Full metadata
Title
Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America
Description
Background
In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only four laboratory confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire nation. Public interest in these events was high, as reflected in the millions of Ebola-related Internet searches and tweets performed in the month following the first confirmed case. Use of trending Internet searches and tweets has been proposed in the past for real-time prediction of outbreaks (a field referred to as “digital epidemiology”), but accounting for the biases of public panic has been problematic. In the case of the limited U. S. Ebola outbreak, we know that the Ebola-related searches and tweets originating the U. S. during the outbreak were due only to public interest or panic, providing an unprecedented means to determine how these dynamics affect such data, and how news media may be driving these trends.
Methodology
We examine daily Ebola-related Internet search and Twitter data in the U. S. during the six week period ending Oct 31, 2014. TV news coverage data were obtained from the daily number of Ebola-related news videos appearing on two major news networks. We fit the parameters of a mathematical contagion model to the data to determine if the news coverage was a significant factor in the temporal patterns in Ebola-related Internet and Twitter data.
Conclusions
We find significant evidence of contagion, with each Ebola-related news video inspiring tens of thousands of Ebola-related tweets and Internet searches. Between 65% to 76% of the variance in all samples is described by the news media contagion model.
In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only four laboratory confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire nation. Public interest in these events was high, as reflected in the millions of Ebola-related Internet searches and tweets performed in the month following the first confirmed case. Use of trending Internet searches and tweets has been proposed in the past for real-time prediction of outbreaks (a field referred to as “digital epidemiology”), but accounting for the biases of public panic has been problematic. In the case of the limited U. S. Ebola outbreak, we know that the Ebola-related searches and tweets originating the U. S. during the outbreak were due only to public interest or panic, providing an unprecedented means to determine how these dynamics affect such data, and how news media may be driving these trends.
Methodology
We examine daily Ebola-related Internet search and Twitter data in the U. S. during the six week period ending Oct 31, 2014. TV news coverage data were obtained from the daily number of Ebola-related news videos appearing on two major news networks. We fit the parameters of a mathematical contagion model to the data to determine if the news coverage was a significant factor in the temporal patterns in Ebola-related Internet and Twitter data.
Conclusions
We find significant evidence of contagion, with each Ebola-related news video inspiring tens of thousands of Ebola-related tweets and Internet searches. Between 65% to 76% of the variance in all samples is described by the news media contagion model.
Date Created
2015-06-11
Contributors
- Towers, Sherry (Author)
- Afzal, Shehzad (Author)
- Bernal, Gilbert (Author)
- Bliss, Nadya (Author)
- Brown, Shala (Author)
- Espinoza, Baltazar (Author)
- Jackson, Jasmine (Author)
- Judson-Garcia, Julia (Author)
- Khan, Maryam (Author)
- Lin, Michael (Author)
- Mamada, Robert (Author)
- Moreno, Victor (Author)
- Nazari, Fereshteh (Author)
- Okuneye, Kamaldeen (Author)
- Ross, Mary (Author)
- Rodriguez, Claudia (Author)
- Medlock, Jan (Author)
- Ebert, David (Author)
- Castillo-Chavez, Carlos (Author)
- Simon M. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center (Contributor)
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
- Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (Contributor)
- Educational Leadership and Innovation (Contributor)
- School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
- Global Security Initiative (Contributor)
Resource Type
Extent
13 pages
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Identifier
Digital object identifier: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129179
Identifier Type
International standard serial number
Identifier Value
1045-3830
Identifier Type
International standard serial number
Identifier Value
1939-1560
Series
PLOS ONE
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.42384
Preferred Citation
Towers, S., Afzal, S., Bernal, G., Bliss, N., Brown, S., Espinoza, B., . . . Castillo-Chavez, C. (2015). Mass Media and the Contagion of Fear: The Case of Ebola in America. Plos One, 10(6). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129179
Level of coding
minimal
Cataloging Standards
Note
The article is published at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129179
System Created
- 2017-04-12 07:32:08
System Modified
- 2021-08-16 02:23:30
- 3 years 2 months ago
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