Social media and moral panics: Assessing the effects of technological change on societal reaction

Walsh, James P.

doi:10.1177/1367877920912257

Cited by 99 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Despite the preventive measures of international organizations and governments of different countries to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 [11,12], the news of an increasing number of infected as well as deceased in different countries and regions have steered panic among the mass people [13][14][15][16][17]. The situation has been elevated further with the exposure to exaggerated 'viral' news in social media, such as Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, and so on, as well as 'misinformation' by electronic sources, like news reports and online blogs [5,7,[18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation

et al. 2020

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Classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has spread to Bangladesh since early March of 2020, and people are getting daily updates from the social and electronic media. We aimed at assessing the prevalence of anxiety among Bangladeshi people during the pandemic in connection with social media exposure (SME) and electronic media exposure (EME). For this cross-sectional study, data were collected from 880 participants by a self-administered online-based questionnaire relating personal characteristics, self-rate health (SRH), SME, and EME with anxiety. Findings show that around half of the surveyed population experienced a spike of anxiety (49.1%) during the pandemic, ten times higher than the national anxiety rate in 2019. The participants with an increased SME of over four hours per day experienced a higher level of anxiety than individuals with < = 2 hours exposure to social media. Similarly, the anxiety was higher among people with fair/bad SRH compared to individuals with excellent SRH. It is highly recommended to develop active surveillance and effective monitoring systems to reduce the spread of misinformation from both social and electronic media to improve the state of mental health conditions during the pandemic.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation

et al. 2020

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“…In December 2019, the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID- 19), which originated in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China, spread around the world, forcing the World Health Organization (WHO) to recognize this unanticipated health emergency as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 [1]. Like the high case-fatality rate of its predecessors, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012 [2], the New Coronavirus, has also become a global challenge in the absence of specific antidotes or vaccines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, prolonged isolation in the form of quarantine and social distance generates a sense of isolation, stigmatization, and deprivation, and subsequently produces the symptoms of anxiety and depression [13][14][15][16][17], especially among students as they were found to be at higher risk of developing mental health problems during SARS in China [18]. Their increased exposure to mass media [8,9] with daily updates of new infections and fatalities is also amplifying anxiety and fear [19,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of Generalized Anxiety, Depression, and Subjective Sleep Quality among University Students during COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh

Shovo¹,

Ahammed²,

Khan³

et al. 2021

DSAHMJ

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The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors associated with generalized anxiety, depression, and subjective sleep quality among university students during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Bangladesh. Data for this web-based cross-sectional study were collected from 1317 university students from 49 universities using a self-administered e-questionnaire in the last week of April 2020. Findings suggest that university students have been experiencing heightened generalized anxiety (51%), depression (45.9%), and poor subjective sleep quality (27.1%). Results also indicate that university students were severely frightened about COVID-19. The severity of fear and geographical locations were the key determinants in shaping the state of mind as well as subjective sleep quality of university students. It is, therefore, strongly recommended to initiate not only effective strategies to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 but also a strict monitoring mechanism to detect the presence of mental ailments among university students, and to offer necessary supports through family, community, and institutional agencies to curb psychological problems, especially during this unprecedented health emergency.

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“…Governments and policymakers have to respond to the threat, and panic about the issue results in societal changes based on new perceptions of the situation. Research shows that digital platforms and communications constitute significant targets, facilitators, and instruments of panic production among the general public (Walsh 2020). Digital platforms can intensify collective alarm and offer spaces for individuals to share their perception of the situationbe it with regard to losing control or gaining control over the pandemic.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

A typology of social characters and various means of control: an analysis of communication during the early stages of the corona pandemic in Germany

Seidenschnur

2020

European Societies

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This paper argues that Covid-19 has produced a set of social characters during the corona crisis and that these characters represent different approaches toward control. Social characters emerge as constructs responding to current discourses. They may function as role models in uncertain times and offer orientation. The paper identifies such characters in communication on the online platform Jodel. It analyses and discusses the properties of the following social characters, which are reconstructed inductively from the data, classifying 156 Jodel posts into the following typology: the social worker, the crisis entrepreneur, the worried and depressed loner, the crisis manager, the admonisher, and the health expert. All these characters also display different approaches to how the crisis could be controlled. Some of them highlight economic discourses, others psychological discourses, and again others bureaucratic discourses. The analysis of the social characters and their approaches to control contributes to research on the role of discourses in modern European societies and on how these discourses contribute to different approaches to controlling a crisis.

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Social media and moral panics: Assessing the effects of technological change on societal reaction

Cited by 99 publications

References 86 publications

Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation

Social and electronic media exposure and generalized anxiety disorder among people during COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh: A preliminary observation

Determinants of Generalized Anxiety, Depression, and Subjective Sleep Quality among University Students during COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh

A typology of social characters and various means of control: an analysis of communication during the early stages of the corona pandemic in Germany

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