Combating pandemic: an exploration of social media users' risk information seeking during the COVID-19 outbreak

The world is currently experiencing an unprecedented pandemic crisis. To explore public's information behaviors in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, this study aims 1) to empirically explore determinants of information seeking behaviors during COVID-19 by testing the framework of risk information seeking (FRIS), and 2) to assess the model under social media context by integrating social media engagement into the original variable in the model, given that the social situation of COVID-19 and the new media environment has changed how people engage with their community and seek information. As a result of conducting an online survey and testing the proposed hypotheses, the study found acceptable model fits from both the measurement model and structural model. This research presents novel findings on what instigates lay public to seek information during the pandemic crisis: 1) Pathways that consistently supported the original framework's findings suggest how social media engagement can generate a virtual involvement with the issue to an extent which induces similar level of affective and behavioral responses; 2) media saturation and overflowing information channels omitted the mediating role of information need between current knowledge and information seeking; 3) individuals with higher social media engagement demonstrate higher seeking intent, mediated by negative emotion and social pressure. Overall, by applying the new media setting and the COVID-19 context to a pre-existing information seeking model, this article asserts the need for more pragmatic risk communication strategies that encompass the idiosyncratic aspects of pandemic crisis and the public's information behaviors in a new media landscape.