Dataset Information

Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only four laboratory confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire nation. Public interest in these events was high, as reflected in the millions of Ebola-related Internet searches and tweets performed in the month following the first confirmed case. Use of trending Internet searches and tweets has been proposed in the past for real-time prediction of outbreaks (a field referred to as "digital epidemiology"), but accounting for the biases of public panic has been problematic. In the case of the limited U. S. Ebola outbreak, we know that the Ebola-related searches and tweets originating the U. S. during the outbreak were due only to public interest or panic, providing an unprecedented means to determine how these dynamics affect such data, and how news media may be driving these trends.

Methodology

We examine daily Ebola-related Internet search and Twitter data in the U. S. during the six week period ending Oct 31, 2014. TV news coverage data were obtained from the daily number of Ebola-related news videos appearing on two major news networks. We fit the parameters of a mathematical contagion model to the data to determine if the news coverage was a significant factor in the temporal patterns in Ebola-related Internet and Twitter data.

Conclusions

We find significant evidence of contagion, with each Ebola-related news video inspiring tens of thousands of Ebola-related tweets and Internet searches. Between 65% to 76% of the variance in all samples is described by the news media contagion model.

SUBMITTER: Towers S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4465830 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America.

Towers Sherry S Afzal Shehzad S Bernal Gilbert G Bliss Nadya N Brown Shala S Espinoza Baltazar B Jackson Jasmine J Judson-Garcia Julia J Khan Maryam M Lin Michael M Mamada Robert R Moreno Victor M VM Nazari Fereshteh F Okuneye Kamaldeen K Ross Mary L ML Rodriguez Claudia C Medlock Jan J Ebert David D Castillo-Chavez Carlos C

PloS one 20150611 6

<h4>Background</h4>In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only four laboratory confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire nation. Public interest in these events was high, as reflected in the millions of Ebola-related Internet searches and tweets performed in the ...[more]

PMID: 26067433

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Project description:BACKGROUND:The Ebola communication crisis of 2014 generated widespread fear and attention among Western news media, social media users, and members of the United States (US) public. Health communicators need more information on misinformation and the social media environment during a fear-inducing disease outbreak to improve communication practices. The purpose of this study was to describe the content of Ebola-related tweets with a specific focus on misinformation, political content, health related content, risk framing, and rumors. METHODS:We examined tweets from a random 1% sample of all tweets published September 30th - October 30th, 2014, filtered for English-language tweets mentioning "Ebola" in the content or hashtag, that had at least 1 retweet (N = 72,775 tweets). A randomly selected subset of 3639 (5%) tweets were evaluated for inclusion. We analyzed the 3113 tweets that meet inclusion criteria using public health trained human coders to assess tweet characteristics (joke, opinion, discord), veracity (true, false, partially false), political context, risk frame, health context, Ebola specific messages, and rumors. We assessed the proportion of tweets with specific content using descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests. RESULTS:Of non-joke tweets, 10% of Ebola-related tweets contained false or partially false information. Twenty-five percent were related to politics, 28% contained content that provoked reader response or promoted discord, 42% contained risk elevating messages and 72% were related to health. The most frequent rumor mentioned focused on government conspiracy. When comparing tweets with true information to tweets with misinformation, a greater percentage of tweets with misinformation were political in nature (36% vs 15%) and contained discord-inducing statements (45% vs 10%). Discord-inducing statements and political messages were both significantly more common in tweets containing misinformation compared with those without(p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS:Results highlight the importance of anticipating politicization of disease outbreaks, and the need for policy makers and social media companies to build partnerships and develop response frameworks in advance of an event. While each public health event is different, our findings provide insight into the possible social media environment during a future epidemic and could help optimize potential public health communication strategies.

Project description:Evidence suggests that suicide rates can increase following the suicide of a prominent celebrity or peer, sometimes known as 'suicide contagion'. The risk of contagion is especially high when media coverage is detailed and sensational. A recent study reported a 10% increase in U.S. suicides in the months following the suicide of comedian Robin Williams, who died in August 2014. The authors tentatively linked this increase to sensational media coverage; however, no content analysis of U.S. media was performed. As such, the aim of the present study is to formally examine the tone and content of U.S. newspaper coverage of Williams' suicide. The primary objective is to assess adherence to suicide reporting guidelines in U.S. newspapers after his suicide. The secondary objective is to identify common emerging themes discussed in these articles. The tertiary objective is to compare patterns of results in the U.S media with those in the Canadian media. Articles about Williams' suicide were collected from 10 U.S. newspapers in the 30-day period following his death using systematic retrieval software, which were then examined for adherence to suicide reporting recommendations. An inductive thematic analysis was also undertaken. A total of 63 articles were included in the study. We found that 100% of articles did not call it a 'successful' suicide, 96.8% did not use pejorative phrases and 71% did not say 'commit' suicide. However, only 11% included information about help-seeking, 27% tended to romanticize his suicide and 46% went into detail about the method. The most prominent emerging theme was Williams' struggles with mental illness and addiction. These findings suggest that U.S. newspapers moderately adhered to best practice recommendations when reporting Williams' suicide. Key recommendations were underapplied, which may have contributed to suicide contagion. New interventions targeting U.S. journalists and media may be needed to improve suicide reporting.

Dataset Information

Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America.

Background

Methodology

Conclusions

Publications

Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America.

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