Health Communication through Positive and Solidarity Messages Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

Automated Content Analysis of Facebook Uses

Bibliographic Data

ID15499792
AuthorsAngela Chang (0000-0002-2937-0908, University of Macau, corresponding author), Xuechang Xian (0000-0002-5846-3660, Zhaoqing University), Matthew Tingchi Liu (0000-0002-1820-5691, University of Macau), Xinshu Zhao (0000-0002-6038-0661, University of Macau)
Year2022
Volume19
Issue10
Pages6159-6159
Publication date2022-05-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1661-7827 • E-ISSN: 1660-4601
PublisherMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3390/ijerph19106159
PMID35627696
OpenAlexW4280502492
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited63

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused significant stress in our lives, which potentially increases frustration, fear, and resentful emotions. Managing stress is complex, but helps to alleviate negative psychological effects. In order to understand how the public coped with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, we used Macao as a case study and collected 104,827 COVID-19 related posts from Facebook through data mining, from 1 January to 31 December 2020. Divominer, a big-data analysis tool supported by computational algorithm, was employed to identify themes and facilitate machine coding and analysis. A total of 60,875 positive messages were identified, with 24,790 covering positive psychological themes, such as "anti-epidemic", "solidarity", "hope", "gratitude", "optimism", and "grit". Messages that mentioned "anti-epidemic", "solidarity", and "hope" were the most prevalent, while different crisis stages, key themes and media elements had various impacts on public involvement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first-ever study in the Chinese context that uses social media to clarify the awareness of solidarity. Positive messages are needed to empower social media users to shoulder their shared responsibility to tackle the crisis. The findings provide insights into users' needs for improving their subjective well-being to mitigate the negative psychological impact of the pandemic

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Content (measure theory · Content analysis · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Internet privacy · Pandemic · Political science · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Social media · Sociology · Solidarity · World Wide Web · Computer Science · COVID-19 and Mental Health · Medicine · Mental Health via Writing · Psychology · Virology

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