Health as Battlefield: News and Misinformation in the Early Stage of COVID-19 Outbreak

Qian Liu and Fan Yang ()
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Qian Liu: School of Journalism and Communication, National Media Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou 511433, China
Fan Yang: Department of Communication, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 16, 1-12

Abstract: From the epidemic center in Wuhan to the entirety of China, with the growing infected population, people are seeking and processing health-related information both online and from traditional media outlets such as newspapers. Online misinformation regarding COVID-19 has been influencing a wide range of readers demonstrating general citizens’ virus-related concerns, while press media have been actively participating in health communication in an attempt to build up a robust, harmonious, and healthy environment. Via a comparison between the news data with the misinformation data during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 1 January 2020 to 20 February 2020, we conducted an LDA topic-modeling analysis and a sentiment analysis. This study sheds light on the nature of people’s methods of health communication with online and press media sources during the early period of the pandemic crisis and provides possible readable explanations for the driving force of misinformation and the emotional changes experienced by the public.

Keywords: coronavirus; COVID-19; LDA topic modeling; misinformation; news; sentiment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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