Modeling the formation of the public's information needs in the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak
| Date | 08 September 2022 |
| Pages | 961-984 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-04-2022-0167 |
| Published date | 08 September 2022 |
| Author | Hongru Lu,Juan Xie,Ying Cheng,Ya Chen |
Modeling the formation of the
public’s information needs in
the early stage of the
COVID-19 outbreak
Hongru Lu
Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, China
Juan Xie
Hunan University, Changsha, China, and
Ying Cheng and Ya Chen
Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose–This study aims to investigate how the public formed their need for information in the early stage of
the COVID-19 outbreak. Exploring the formation of informationneeds can reveal why the public’s information
needs differ and provide insights on targeted information service during health crises at an essential level.
Design/methodology/approach –The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 46
participantsand analyzed using the grounded theory approach. Concepts, sub-categories and categories were
developed,and a modelwas built to examinehow the public formedthe need for informationabout thepandemic.
Findings –The authors found that participants were stimulated by information asymmetry, severity of the
pandemic and regulations to control the pandemic, which triggered their perceptions of information credibility,
threat and social approval. After the participants perceived that there was a threat, it activated their basic
needs and they actively formed the need for information based on cognitive activities. Moreover, information
delivered by different senders resulted in a passive need for information. Participants’individual traits also
influenced their perceptions after being stimulated.
Research limitations/implications –Long-term follow-up research is needed to help researchers identify
more detailed perspectives and do comparative studies. Besides, this study conducted interviews through
WeChat voice calls and telephone calls, and might be limited compared with face-to-face interviews.
Practical implications –The findings of this study provide theoretical contributions to the information
needs research and practical implications for information services and public health management.
Originality/value –There is little systematic research on how the public formed information needs in the
early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Keywords COVID-19, Infodemic, Information uncertainty, Information needs, Grounded theory,
Information services
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There have been numerous public health emergencies in recent years including the Ebola
virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-COV), and the novel coronavirus pneumonia
(COVID-19). COVID-19 broke out around the world in 2020 to become a global pandemic
(World Health Organization, 2020a). Since COVID-19 was new, the scientific community
lacked accurate knowledge about the origin, transmission, pathogenesis mechanisms,
fatality rates and prevention measures. It has also been challenging to develop targeted
medicines and vaccines in a short time. In response to the outbreak, the global scientific
community has cooperated to conduct critical research on this disease and published a rich
Formation of
the public’s
information
needs
961
This work is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21ATQ007). The
authors sincerely appreciated the valuable comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2050-3806.htm
Received 1 April 2022
Revised 2 June 2022
21 August 2022
Accepted 23 August 2022
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 75 No. 5, 2023
pp. 961-984
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-04-2022-0167
body of literature. For example, as of May 19, 2020, 14,479 COVID-19-related works were
published on PubMed (Gottlieb and Dyer, 2020). With the continuous progress of scientific
research, recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment have greatly improved. For
example, on the WHO website, advice for the public on coping with COVID-19 is constantly
updated (World Health Organization, 2020b). The Diagnosis and Treatment Scheme on
COVID-19 issued by the National Health Commission of China has also been updated to its
eighth edition within two to three months (Medical administration and Hospital Authority,
2020). The quickly updated research and recommendations have highlighted the public’s
uncertainty about the disease. In a word, although the scientific community has raced against
time to conduct research on COVID-19, scientists’understanding about COVID-19 has been
limited due to its complexity and rapid variations. Thus, it is understandable that the public
has been confused about COVID-19. The public’s constant exploration and limited cognition
have led to substantial information uncertainty about the COVID-19 outbreak.
Concernshave also been raisedabout the information epidemic(referred to as an infodemic)
surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. Information overload and distortion are significant
features of an infodemic. Specifically, an infodemic refers to “too much information that cannot
be judged true or false, which makes it difficult for people to find trustworthy information
sources, and some misinformation or disinformation may even cause harm to people’shealth”
(People’s Daily online, 2020;Tangcharoensathien et al.,2020;Fallis, 2014). A considerable
amount of information from various sources greatly increases the burden on the public.
Widespread misinformation and rumors also hinder effective access to information, which has a
negative impact on health decisions and management (Hibbard and Peters, 2003;Norton and
Raciti, 2017;Bawden and Robinson, 2009;Khaleel et al., 2020) and finally jeopardizes the public’s
physical and mental health (Bawden and Robinson, 2009). An example of the current infodemic
is that the number of tweets on Twitter related to COVID-19 doubled between January and
March 2020 (Singh et al., 2020). In March 2020, online users posted about 550 million tweets on
Twitter containing terms such as coronavirus, corona virus, COVID-19, COVID-19 and
pandemic (Broniatowski et al.,2020). On average, 46,000 tweets per day were linked to
misleading information (Hollowood andMostrous, 2020).
In the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, the public urgently needed valuable information
to protect themselves, their friends and family members (Yavetz et al.,2022). However, complex
scientific issues related to COVID-19 caused information uncertainty and an infodemic and
impeded the public’s effective acquisition of information. As a result, the information needs of the
public during this period were not well met. The form, content and information access that the
public required were different from their previous needs. Thus, researchers needed to have a
more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the public’s information needs regarding the
COVID-19 outbreak, and more research was conducted on the public’s need for information.
Many researchers have focused on what information (the content) the public needed (e.g.
symptoms) (Jo et al., 2020) through surveys, but little research has focused on how their
information needs formed. It is worth noting that the public’s information needs vary
significantly at the individual level. At the same time, it is difficult to explain why people need the
information and predict what they may need in the next similar situation based solely on surveys.
Some studies explored motivations, incentives and influencing factors of information needs
through the investigations of certain groups of people (e.g. low socio-economic) (Le et al., 2020) but
few systematic studies revealed the elaborated picture of the formation of information needs.
Understanding the formation of the public’s information needs can provide insights on how to
improve the interpretability and quality of information services.
Research objective
This study highlights the characteristics of the formation of the public’sinformation
needs, and the accuracy and pertinence of the information provided in the process of
AJIM
75,5
962
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