Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
BMJ Glob Health. 2020 Oct;5(10). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003323.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis. It is becoming increasingly clear that people's behavioural responses in the USA during this fast-changing pandemic are associated with their preferred media sources. The polarisation of US media has been reflected in politically motivated messaging around the coronavirus by some media outlets, such as Fox News. This resulted in different messaging around the risks of infection and behavioural changes necessary to mitigate that risk. This study determined if COVID-related behaviours differed according to trust in left-leaning or right-leaning media and how differences changed over the first several months of the pandemic.
Using the nationally representative Understanding America Study COVID-19 panel, we examine preventive and risky behaviours related to infection from COVID-19 over the period from 10 March to 9 June for people with trust in different media sources: one left-leaning, CNN and another right-leaning, Fox News. People's media preferences are categorised into three groups: (1) those who trust CNN more than Fox News; (2) those who have equal or no preferences and (3) those who trust Fox News more than CNN.
Results showed that compared with those who trust CNN more than Fox news, people who trust Fox News more than CNN engaged in fewer preventive behaviours and more risky behaviours related to COVID-19. Out of five preventive and five risky behaviours examined, people who trust Fox News more than CNN practised an average of 3.41 preventive behaviours and 1.25 risky behaviours, while those who trust CNN more than Fox News engaged in an average of 3.85 preventive and 0.94 risky behaviours, from late March to June. The difference between these two groups widened in the month of May (p≤0.01), even after controlling for access to professional information and overall diversity of information sources.
Our findings indicate that behavioural responses were divided along media bias lines. In such a highly partisan environment, false information can be easily disseminated, and health messaging, which is one of the few effective ways to slowdown the spread of the virus in the absence of a vaccine, is being damaged by politically biased and economically focused narratives. During a public health crisis, media should reduce their partisan stance on health information, and the health messaging from neutral and professional sources based on scientific findings should be better promoted.
COVID-19 大流行是一场前所未有的公共卫生危机。越来越明显的是，美国人在这场快速变化的大流行中的行为反应与其偏好的媒体来源有关。美国媒体的两极分化反映在一些媒体机构围绕冠状病毒的政治动机信息传递上，例如福克斯新闻。这导致了关于感染风险和减轻该风险所需的行为改变的不同信息传递。本研究旨在确定对左倾或右倾媒体的信任是否会导致与 COVID 相关的行为差异，以及这种差异在大流行的头几个月是如何变化的。
使用具有全国代表性的理解美国研究 COVID-19 小组，我们检查了从 3 月 10 日至 6 月 9 日期间与感染 COVID-19 相关的预防和危险行为，针对对不同媒体来源有信任的人群：一个是左倾的 CNN，另一个是右倾的福克斯新闻。人们的媒体偏好分为三组：（1）更信任 CNN 而不是福克斯新闻的人；（2）没有或同等偏好的人；（3）更信任福克斯新闻而不是 CNN 的人。
结果表明，与更信任 CNN 而不是福克斯新闻的人相比，更信任福克斯新闻的人采取的预防行为较少，与 COVID-19 相关的危险行为较多。在检查的五项预防行为和五项危险行为中，更信任福克斯新闻的人平均采取 3.41 项预防行为和 1.25 项危险行为，而更信任 CNN 的人则平均采取 3.85 项预防行为和 0.94 项危险行为，从 3 月下旬到 6 月。即使在控制了获取专业信息和整体信息来源多样性之后，这两组之间的差距在 5 月份也有所扩大（p≤0.01）。
我们的研究结果表明，行为反应沿着媒体偏见的界限划分。在这样一个高度党派化的环境中，虚假信息很容易传播，而在缺乏疫苗的情况下，健康信息传递是减缓病毒传播的少数有效方法之一，正受到政治偏见和以经济为中心的叙述的破坏。在公共卫生危机期间，媒体应该减少对健康信息的党派立场，应该更好地宣传基于科学发现的中立和专业来源的健康信息传递。
