Impacts of Informational Support and Emotional Support on Public Communication Via Government-Owned Weibo Amidst Covid-19 in China

22 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2022

See all articles by Ruilin Zhu

Ruilin Zhu

Lancaster University

Xuelian Li

Chongqing University

Xuan HU

Chongqing University

Abstract

Social media-based public communication becomes an increasingly prominent channel for the government to interact with the public during crises. Most of the existing studies, however, largely focused on social media’s informational support, overlooking the emotional support that could be equally provided to the public. As such, this research took the lead to investigates both supports derived from social media-based public communication. Data were collected from 17 provincial government-owned Weibo accounts across Covid-19 in China with a Natural Language Processing based method in an econometric model to compute the strengths of informational support and emotional support strength. The findings are twofold: the emotional support is empirically confirmed in the study, which is not in lockstep with the informational support; and their impacts on public communication are dynamic rather than static across stages throughout the crisis. The study suggests incorporating both supports to develop better strategies of public communication.

Keywords: social support, public communication, social media, Covid-19

Suggested Citation

Zhu, Ruilin and Li, Xuelian and HU, Xuan, Impacts of Informational Support and Emotional Support on Public Communication Via Government-Owned Weibo Amidst Covid-19 in China. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4028818 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4028818

Ruilin Zhu

Lancaster University ( email )

Lancaster LA1 4YX
United Kingdom

Xuelian Li

Chongqing University ( email )

Shazheng Str 174, Shapingba District
Shazheng street, Shapingba district
Chongqing 400044, 400030
China

Xuan HU (Contact Author)

Chongqing University ( email )

Shazheng Str 174, Shapingba District
Shazheng street, Shapingba district
Chongqing 400044, 400030
China

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