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Coping with Unknown Health Crisis via Social Media: A Content Analysis of Online Mutual Aid Group in the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2024

Yu Guo ,
Hongzhe Xiang Open the ORCID record for Hongzhe Xiang [Opens in a new window]  and
Yongkang Hou
Yu Guo
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau SAR, China
Hongzhe Xiang*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau SAR, China
Yongkang Hou
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau SAR, China
*
Corresponding author: Hongzhe Xiang; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Objective

The initial emergence of SARS-CoV-2 created uncertainty for humanity, driving people to seek assistance on social media. This study aims to understand the role of social media in coping with crises and to offer guidance for future uncertainties by examining the experiences of Wuhan during the early stages of the pandemic.

Methods

Using quantitative content analysis, this study investigated 2207 Weibo posts tagged with “COVID-19 Mutual Aid” from individuals located in Wuhan during the early lockdown period from January 23, 2020, to March 23, 2020.

Results

At the start of pandemic, messages seeking tangible support were most common. A hurdle regression model showed that deeper self-disclosure led to more retransmission of help-seeking messages. The Chi-Square and Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that health professionals and laypeople had different self-disclosure strategies.

Conclusions

This study provides insight into the online social support exchange during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, highlighting the importance of self-disclosure on message retransmission, and the differences in self-disclosure strategies between health professionals and laypeople in online help-seeking.

Keywords

COVID-19social mediasocial supportself-disclosureinformation completeness
Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 18 , 2024 , e211
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc

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