-enabled food. The results of a nationally rep…
Comparing the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore
This study examines the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore in the context of nanotechnology. This study proposes that academic discipline serves as a better indicator than education levels in predicting nanotechnology knowledge gaps. To reflect the contemporary media landscape, this study examines how attention to online media and documentaries alongside traditional news outlets affect individuals’ nanotechnology knowledg…
Individual and social determinants of Covid-19 vaccine uptake
Our study identified race/ethnicity, risk perceptions, exposure to different media for COVID-19 news, party identification and confidence in scientists as factors that would be affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The good news is that these are addressable through strategic public health communications, but a lot of work remains to be done with some urgency
Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness
Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in‐person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered…
Beyond Educating the Masses
Public health communication has long been a key component of tobacco control efforts. However, little is known whether and how such an effort could address disparities in tobacco risk perceptions among population subgroups. In this study, using data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey of Ethiopia, we examined if tobacco risk perceptions varied across socioeconomic and urban vs. rural population subgroups, and whether and how exposure to anti-smo…
Measuring What Matters
The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism-the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability-is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies towar…
Toward an Extended Infodemiology Framework
This study aims to extend the infodemiology framework by postulating that effective use of digital data sources for cancer communication should consider four components: (a) content: key topics that people are concerned with, (b) congruence: how interest in cancer topics differ between public posts (i.e., tweets) and private web searches, (c) context: the influence of the information environment, and (d) information conduits. We compared tweets (…
Psychology (13 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Environmental health (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Population (6 works) · Social Media and Politics (5 works) · Advertising (4 works) · Demography (4 works)