To shop or shelter? Issue framing effects and social-distancing preferences in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

As a result of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19), U.S. federal, state, and local governmental officials have struggled to coordinate consistent, coherent messaging for citizens to social-distance. The pandemic presents an important context for examining alternative communication frames employed by governments. This study presents results from an artefactual survey experiment in which public-health information regarding COVID-19 was transmitted to a panel of U.S. adult respondents via alternative issue frames and messengers. The findings highlight the importance of delivering consistent messages to the public. Public-health frames positively influence citizen preferences for avoiding unnecessary travel. Conversely, economic frames appear to have the opposite effect, increasing the preference to make unnecessary trips to shop. However, federal messengers appear to strengthen the framing effect relative to expert messengers.

Pandemics and Partisanship: Following Old Paths into Uncharted Territory

“…This is largely driven by information availability and messaging in a fragmented media marketplace, where exposure to information that challenges preexisting beliefs is limited and individuals tend to obtain information from sources that confirm their preexisting beliefs (Baum, 2011; Gollust & Cappella, 2014). Thus, at the individual-level, Republicans and Democrats are exposed to different facts and opinions on the threat of public health crises, which is exacerbated by inconsistent messaging from elected officials (Baum, 2011; Deslatte, 2020). This ultimately leads to differential attitudes and behaviors as individuals rely on their partisan lens to interpret ambiguous circumstances.…”

Updating with Others: Testing the Effect of Informational Social Influence on Political Attitudes

“…yet, even outside of these issues, scholars may consider the potential impact of ISI within other contexts. For example, scholars could apply a similar experimental design when studying misperceptions concerning climate change (Nisbet, Cooper, and Garrett 2015), police violence and the criminal justice system (Esberg, Mummolo, and Westwood n.d.), immigration (Hopkins, Sides, and Citrin 2019), or issues related to health-care response (Deslatte 2020;Lewandowsky et al 2012). Outside of the U.S. context, scholars who focus on issues related to "fact checking" or propaganda (Graves and Cherubini 2016;Huang 2018) may also benefit from considering the role of ISI in modifying the effects of misperceptions.…”

The Erosion of Trust During a Global Pandemic and How Public Administrators Should Counter It

“…In the experiment, two alternative COVID-related communication issue frames—either positive encouragement to social distance or to resume shopping to help the economy—were transmitted to a panel of U.S. adult respondents via different messengers (see Deslatte, 2020c, for a detailed description of the survey; the experimental protocol and data are available on the Harvard Dataverse 3 ). Drawing from the political psychology literature, issue communication frames represent substantively distinct arguments which can influence support for particular governmental policies or actions (Aarøe, 2011; Belardinelli et al, 2018; Chong & Druckman, 2007; Druckman, 2001; Druckman et al, 2012).…”

“…Drawing from the political psychology literature, issue communication frames represent substantively distinct arguments which can influence support for particular governmental policies or actions (Aarøe, 2011; Belardinelli et al, 2018; Chong & Druckman, 2007; Druckman, 2001; Druckman et al, 2012). The study found that public health frames positively influenced preferences for avoiding unnecessary travel, whereas the economic frame appeared to strengthen preferences to make unnecessary trips to shop (Deslatte, 2020c).…”