Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34879113›Full record

ArticlePloS one2021

Citizen journalism reduces the credibility deficit of authoritarian government in risk communication amid COVID-19 outbreaks.

Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, Hans H Tung, Wen-Chin Wu

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–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

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. WHO approves? Relative trust, the WHO, and China's COVID-19 vaccines.The review of international organizations · 2022
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
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

3 authors.

Greg Chih-Hsin SheenDepartment of Political Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.ORCID 0000-0003-1961-7804
Hans H TungDepartment of Political Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.ORCID 0000-0001-5332-7582
Wen-Chin WuInstitute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.ORCID 0000-0002-3229-4619

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

During the outbreak of an epidemic, the success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures depends on the public's trust in the government. In this study, we aim to understand how media audiences update their trust in the government during the COVID-19 outbreak depending on the information they received. We conducted an online survey experiment in February 2020 in Hong Kong (n = 1,016) in which respondents were randomly provided with a government press release and an endorsement either from an official or a non-official source. This study shows that the information from a non-official source enhances the credibility of official government messages. Our findings imply that dictators can actually "borrow credibility" from their citizen journalists and even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Allowing information flow from non-official sources can be a practical measure for governments to address the problem of a credibility deficit during a pandemic.

Indexed as

Social Control, FormalSocial MediaCOVID-19Disease OutbreaksGovernmentHong KongHumansRiskSARS-CoV-2Surveys and Questionnaires

Identifiers

PMID34879113
PMCPMC8654212

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.