Assessment of public attention, risk perception, emotional and behavioural responses to the COVID-19 outbreak: social media surveillance in China
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Abstract
Background
Using social media surveillance data, this study aimed to assess public attention, risk perception, emotion, and behavioural response to the COVID-19 outbreak in real time.
Methods
We collected data from most popular social medias: Sina Weibo, Baidu search engine, and Ali e-commerce marketplace, from 1 Dec 2019 to 15 Feb 2020. Weibo post counts and Baidu searches were used to generate indices assessing public attention. Public intention and actual adoption of recommended protection measures or panic buying triggered by rumours and misinformation were measured by Baidu and Ali indices. Qualitative Weibo posts were analysed by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count text analysis programme to assess public emotion responses to epidemiological events, governments’ announcements, and control measures.
Findings
We identified two missed windows of opportunity for early epidemic control of the COVID-19 outbreak, one in Dec 2019 and the other between 31 Dec and 19 Jan, when public attention was very low despite the emerging outbreak. Delayed release of information ignited negative public emotions. The public responded quickly to government announcements and adopted recommended behaviours according to issued guidelines. We found rumours and misinformation regarding remedies and cures led to panic buying during the outbreak, and timely clarification of rumours effectively reduced irrational behaviour.
Interpretation
Social media surveillance can enable timely assessments of public reaction to risk communication and epidemic control measures, and the immediate clarification of rumours. This should be fully incorporated into epidemic preparedness and response systems.
Funding
National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Article activity feed
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.14.20035956: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations. First, there is censorship on Weibo in China, and thusly there was a possibility that we might not have captured all posts. To reduce this bias, we collected data (i.e. Weibo posts) daily, before …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.14.20035956: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:There are several limitations. First, there is censorship on Weibo in China, and thusly there was a possibility that we might not have captured all posts. To reduce this bias, we collected data (i.e. Weibo posts) daily, before government intervention. Second, LIWC is a tool that detects emotions using the frequency of words instead of the whole posts, which may lead to misclassification. We adopted its adapted Chinese version, which had been validated locally and can better match with Weibo to reduce misclassification. Third, there is an inherent bias in social media studies where data might misrepresent the real world because users might present themselves differently online and/or represent a skewed population towards the young. The lack of transparent, timely, and effective risk communication from health authorities on an emerging infectious disease in its early stages failed to bring about the appropriate level of public awareness and behavioral responses, such as avoidance of mass gatherings. The government did not provide any actionable advice for personal protection until 21 Jan. There were two missed windows of opportunity for early epidemic control of COVID-19 that we identified during the first 11 weeks of the outbreak: 1) the first COVID-19 case emerged on 8 Dec 2019, more than three weeks before 31 Dec, when the Wuhan Health Commission finally announced the outbreak;1-3 2) between 31 Dec and 19 Jan, the Wuhan Health Commission made four public announcements emphas...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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