Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32302966›Full record

ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2020

Health Communication Through News Media During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Digital Topic Modeling Approach.

Qian Liu, Zequan Zheng, Jiabin Zheng, Qiuyi Chen, Guan Liu, Sihan Chen, Bojia Chu, Hongyu Zhu, Babatunde Akinwunmi, Jian Huang and 2 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
94citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

94 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Qian LiuSchool of Journalism and Communication, National Media Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0001-9070-2863
Zequan Zheng *Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-6031-6643
Jiabin Zheng *Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0001-7961-4301
Qiuyi ChenSchool of Journalism and Communication, National Media Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0001-6616-9448
Guan LiuComputer Centre, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-1272-292X
Sihan ChenDepartment of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-7035-5777
Bojia ChuDepartment of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-4942-837X
Hongyu ZhuDepartment of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-2958-6661
Babatunde AkinwunmiCenter for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-8316-1552
Jian HuangMultidisciplinary, Collaborative Research Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, St Mary's Campus, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0002-3931-5013
Casper J P ZhangSchool of Public Health, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.ORCID 0000-0003-1047-0287
Wai-Kit MingDepartment of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.ORCID 0000-0002-8846-7515

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundIn December 2019, a few coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases were first reported in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Soon after, increasing numbers of cases were detected in other parts of China, eventually leading to a disease outbreak in China. As this dreadful disease spreads rapidly, the mass media has been active in community education on COVID-19 by delivering health information about this novel coronavirus, such as its pathogenesis, spread, prevention, and containment.

objectiveThe aim of this study was to collect media reports on COVID-19 and investigate the patterns of media-directed health communications as well as the role of the media in this ongoing COVID-19 crisis in China.

methodsWe adopted the WiseSearch database to extract related news articles about the coronavirus from major press media between January 1, 2020, and February 20, 2020. We then sorted and analyzed the data using Python software and Python package Jieba. We sought a suitable topic number with evidence of the coherence number. We operated latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling with a suitable topic number and generated corresponding keywords and topic names. We then divided these topics into different themes by plotting them into a 2D plane via multidimensional scaling.

resultsAfter removing duplications and irrelevant reports, our search identified 7791 relevant news reports. We listed the number of articles published per day. According to the coherence value, we chose 20 as the number of topics and generated the topics' themes and keywords. These topics were categorized into nine main primary themes based on the topic visualization figure. The top three most popular themes were prevention and control procedures, medical treatment and research, and global or local social and economic influences, accounting for 32.57% (n=2538), 16.08% (n=1258), and 11.79% (n=919) of the collected reports, respectively.

conclusionsTopic modeling of news articles can produce useful information about the significance of mass media for early health communication. Comparing the number of articles for each day and the outbreak development, we noted that mass media news reports in China lagged behind the development of COVID-19. The major themes accounted for around half the content and tended to focus on the larger society rather than on individuals. The COVID-19 crisis has become a worldwide issue, and society has become concerned about donations and support as well as mental health among others. We recommend that future work addresses the mass media's actual impact on readers during the COVID-19 crisis through sentiment analysis of news data.

Indexed as

BetacoronavirusDisease OutbreaksHealth CommunicationChinaCoronavirus InfectionsCOVID-19HumansMass MediaMental HealthPandemicsPneumonia, ViralPublic OpinionSARS-CoV-2coronavirusCOVID-19health communicationmass mediaoutbreakpublic crisistopic modeling

Identifiers

PMID32302966
PMCPMC7189789

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.