A Cross-Country Analysis of the Combined Influence of Social Media Use and Perceived Social Media Networks on Pandemic Communicative Responses

This study examines how social media (SM) use is related to human responses to emerging infectious disease risks in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic via an online survey conducted in the United States and Taiwan. Results showed that SM use was related to different types of communicative responses (information seeking, interpersonal discussion, and rumor correction) directly and indirectly through cognitive and affective responses (risk perception, responsibility attribution, and negative and positive emotions). The indirect relationships between SM use and communicative responses through these cognitive and affective responses were moderated by perceived SM network structures. In particular, the mediating influence of negative emotions on communicative responses was associated with perceived SM network homogeneity, while that of positive emotions was related to perceived SM network centrality. Furthermore, responsibility attribution drove Taiwanese SM users' communicative responses, whereas the interrelated influence of positive emotions and perceived SM network centrality shaped American SM users' communicative responses.