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Health Communication through Positive and Solidarity Messages Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Automated Content Analysis of Facebook Uses

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Listed:
  • Angela Chang

    (Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China
    Institute of Communication and Health, Lugano University, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Xuechang Xian

    (Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China
    Department of Communication, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing 526060, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Matthew Tingchi Liu

    (Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, Macao, China)

  • Xinshu Zhao

    (Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Angela Chang & Xuechang Xian & Matthew Tingchi Liu & Xinshu Zhao, 2022. "Health Communication through Positive and Solidarity Messages Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Automated Content Analysis of Facebook Uses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-16, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:6159-:d:818797
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Alexia Katsanidou & Ann-Kathrin Reinl & Christina Eder, 2022. "Together we stand? Transnational solidarity in the EU in times of crises," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 66-78, March.
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    1. Li, Xinwei & Xu, Mao & Zeng, Wenjuan & Tse, Ying Kei & Chan, Hing Kai, 2023. "Exploring customer concerns on service quality under the COVID-19 crisis: A social media analytics study from the retail industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

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