2022, Vol.21, No.1

Health Communication Research 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.75

pISSN : 2093-2707 / eISSN : 2671-5856
https://journal.kci.go.kr/hcr

The current study proposes that construal level can influence one’s positive evaluation of his or her susceptibility to diseases compared with others. A series of experiments was conducted to demonstrate the link between them. In study 1, the effect of psychological distances (temporal and spatial distance) on optimistic bias was found, such that the proximal distance reduced the optimistic bias. In study 2, manipulating the construal level, we founded that the construal level influenced the optimistic bias. Subjects primed to have low construal level reported the reduced optimistic bias compared with those primed to have high construal level. Study 3 was conducted with a 2 (construal level: high vs. low) × 2 (perceived severity: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. The moderated mediation analysis discovered that perceived control mediated the two-way interaction effect between construal level and perceived severity on the optimistic bias. Studies 1 and 2 collected data using college students as the sample, and study 3 employed the general adult population to improvethe generalizability of the findings. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed for researchers and practitioners.

This study compared and analyzed the characteristics of Korean media reports during the first month after the outbreak of five infectious diseases, including SARS, H1N1, Ebola virus disease, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We set the analysis period on the KBS News 9 (www.news.kbs.co.kr) and SBS News 8 (www.news.sbs.co.kr) websites to find related content, selecting only articles related to infectious diseases through replay and scriptor ser vices. In total, 2,549 news articles were finally selected through this process. First, the results indicated that regarding the characteristics of each media company's reporting on infectious diseases, all companies focused the most on response analysis (1,309, 42.5%) and the least on cause analysis (379, 12.3%). In addition, regarding the in-depth coverage of each media company, the number of was the largest, with only 262 articles (10%) professional reporters, a relatively small number. Looking at the factual nature of the report, both newspapers and broadcasters tried to report on a fact-centered basis. In terms of reporting direction, 2,226 reports (87.4%) of neutral tone were the most, and more negative tone (290, 114%) were reported than positive tone (32, 1.3%). In the type of information source, the Korean government and local governments (1,259, 31.1%) were most frequently used, followed by Korean experts (615, 15.2%). Looking at the frame types of Ron Report, information frames (1,489, 34.2%) were the most common, and both newspapers and broadcasters used the least prevention frames. Newspaper companies had a high proportion of economic frame types, and broadcasters had high persuasion frames and horror frames. Since encouraging public worry in early media coverage of infectious disease outbreaks is not desirable, a press frame should be developed to discourage conjecture and exaggeration and advocate sensible response and prevention activities.

This study aimed to identify the influence of parent, school, and friend on cyberbullying, which is recognized as ‘social death’ among adolescents. Based on the claim that social control group such as parent, school, and friend had a great influence on online youth behavior, this was intended to investigate whether these groups actually exercise their influence in relations with cyberbullying. This was to provide basic data for effective cyberbulllying prevention and countermeasure. To that end, the second analysis was conducted using the 2020 results of the annual Cyber Violence Survey. Based on school statistics at the Korea Educational Development Institute, a total of 4,958 students from fourth graders to high school students in 17 cities and provinces nationwide were analyzed through stratified class extraction by class, region, and grade. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that if adolescents have low school involvement to prevent cyberbullying and a unfriendly relations with friend, their experience of cyberbullying increases. On the other hand, it was found that the digital control of parents did not directly affect the experience of cyberbullying. Finally, the attitude to cyberbullying was identified as an important factor in expanding and strengthening their influence on cyberbullying by mediating parental control, school involvement, and friendship. According to these results, it was revealed that cyberbullying prevention programs should include measures to foster negative and pessimistic attitudes toward cyberbullying as well as intervention measures for school and friend.