The Comparative Role of Social Media and Traditional Media during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mainland China —

 The Comparative Role of Social Media and Traditional Media during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mainland China —

Research Proposal

Introduction

The media has always undertaken the mission of uploading and transmitting. Specifically, it is not only the dissemination tool of government information but also an essential means of social information collection. This role of the media is more prominent, especially in the public health crisis. Upon this technology development has expanded the further function of media. Social media, generated by the Internet, has been developed rapidly in the A.I. revolution, which contributes to the prediction, tracking, and public opinion monitoring of public health crises. The rise of social media in the early 20th century has not overshadowed the traditional media, but after the A.I. booming may change it. The research is eager to find out the comparison effects of social media and traditional media from three perspectives, including peak news time, topic preference, and ability of authorities response during the outbreak of COVID-19. This proposal consists of three parts. Firstly, justify the importance of the research. Then select a concrete proposal of the most appropriate way to undertake the project by evaluating different methodological approaches in their strengths and weaknesses, and ethical and political issues. Finally, to provide the specific project plan, including data collecting, analysis, and explanation, and timetable.

Literature Review and the Importance of the Proposed Research

The research is carried out from the following three-aspect literature reviews, the significance of studying the public health crisis, the comparison between social media and traditional media, and public health crises and Big Data.

The significance of Studying the Public Health Crisis

World Health Organization (WHO) defined Public Health Crisis as “an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition, caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or (a) novel and highly fatal infectious agent or biological toxin, that poses a substantial risk of a significant number of human facilities or incidents or permanent or long-term disability. This kind of crisis is often an indiscriminately human crisis, with cross-regional damage (Meneu. 2010), which means that it is not only a significant threat to human life health but also too social, economic, and other aspects (Meneu, 2010). For example, AIDS broke out in the late 19th century and spread rapidly after that. By the end of 2018, the disease killed 32 million people worldwide (UNAIDS, 2019). As a result of HIV, the growth rate of per capita annual income in Africa declined by 0.7 percentage points per year during the period 1990-1997 (René, 2000). SARS broke out in the early 20th century, and by the end of the epidemic in June 2003, there were 8,422 cases with an 11% death rate (Chan, 2003). It has caused severe damage to the tourism industry in East Asia (Emma, 2003). Until February 18, 2015, WHO says the final fatality of the Ebola virus is 9000, and the death rate is between 50% and 60%. The Ebola virus has disrupted the economies of West Africa. From the prediction of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Group, the exports of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone would fall by 30%, 14%, and 10% in 2014, respectively. The Guardian asserts COVID-19 has affected more than 190 countries so far, with a total of 460,000 cases. At the same time, it led to international economic chaos. The U.S. stock index fell 1,191 points, which is the most significant drop since the 2008 financial crisis, due to the COVID-19 outbreak (Tappe, 2020). In conclusion, these public health crises caused substantial medical, social, and economic implications. Besides, it is a necessary test for different countries’ authorities. Amid a global outbreak of COVID-19, it is worthwhile to refocus the discussion on the public health crisis.

The Public Health Crisis and Big Data

Following the effects of the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, all public health officials around the world were told to prepare for the next epidemic, which might be the largest. According to the Us Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 11,325 deaths caused by Ebola (Qadir et al., 2016). It only not served as a future lesson but also the need for big data when such kind of crisis happens. In both global and national epidemics, there is a significant advancement in big data where it can provide emergency response teams with real-time tools and technology that can contain, monitor, and also the ability to cease the disease spread (Qadir et al., 2016). It can save lives if it is effectively used. Big data, it will be easy for health workers to track and predict trends amid epidemics, and the natural disaster. Embracing big data had come a long way for the federal government over the past two years when these real-time tools were mainly tech companies and start-ups the company’s products (Kaisler et al., 2013). They understood the importance of big data in the research and in helping health professionals to comb via mountains of data to separate trends and come up with health issues solutions. The practice has proven to be of great importance to the professionals. With this help where health workers can successfully tackle the world of data to map and trace the disease outbreak in real-time, then that will be live-saving (Qadir et al., 2016). With the ways to know where next the disease might move, then where medical personnel and where to send the resources can be easily be predicted. The other thing is that emerging outbreaks need to be contained before they spread in another crucial impediment when fighting epidemics (Walley et al., 2019). In the fight for these kinds of emergencies, local authorities, government agencies, public health teams, and the response team are working against the clock. For those public health professionals working in the field, it is essential for the development and implementation of effective disease preparedness measures. Lastly, media play a significant role in the whole process of public health crisis outbreak, transmission, and the end, but with two sides. On the one hand, the media can become a platform for authoritative organizations and the public to communicate and interact and promote the openness and transparency of official information (Kaisler et al., 2013). At the same time, it is also the stage for the activities of various interest subjects; large amounts of media information can lead to information redundancy or misdirection (Butler et al., 2018).

 The comparison between Social Media and Traditional Media

Social media is a form of electronic communication that enables users to create and share data, messages, and content through networking websites and applications (Coulter et al., 2012). The traditional media always indicates all things that run traditional media channels, and this includes magazines, newspapers, radio, and television (Dewan and Ramaprasad, 2014). Traditional media are mainly the push media where the broadcasted to the customer and other shareholders from the company. For the past half a century, people have been using traditional media. With the traditional media, the message is delivered via one way communication to many people as possible to reach over blanket networks like radio and the television (Schultz et al., 2011). It exactly means that the sender or the source determines the information to be published or broadcasted. But with Social media the communication is two way, this two-way form of communication is mostly used when marketing because there is a lot of freedom when it comes to social media over information creation and information sharing (Dewan and Ramaprasad, 2014). When it comes to engagement, social media is used most, but with traditional media, it all about the reach. Actual interaction and response are required in social media. Starting a conversation by getting involved is the aim of social media. At the same time, traditional media is a One Way Street which includes contemporary modes of communication, meaning your message is broadcasted to many people as you can. According to the survey, although social media and traditional media overlap in topic coverage, they have different emphasis (Zhao et al., 2011.). The former focuses on topics such as personal life and popular culture, while the latter focuses on political and economic news (Zhao et al. 2011). When a public health crisis or disaster occurs, organizations are more likely to use traditional media to convey information and solve emotional problems because message broadcasted are decided by the sender unlike social media where anybody can post what he/she feels (Brooke and Sora, 2011.), and 80% of respondents also believe that information released by traditional media is more credible (Lavanya and Preethi, 2014.). But the dialogic and interactive nature of social media cannot be ignored.

Methodology

Research design

Qualitative and Quantitative are the two widely used research designs. The qualitative is very expressive and always handover its discoveries in a manner that is narrative, diversely, the quantitative Design is extremely statistical because the information collected is quantified. Statistical style is used to analyze them so that a given occurrence can be acknowledged as a statistical point of view (Härdle, 2007).

As was stated earlier, quantitative analysis will be used in the conduction of the study. The study aims to investigate the comparative role of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. And one of the most significant ways to describe the connection between the two or more variables is via the technique of quantitative, and that is the reason behind the choice of this approach since the study proposed will be testing the connection between several variables.

Methodological Approach

1. Experiment

Experiment research is commonly used in the Social Sciences, Psychology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Medicine. Experiment research is often used where there is time priority in a causal relationship, where the magnitude of the correlation is excellent and where the causal relationship has the consistency. This method applies to the concepts and assumptions with limited scope and clear boundaries and better for causal explanation than the description (Earl, 2015). In experiments research, researchers manipulate one or more variables to determine their effects on the dependent variables by setting the control group and the treatment group (Schenker and Rumrill, 2004). The apparent strengths of the experiments are as follows. First, the experimental method is controllable. The excellent controllability refers to “the isolation of the experimental variable’s impact over time” (Earl, 2016, p.243). Second, the experiment is reproducible. The experiment can be highly considered valid and general if the results can be reproducible according to the specific experimental conditions and procedures. Third, the experimental design is logical. The experimental method can control the potential internal and external invalidity by continuously improving the experimental design. For example, the Design of Double-blind Experiments (Schulz et al., 2002) can well solve the problems of “Testing” (Campbell and Stanley, 1963) or Hawthorne Effect (Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939) two of twelve internal invalidities pointed out by Campbell. and Stanley (1963:5-6). Solomon four-group design can effectively avoid the external invalidity caused by the interaction between experimental scenarios and experimental stimuli (Campbell and Stanley, 1963:18). As mentioned above, the experimental method’s weaknesses can be gradually overcome in its rigor logic and repeatable operation. Compared with the shortcomings of the methodology, experiments are more likely challenged on ethics and politics. Ethical issues concern some criteria discussing, including “Informed Consent” and “Protection from Harm” (Earl, 2016. p.69). Famous experiments in Social Psychology, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., 1973) and the Stanley Milgram Experiment (Baumrind, 1964), have been questioned and criticized for cheating participants and causing them pain. Therefore, when doing experiments research, researchers should strictly abide by the experimental rules to make the experimental results useful and ethical. In terms of political issues, free value should be prior. Researchers must be fully aware of their personal biases and preconceptions in politics in case of interfering experimental Design.

Robert et al. (2012) studied the online social influence and political mobilization, and “reported results from a randomized controlled trial delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 U.S. congressional elections”. The main result of their study shows that online social networks do influence real-world behaviors. Specifically, social media effects friends more than close friends who can have face-to-face talk frequently.

2. Content Analysis

The content analysis method is used to investigate human-made social facts, mainly referring to written documents, such as “newspapers, web pages, bulletin-posting on the Internet, etc.” (Earl, 2015, pp.323-324). Content analysis can be both Quantitative (where measuring and counting is focused) and Qualitative (where understanding and interpretation is focused) both the types, words are coded, themes, and concepts within the texts and then analyze the results. The method has been widely used in academic research in Communication, Sociology, and Politics to study topics such as “feminism” (Shulamil, 1992), “the role of religion in social movements” (William, 2003: 273), and “the forecast trends of modern American life” (Naisbitt and Aburdene, 1990). The advantages of content analysis mainly focus on two points. First, low cost and high profitability. Its time, money, or personnel demand is relatively low (Earl, 2006), while the results are persuasive due to data alongside. Second, non-interventional. The content analysis pays little attention to the experiment subjects but can be done as long as the data is accessible and encoded (Earl, 2006). However, from another point of view, this is one of the limitations of content analysis. While investigating the recorded communication content, the generation process of the content is neglected, which will eventually lead to ineffective results (Earl, 2006). On the other hand, although the technological revolution has endowed the content analysis with new vitality, the incomplete advanced state of technology also be the weakness of the content analysis. For example, from the perspective of social media, the diversity of network language (Qadir et al. 2016) and the informality or simplicity of social media posts (Roy et al. 2017) all increase the difficulty of retrieval work and content analysis. In terms of ethics and morality, it is difficult to explain whether the analysis text on which the content analysis method relies constitutes a violation of users’ data rights and privacy rights, once it involves the comments made by individuals on social media (Sean McDonald, 2016).

Daniel and David (2008) tried to study the role of the news media in Toronto’s SARS crisis, and their content analysis was carried out on 1600 SARS related articles in five selected newspapers within 91 days. In conclusion, they reminded the government to focus on the public sphere’s communicative interaction, rumor control, and information sources after they examined content, stakeholder representation, and tone (critical versus praising) in different articles.

3. Case Study

The case study is an overtime in-depth research conducted in one or more bounded organizations (people, groups, or organizations) (Benbasat, 1984; Bonoma, 1985; Stone, 1978; Yin, 1984), involving multiple sources of information (e.g., observations, interviews, audiovisual material, and documents and reports) (Plano et al., 2007, p.245). The case study method can describe, understand and explain a research problem or situation (Baxter and Jack, 2008; Tellis, 1997a, 1997b), and also provide strong support for the emergence of new theories. However, it does not have an absolute ontological and epistemological perspective (John and Patsy, 2007). Helena Harrison et al. (2017) understood the method of the case study from the perspective of realism, while Yin (2014), Lincoln et al. (2011) and Abdelhamid (2008) believed that the case study should be carried out from the perspective of interpretivism and relativism, which contains anti-foundationalism ontology and interpretivism epistemology (Lowndes et al., 2017). Most attribute the origins of the case study method to anthropological and sociological research in the early 20th century, when it was used for detailed ethnographic studies of individuals and cultures (Helena et al., 2017), followed by the development of Merriam, Yin, Stake, and others to refine its implications and research strategy (Merriam,1998; Yin, 2003b; Stake, 1978/2000). Case studies have three methodological hallmarks. First, compared with the experimental method and survey research, which can only test the theory, the case study can be used to both construct the theory and test the theory. Second, if existing research problems are found inappropriate in the research process, they can be adjusted at any time. Third, the case study can provide the most comprehensive explanation of a phenomenon (directly cited here). As for the weaknesses, they can be discussed from the following four aspects. First, weak validity (Cutler, 2004, p.374), sometimes the differences between research samples are small, which will reduce internal validity. For example, Piaget’s (1936) theory of cognitive development is based on his observation of his three children, which presents the problem of sample size and criticizes by Siegel and Linda (1993). Second, strong subjectivity. The quality of the case study largely depends on the comprehensive ability of the researcher (Benbasat et al., 1987; Anol, 2012; Patricia, 2008; Creswell, 2014). Third, limited generalization. The results are closely context-related and difficult to be transplanted to other environments (Johansson, 2003; Merriam, 2009; Stewart, 2014). Fourth, no casual exploration. It cannot be used to determine cause and effect as an experimental method. The case study method also faces general ethical questions, mainly concerning informed consent and confidentiality or privacy. Abdelhamid (2008) made a moral criticism of informed consent on the research of Paula and Stefane (2005) on Taiwan education. The Genie case (Curtiss, 1977), known as the study of language acquisition and delayed language development in children, also faces ethical allegations from Genie’s mother.

“(Genie’s mother) She asserted a violation of patient confidentiality, and accused the research team of giving testing priority over Genie’s welfare, invading Genie’s privacy, and severely overworking Genie.”(Rymer, 1994, pp.184-186)

Cecilia and Aik-Kwang (2006) used the case study approach in a psychosocial, behavioral study on the prevention of public health crises. They selected four regions severely affected by SARS as research objects, namely Guangdong, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Toronto. Finally concluded that the subjective norm and knowledge of SARS are influenced a lot in the performance of SARS preventive behaviors, which indicates the importance of improving the general public’s awareness of the disease. The reason why I chose the content analysis is because it offers several advantages to the researchers, whereby it can looks directly at communication via texts. Therefore it gets at the central aspects of social interaction, and it also provides complex model insight of human thoughts and language use. Finally, it allows the operation of both quantitative and qualitative.

Data Collection

The data sources of this report are major topics in Chinese Sina-microblog (representing social media), such as #Latest outbreak map#, #Wuhan diary#, etc. (Fulian al et, 2020), and the top 10 print media in China (traditional media), which are People’s Daily, Reference News, Global Times, Guangming Daily, Guangzhou Daily, Nanfang Daily, Southern Urban Daily, China Youth News, Economic Daily, and Yangtse Evening Post, ranked by daily circulation. The data interception time is from 2020.1.7 to 2020.3.6, and more specific key moments and corresponding events are shown in Table 1. Before the process of data collection. The reason as to why I chose content analysis is because it allows a closeness to the text, which can alternate between specific categories and relationships and also statistically analyze the coded form of text; the other reason is that it is a quiet mode of interaction analysis. Besides, it provides intuition into convoluted models, human language use, and thoughts.

Data analysis

Python software is legally used for automatic crawling and text pre-processing, including Tokenization, Stop Words Removal, and Morphological Normalization (Shashank, 2019). The aspects to be tested ought to include peak news time, topic preference, and ability of authorities’ response. Therefore, it is necessary to code the type of article and the organization that publishes the news. The goal of the content code is to get three different types of news during an outbreak, including health coverage, economics coverage, and politics coverage. At the same time, the coding of authoritative news release subjects should at least include The National Health Commission, PRC, governments at all levels, medical institutions at all levels, experts, and scholars. When conducting content analysis, firstly, the peak time of paper media and microblog is compared. Among the ten selected print media, more than half of the news reports in peak time in a short time, which represents the saturation period. These saturation periods can be recorded and modify or enrich the content of Table 1. Secondly, the daily news in the interception period is classified and analyzed, especially the types of news reports in different saturation period.

Explanation

Finally, the number of authoritative articles published in each saturation period was statistically analyzed by focusing on the authoritative subjects of news reports. On the one hand, the analysis of the peak time helps readers to find the key moments during the outbreak of COVID-19. On the other hand, it is a ground for the analysis of topic tendency and authoritative response in the report. The comparative analysis of topic orientation and authoritative response can separate the functions of traditional media and social media in the outbreak of public health crises. It even may predict the outbreaks and give an early warning like BlueDot doing. Recognizing the role of different media will help authorities to participate in public discussion and manage public crises effectively.

Table 1

Timetable

To complete the research with high quality, time management is necessary. Table2 is the schedule of the project, including seven stages. Firstly, the literature review is the basis of a paper, which collects or synthesizes previous research under a particular topic (Rodell et al., 2016) and improves knowledge on this. I have completed the literature review part of this report on March 28, 2020. After that, I will finish the text pre-processing before data collection by April 28. Combined with the techniques of content analysis mentioned by Robert (1990) and this project research requirement, I will complete the key-word-in-content lists, word-frequency lists, Category Counts in the process of data collection before May 28. Then be going to complete the data analysis and interpretation before June 20. Finally, I will spend the remaining two months to write the first draft of the paper and revise it regularly, and finish the final document before August 30.

Table 2

Note: updated by the researcher as needed

Ethical and Political Issues

1. Privacy Related challenges

According to Kirchin (2007), the overall principles that help in the guidance of online research are fundamentally equal to that guide any research involving human beings and include respect for autonomy, beneficence, and justice. Independence is whereby each person has the right to dignity and privacy, and it should always be protected at all costs. Simply, every person participating in the research should be able to make their own decision to participate in research, an individual who will not be able to participate should also be protected (Kitchin, 2007).  With the online research context, personal information of internet users should be protected by the researchers, and they should exposing anything that would allow their data to be inferred (Gelinas et al., 2017). The ethical principle of autonomy importance is highlighted in the Helsinki Declaration (World Medical Association, 2017) and operationalized via the informed consent process. Jianguo et al. (2020) reported that “people in China sign up through Ant’s popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code — green, yellow or red — that indicates their health status. The system is already in use in 200 cities and is being rolled out nationwide, Ant says” after the pandemic outbreak. The Alipay Health Code plays an essential assistant role in controlling the crisis, but some skepticism arose around the individual privacy production discussion. Times’ analysis found that once a user authorizes the software to access the personal data, a program called “Report Information and Location to the Police” sends the user’s location, city name, and an identifying code number to law enforcement, without the user’s permission and knowledge (Jianguo et al., 2020). The issue of data privacy has been attracting much attention since the arrival of the era of A.I. In this report, users’ privacy should also be taken into serious consideration in search of critical topics on Sina-microblog. The data of people should be protected at all costs in that it will help protect the privacy of their health status.

2. Policy Challenges.

Further, the privacy challenges pose the policy challenges about the legitimacy of data collection. There is a positive example; the E.U. promulgated the GDPR taken into effect in 2018 to protect individuals’ data privacy. But policies or laws that are sometimes outdated often hindrances to effective action. McDonald (2016) recorded aid organizations are facing lawsuits from governments or NGOs for requisitioning crisis information containing personal information. Finally, this results in the rapid spread of Ebola in West Africa. However, our research is inclined summative or predictive, without the urgency of the rescue task, so the research project should follow the existing legal and policy framework.

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