Purpose

Although crisis communication via social media has engaged academia's attention during the disease outbreak, information value for preventive behaviors is inadequately studied. The purpose of this paper is to cast light on how to strengthen the uptake of older people's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) behavioral outcomes due to information value and perceived threat through social media.

Design/methodology/approach

This study designs a survey and applies structural equation modeling to examine a research framework. A sample comprises 334 Vietnamese older participants who have utilized social media.

Findings

The results illustrate that preventive behaviors are determined by perceived threat (i.e. severity and susceptibility). Furthermore, older people heighten risk perceptions based on information characteristics, including information relevance, informative support and source credibility. Lastly, information relevance is a strong predictor of source credibility.

Practical implications

The findings assist practitioners to enhance crisis communication effectiveness via social media by imparting valuable information to the public. Moreover, this paper offers overarching guidelines on the improvement in credibility with creators, risk consciousness and preventive behaviors.

Originality/value

Although earlier studies focused attentiveness on the power of social media for raising threat perceptions, this work seems the first to unveil informative motives for perceived COVID-19 threat across older individuals, which subsequently presents plausible reasons for behavioral disclosure, including facemask-wearing, hand-washing and social distancing.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体如何促进老年人的 COVID-19 预防行为：信息价值和感知威胁的观点

目的

尽管在疾病爆发期间通过社交媒体进行的危机传播引起了学术界的关注，但对预防行为的信息价值研究不足。本文旨在阐明如何通过社交媒体加强对老年人冠状病毒病 2019 (COVID-19) 由于信息价值和感知威胁而导致的行为结果的吸收。

设计/方法/方法

本研究设计了一项调查并应用结构方程模型来检查研究框架。样本包括 334 名使用社交媒体的越南老年参与者。

发现

结果表明，预防行为是由感知威胁（即严重性和易感性）决定的。此外，老年人会根据信息特征（包括信息相关性、信息支持和来源可信度）提高风险认知。最后，信息相关性是来源可信度的有力预测因素。

实际影响

研究结果通过向公众传播有价值的信息，帮助从业者通过社交媒体提高危机沟通的有效性。此外，本文提供了关于提高创作者可信度、风险意识和预防行为的总体指导方针。

原创性/价值

尽管早期的研究关注社交媒体在提高威胁感知方面的力量，但这项工作似乎是第一个揭示老年人感知 COVID-19 威胁的信息动机，随后提出了行为披露的合理原因，包括戴口罩、手- 洗手和保持社交距离。