Managing urban citizens' panic levels and preventive behaviours during COVID-19 with pandemic information released by social media

Guobin Wu; Xiaopeng Deng; Bingsheng Liu

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2021.103490

Managing urban citizens' panic levels and preventive behaviours during COVID-19 with pandemic information released by social media

Cities. 2022 Jan:120:103490. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2021.103490. Epub 2021 Oct 8.

Authors

Guobin Wu¹, Xiaopeng Deng², Bingsheng Liu³

Affiliations

¹ College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300072, PR China.
² School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 2 Southeast University Road, Jiangning District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 211189, PR China.
³ School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University, 174 Shazheng Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing 400044, PR China.

Abstract

Reducing citizens' panic and promoting their preventive behaviours are critical parts of pandemic management for the government. However, the effects of pandemic information types (daily statistical vs. detailed case information) and sources (official vs. unofficial social media accounts) on the psychological states and behaviours of urban citizens need to be explored further. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of these effects for citizens from areas with different epidemic levels also needs further investigation. Therefore, we conducted a survey during the COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China in March 2020, and 1298 urban citizens (592 from Wuhan) offered reliable data. Results of linear regression analysis indicated that non-Wuhan urban citizens who were more concerned about detailed case information (e.g., patients' movement paths) exhibited more preventive behaviours than those concerned about daily statistical information (e.g., case numbers) and did not show higher panic levels. Additionally, regarding social media information sources, unofficial social media caused both Wuhan and non-Wuhan urban citizens to have higher levels of panic than official media but had no significant impacts on their preventive behaviours. These findings contribute to urban management through the discovery of the effects of different information types and social media information sources on urban citizens during pandemics.

Keywords: Information; Panic; Preventive behaviour; Social media; Urban citizens.