Abstract

The tension between health and economic considerations regarding COVID-19 has resulted in a framing contest, in which proponents and adversaries of strong containment measures hold oppositional frames about the pandemic. This study examines the effects of competing news frames on social media users' policy preferences and the moderation of framing effects played by melodramatic news treatment. Results from a pre-registered online survey experiment in Chile (N = 518) show that participants exposed to Facebook posts with an economic frame were significantly less supportive of measures that restrict mobility (e.g., quarantines) than participants in the control group. Contrary to expectations, exposure to a public health frame also reduced support for stay-at-home orders, and the presence of melodramatic features had no significant impact on users' preferences. Other variables, however, did alter these framing effects, such as fear of COVID-19 and frequency of social media news use. These findings paint a rather complex picture of framing effects during the pandemic in a digital media environment.

摘要

关于 COVID-19 的健康和经济考虑之间的紧张关系导致了一场框架竞赛，在这场竞赛中，强有力的遏制措施的支持者和反对者对大流行持反对态度。本研究考察了竞争性新闻框架对社交媒体用户政策偏好的影响，以及戏剧化新闻处理对框架效应的调节作用。智利预注册在线调查实验的结果 ( N = 518) 表明，与对照组的参与者相比，接触具有经济框架的 Facebook 帖子的参与者对限制流动性的措施（例如隔离）的支持明显较少。与预期相反，暴露于公共卫生框架也减少了对居家订单的支持，并且情节剧特征的存在对用户的偏好没有显着影响。然而，其他变量确实改变了这些框架效应，例如对 COVID-19 的恐惧和社交媒体新闻的使用频率。这些发现描绘了数字媒体环境中大流行期间框架效应的相当复杂的图景。