IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0129179.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Sherry Towers
  • Shehzad Afzal
  • Gilbert Bernal
  • Nadya Bliss
  • Shala Brown
  • Baltazar Espinoza
  • Jasmine Jackson
  • Julia Judson-Garcia
  • Maryam Khan
  • Michael Lin
  • Robert Mamada
  • Victor M Moreno
  • Fereshteh Nazari
  • Kamaldeen Okuneye
  • Mary L Ross
  • Claudia Rodriguez
  • Jan Medlock
  • David Ebert
  • Carlos Castillo-Chavez

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Sherry Towers & Shehzad Afzal & Gilbert Bernal & Nadya Bliss & Shala Brown & Baltazar Espinoza & Jasmine Jackson & Julia Judson-Garcia & Maryam Khan & Michael Lin & Robert Mamada & Victor M Moreno & F, 2015. "Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0129179
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129179
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129179&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0129179?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. ,, 1998. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 687-698, October.
    2. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    3. Bettencourt, Luís M.A. & Cintrón-Arias, Ariel & Kaiser, David I. & Castillo-Chávez, Carlos, 2006. "The power of a good idea: Quantitative modeling of the spread of ideas from epidemiological models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 364(C), pages 513-536.
    4. ,, 1998. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 381-386, June.
    5. ,, 1998. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 525-537, August.
    6. ,, 1998. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 285-292, April.
    7. ,, 1998. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 151-159, February.
    8. Cynthia Chew & Gunther Eysenbach, 2010. "Pandemics in the Age of Twitter: Content Analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-13, November.
    9. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Ebola

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Branden B. Johnson, 2017. "Explaining Americans’ responses to dread epidemics: an illustration with Ebola in late 2014," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(10), pages 1338-1357, October.
    2. Nepp, Alexander & Okhrin, Ostap & Egorova, Julia & Dzhuraeva, Zarnigor & Zykov, Alexander, 2022. "What threatens stock markets more - The coronavirus or the hype around it?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 519-539.
    3. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Faugère, Christophe & Gergaud, Olivier & Preuss, Lutz, 2020. "Media attention to large-scale corporate scandals: Hype and boredom in the age of social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 385-398.
    4. Ndanguza, Denis & Mbalawata, Isambi S. & Haario, Heikki & Tchuenche, Jean M., 2017. "Analysis of bias in an Ebola epidemic model by extended Kalman filter approach," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 113-129.
    5. Soumahoro, Souleymane, 2020. "Ethnic politics and Ebola response in West Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Armour, J. & Deakin, S. & Mollica, V. & Siems, M.M., 2010. "Law and Financial Development: What we are learning from time-series evidence," Working Papers wp399, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    2. Dolf Talman & Zaifu Yang, 2012. "On a Parameterized System of Nonlinear Equations with Economic Applications," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 644-671, August.
    3. Zhiqiang Zheng & Balaji Padmanabhan & Steven O. Kimbrough, 2003. "On the Existence and Significance of Data Preprocessing Biases in Web-Usage Mining," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 148-170, May.
    4. Herings, P.J.J. & Talman, A.J.J. & Yang, Z.F., 1999. "Variational Inequality Problems With a Continuum of Solutions : Existence and Computation," Other publications TiSEM 73e2f01b-ad4d-4447-95ba-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Carlos R. Handy & Daniel Vrinceanu & Carl B. Marth & Harold A. Brooks, 2015. "Pointwise Reconstruction of Wave Functions from Their Moments through Weighted Polynomial Expansions: An Alternative Global-Local Quantization Procedure," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-24, November.
    6. Allen C. Goodman & Miron Stano, 2000. "Hmos and Health Externalities: A Local Public Good Perspective," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(3), pages 247-269, May.
    7. Bode, Sven & Michaelowa, Axel, 2003. "Avoiding perverse effects of baseline and investment additionality determination in the case of renewable energy projects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 505-517, May.
    8. Ala, Guido & Fasshauer, Gregory E. & Francomano, Elisa & Ganci, Salvatore & McCourt, Michael J., 2017. "An augmented MFS approach for brain activity reconstruction," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 3-15.
    9. Bettina Campedelli & Andrea Guerrina & Giulia Romano & Chiara Leardini, 2014. "La performance della rete ospedaliera pubblica della regione Veneto. L?impatto delle variabili ambientali e operative sull?efficienza," MECOSAN, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(92), pages 119-142.
    10. Haider A. Khan, 2004. "General Conclusions: From Crisis to a Global Political Economy of Freedom," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Global Markets and Financial Crises in Asia, chapter 9, pages 193-211, Palgrave Macmillan.
    11. Penn Loh & Zoë Ackerman & Joceline Fidalgo & Rebecca Tumposky, 2022. "Co-Education/Co-Research Partnership: A Critical Approach to Co-Learning between Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Tufts University," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, February.
    12. Broekhuis, Manda & Vos, Janita F.J., 2003. "Improving organizational sustainability using a quality perspective," Research Report 03A43, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    13. O'Brien, Raymond & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2003. "Testing the exogeneity assumption in panel data models with "non classical" disturbances," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0302, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    14. van der Laan, G. & Talman, A.J.J. & Yang, Z.F., 2002. "Perfection and Stability of Stationary Points with Applications in Noncooperative Games," Discussion Paper 2002-108, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    15. Edcarlos D. Silva & J. C. Albuquerque & T. R. Cavalcante, 2021. "Fourth-order nonlocal type elliptic problems with indefinite nonlinearities," Partial Differential Equations and Applications, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 1-22, April.
    16. YongSeog Kim & W. Nick Street & Gary J. Russell & Filippo Menczer, 2005. "Customer Targeting: A Neural Network Approach Guided by Genetic Algorithms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 264-276, February.
    17. Montijano, J.I. & Rández, L. & Van Daele, M. & Calvo, M., 2020. "On the numerical stability of the exponentially fitted methods for first order IVPs," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 379(C).
    18. Yanling Li & Zita Oravecz & Shuai Zhou & Yosef Bodovski & Ian J. Barnett & Guangqing Chi & Yuan Zhou & Naomi P. Friedman & Scott I. Vrieze & Sy-Miin Chow, 2022. "Bayesian Forecasting with a Regime-Switching Zero-Inflated Multilevel Poisson Regression Model: An Application to Adolescent Alcohol Use with Spatial Covariates," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 376-402, June.
    19. Jensen, Nathan M. & Li, Quan & Rahman, Aminur, 2007. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter : understanding corruption using cross-national firm-level surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4413, The World Bank.
    20. Oscar J. Cacho & Robyn L. Hean & Russell M. Wise, 2003. "Carbon‐accounting methods and reforestation incentives," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 47(2), pages 153-179, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0129179. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.