Research On The Influence Factors Of Information Avoidance Behavior Of COVID-19 Epidemic

In December 2019,China was hit by epidemic caused by COVID-19,a large-scale public health emergency that threatened the running order of the whole society and people’s life safety.Since the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world,the new coronavirus has also been constantly emerging new variation,and the epidemic has always been a high degree of complexity and uncertainty during last three years.The rapid spread of COVID-19 related information on major media platforms has made the COVID-19 related information the focus of public concentration,however problems in the dissemination process of information have not been paid enough attention.The multiple sources and accuracy of information are not verified,therefore the public gradually generate a sense of information overload,leading to the information avoidance behavior during the COVID-19 outbreak.Information avoidance will affect the public’s willingness to receive scientific health information,resulting in the public’s refusal to take correct prevention measures.This dissertation takes the public’s information avoidance behavior as the research object,takes COVID-19 epidemic as the case study,adopts the Structural Equation Model as the core method,and takes the questionnaire method comprehensively to explore the influence factors and functional relationships of information avoidance related to COVID-19.The practical countermeasures are proposed according to the research results in order to prospect coping strategies for future health information avoidance behavior.To begin with,this dissertation sets forth the research background,the definition of the concept,the literature review of information avoidance and other related research status,and arranges the theoretical basis and related models.Secondly,based on the literature review and guided by the RISP model,the influence factors of perceived information overload,descriptive avoidance norms and injunctive avoidance norms are considered to establish the dimensions of influence factors of information avoidance related to COVID-19.Six influence factors are proposed including information sufficiency,risk perception,negative emotional response,perceived social norms,information seeking attitude,and perceived information overload.On this basis,the COVID-19 information avoidance influence factors model is constructed to implement the visualization of influence factors and their functional relationships.Thirdly,a questionnaire on influence factors of information avoidance behavior of COVID-19 is designed with reference to the existing mature scale,and the survey is carried out and descriptive statistical analysis is conducted with SPSS 26.0.Furthermore,the Structural Equation Model is used to conduct confirmatory analysis of the research hypotheses.First,the dissertation uses AMOS 24.0,a Structural Equation Model software to test reliability and validity of the measurement model.Second,the dissertation realizes the fitness-degree analysis,path test,mediation effect analysis and adjustment variable effect analysis of Structural Equation Model,so as to realize the verification of research hypothesis.Third,SPSS software is used to verify the research question on the frequency of information avoidance from specific sources through paired sample T test.In the end,the research conclusions are drawn according to results above.The results show that more than half of the respondents had information avoidance behavior during COVID-19 epidemic.They tended to avoid information from online media rather than from interpersonal communication and traditional mass media.In addition,information sufficiency,injunctive norms and descriptive norms,and perceived information overload all have a significant positive impact on people’s information avoidance behavior during COVID-19 outbreak,while information seeking attitude has a significant negative correlation with information avoidance behavior.Based on the empirical research conclusions,with the goal of reducing the negative impact and communication barriers of information avoidance in health crisis events,and closely combining those influence factors and research results,as well as the status quo of information avoidance behavior from specific sources and the public’s information avoidance psychology and behavior mechanism during COVID-19,this dissertation proposes coping strategies for health information avoidance behavior.First,to strengthen the information ecological governance by multiple efforts.Second,to exert the function of emotional guidance and management by media.Third,to rebuild public trust by communication subject.