Communication and representation of risk in health crises: the influence of framing and group identity / Comunicación en crisis sanitarias y representación del riesgo. La influencia del framing y la identidad grupal

Abstract

Based on the Social Representations Theory (SRT) applied to the social construction of risk and the role played by group identities, this study examines the construction of risk created by the mass media in health epidemics. An experimental design with split-ballot questionnaire and 319 participants was used in which message framing (human interest vs. attribution of responsibility) and proximity (high vs. low) were manipulated for a high invulnerability identity (youth) vs. a low invulnerability identity (elderly) population. Results showed that the human interest framing increased the perception of risk, especially when the proximity of the epidemic was high; this effect was explained by people's emotional response. Furthermore, youth projected the risk towards 'the other' in order to protect their invulnerability identity. Finally, we stress the importance of the SRT on a theoretical and applied level for risk communication in health crises.

Exploring the social and emotional representations used by students from the University of the Basque Country to face the first outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic

“…One of these is characterized by issues related to aspects that are external to themselves while the other is related to the individual self. Previous studies on social representations have also highlighted the fact that in pandemic situations, students identify the disease as being far removed from their own situation [ 26 , 37 ]. This process of placing the risk on ‘the other’ is common in EID representations theory [ 24 ].…”

“…To analyze the students’ social representations of COVID-19 the Grid Elaboration Method of free association was used, which has been useful for conducting research on social representations of global infectious disease and other issues [ 26 , 29 ]. Participants were provided with a paper with four boxes and were asked to write down any word or sentence that came to their mind when they thought about the ‘Coronavirus or COVID-19’.…”

“…In a similar vein, social representations are strongly anchored in the group to which each person belongs. In fact, previous research on EID found that university students were not anxious about the pandemic situation nor did they think it was serious, and most likely believed that they were not susceptible to the pandemic, in spite of belonging to the most affected group in some pandemics, for example in H1N1 [ 26 , 27 ] [46]. Further, it has been pointed out that universities are a hotspots of infection due to their large young adult population, high levels of close social contact, and permeable boundaries [ 28 ].…”

Niveles de estrés, ansiedad y depresión en la primera fase del brote del COVID-19 en una muestra recogida en el norte de España

“…As for age range, older adults are expected to be more psychologically vulnerable to the pandemic, while younger adults are expected to self-protect through an optimistic bias, or self-perceived invulnerability 15 .…”

Emozioak unibertsitateko ikasketa prozesuen ardatz: Lehen Hezkuntzako Graduaren kasua

“…Frogatua izan da (Reinert, 1996) estruktura horiek bereziki lotuak daudela testuan hitzek duten banaketarekin eta banaketa hori orokorki ez dela zorizkoa izaten. Beraz, softwarearen algoritmoaren helburua testu batean agertzen diren mundu lexikal errepikakorrak, hau da ideia errepikakorrak identifikatzea eta sailkatzea da (Idoiaga, Gil de Montes, eta Valencia, 2015;Ormeño, 2016).…”