Chen Qingqing, Crooks Andrew, Sullivan Adam J, Surtees Jennifer A, Tumiel-Berhalter Laurene
Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
Department of Family Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
PLOS Digit Health. 2025 Feb 5;4(2):e0000736. doi: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000736. eCollection 2025 Feb.
In the face of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, various government-led initiatives and individual actions (e.g., lockdowns, social distancing, and masking) have resulted in diverse pandemic experiences. This study aims to explore these varied experiences to inform more proactive responses for future public health crises. Employing a novel "big-thick" data approach, we analyze and compare key pandemic-related topics that have been disseminated to the public through newspapers with those collected from the public via interviews. Specifically, we utilized 82,533 U.S. newspaper articles from January 2020 to December 2021 and supplemented this "big" dataset with "thick" data from interviews and focus groups for topic modeling. Identified key topics were contextualized, compared and visualized at different scales to reveal areas of convergence and divergence. We found seven key topics from the "big" newspaper dataset, providing a macro-level view that covers public health, policies and economics. Conversely, three divergent topics were derived from the "thick" interview data, offering a micro-level view that focuses more on individuals' experiences, emotions and concerns. A notable finding is the public's concern about the reliability of news information, suggesting the need for further investigation on the impacts of mass media in shaping the public's perception and behavior. Overall, by exploring the convergence and divergence in identified topics, our study offers new insights into the complex impacts of the pandemic and enhances our understanding of key issues both disseminated to and resonating with the public, paving the way for further health communication and policy-making.
面对前所未有的新冠疫情，各种政府主导的举措和个人行动（如封锁、社交距离和戴口罩）导致了不同的疫情经历。本研究旨在探索这些不同的经历，为未来应对公共卫生危机提供更积极主动的应对措施。我们采用一种新颖的“大-厚”数据方法，分析并比较通过报纸向公众传播的与疫情相关的关键主题和通过访谈从公众那里收集到的主题。具体而言，我们利用了2020年1月至2021年12月期间的82533篇美国报纸文章，并通过访谈和焦点小组的“厚”数据对这个“大”数据集进行补充，以进行主题建模。对识别出的关键主题进行情境化、比较并在不同规模上进行可视化，以揭示趋同和分歧领域。我们从“大”报纸数据集中发现了七个关键主题，提供了一个涵盖公共卫生、政策和经济方面的宏观视角。相反，从“厚”访谈数据中得出了三个不同的主题，提供了一个更关注个人经历、情感和担忧的微观视角。一个显著的发现是公众对新闻信息可靠性的担忧，这表明需要进一步调查大众媒体在塑造公众认知和行为方面的影响。总体而言，通过探索已识别主题中的趋同和分歧，我们的研究为疫情的复杂影响提供了新的见解，并加深了我们对向公众传播并引起公众共鸣的关键问题的理解，为进一步的健康传播和政策制定铺平了道路。
