The Dynamics of Information-Seeking Repertoires: A Cross-Sectional Latent Class Analysis of Information-Seeking During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACTUnderstanding audiences’ information-seeking behaviors during a societal crisis it vital for effective crisis communication. Prior research has identified how individuals combine information sources during a specific crisis phase. However, there is a lack of studies analyzing the stability of such behavior across phases. Therefore, this study utilizes a four-wave panel study conducted in Sweden (N = 13,718) to examine information-seeking repertoires and potential drivers across phases with different threat severity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results from a cross-sectional latent class analysis revealed four main types of information-seeking repertoires: pluralists, traditionalists, minimalists, and news junkies. Specifically, the findings show that individuals with different socio-demographic profiles broaden their information-seeking repertoire when threat severity is high, making socio-demographic factors a poor predictor of repertoire breadth. Instead, mainstream media trust seems to play a more important role as a potential predictor of broad information-seeking repertoires including non-mainstream sources. The dynamic nature of the repertoires cautions scholars not to make generalization about information-seekers and their characteristics across different phases of a crisis and underline the importance of future research to focus on factors beyond socio-demographics.DisclaimerAs a service to authors and researchers we are providing this version of an accepted manuscript (AM). Copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proofs will be undertaken on this manuscript before final publication of the Version of Record (VoR). During production and pre-press, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal relate to these versions also. Data availability statementData is available on request from the corresponding author due to privacy/ethics restrictions.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The Swedish Ethical Review Authority gave the panel survey ethical approval on January 15, 2020 (Dnr 2019 –04,339). Every respondent provided written consent to participate before answering the survey..2 The results for the potential drivers thus reflect predicted probabilities⸺not significant regression output..3 The rather low Entropy-value might also be related to the degrees of freedom and the maximum number of class solutions. The Entropy-value might, in other words, have been higher if we had been able to test solutions with more classes. However, there is no agreed cutoff criterion for Entropy, and models with low values might still be theoretically useful (for discussions about this see Muthen, 2008; Weller et al., Citation2020)..4 The socially oriented traditionalists were only captured by the model in wave four. Therefore, it is unknown whether the class has any stable drivers. As a result, the repertoire was excluded from this section.Additional informationFundingThis study is part of the Crisis Communication and Public Trust in a Multi-Public Society (KRISAMS) research project, supported by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency under Grant number #2017-2860.Notes on contributorsSofia JohanssonSofia Johansson is a PhD candidate at the Department of Journalism, Media, and Communication at the University of Gothenburg. She holds a master’s degree in strategic communication and a bachelor’s degree in development studies, both from Lund University. Her research focuses on crisis communication from a citizen perceptive. More specifically, she is interested in how individuals combine information sources during a crisis, which functions different sources fulfil, and the underlying motivations and drivers of how individuals construct their information-seeking repertoires. ORCID: 0000-0002-6847-7193Bengt JohanssonBengt Johansson is a professor at the Department of Journalism, Media, and Communication (JMG), University of Gothenburg. He earned his PhD degree in 1998 with his thesis News among us: Municipal news, personal experience, and local opinion formation. He became an associate professor in 2006 and a full professor in 2010. He served as the Director of Graduate Studies from 2000 to 2002 and the Head of the Department of JMG from 2008 to 2011. His research concerns risk and crisis communication, the long-term effects of media on societal beliefs, political advertising, political scandals, and the media coverage of elections. ORCID: 0000-0002-8980-1677Johannes JohanssonJohannes Johansson is a PhD candidate at the Department of Journalism, Media, and Communication’s Varieties of Media Effects research program at the University of Gothenburg. He holds a master’s degree in European studies, politics and public administration from the University of Gothenburg and the University of Konstanz, and a bachelor’s degree in European studies from the University of Gothenburg. His research interests are media-effects and public-opinion via media influence on individual perceptions of society, which he primarily addresses using computational methods. ORCID: 0000-0001-8000-3225