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1. Evaluating News Media Reports On the Blue Whale Challenge ’ For Adherence to Suicide Prevention Safe Messaging Guidelines

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1145/3392831  

   Roth, Rebecca; Abraham, Jaclyn; Zinzow, Heidi; Wisniewski, Pamela; Chalil Madathil, Kapil (April 2020, Proceedings of the ACM on humancomputer interaction)

   The Blue Whale Challenge (BWC) is an online viral game ” that allegedly encourages youth and young adults towards self harming behaviors that could eventually lead to suicide. The BWC can be situated within a larger phenomenon of viral online self harm challenges, which may be propagated through both social media and news sources. Research has established that suicide is a global public health issue that is known to be influenced by media reporting. Violation of safe messaging guidelines has be en shown to increase imitative suicides, particularly in youth and young adults. Given the confirmed effects of news media reporting, we analyzed 150 digital newspaper articles reporting on the BWC to assess whether they adhered to suicide prevention safe messaging guidelines. Overall, 81% of the articles violated at least one contagion related guideline, most commonly normalizing suicide, discussing means of suicide, and sensationalizing. Even though the majority (91%) of the articles adhered to at least o ne health promotion guideline, such as emphasizing prevention, the articles did not follow these guidelines on a deep and comprehensive level. Through thematic analysis, we also found evidence of potential misinformation in reporting, where the articles un equivocally attributed many suicides to the BWC with little or no evidence. Additionally, articles often stated an individual s reason for participating in the challenge without interviewing the individual or those close to the individual, another aspect o f potential misinformation due to lack of evidence. A contribution of the current study is the synthesis of safe messaging guidelines that can be used in future research. This study contributes to the understanding of news reporting practices regarding sui cide and self-harm in regard to the BWC and similar online challenges. We discuss how sensationalized news media reports on the BWC could unintentionally propagate suicide contagion effects that normalize self harming behaviors among youth. We then examine implications for practice and policy, such using automated approaches to aid reporters in adhering to safe messaging guidelines. 

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2. The Social Amplification and Attenuation of COVID-19 Risk Perception Shaping Mask Wearing Behavior: A Longitudinal Twitter Analysis

   Suellen Hopfer, Emilia Julia (January 2021, PloS one)

   Article Authors Metrics Comments Media Coverage Peer Review Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion Conclusions Supporting information References Reader Comments Figures Abstract Introduction Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplification risk framework offers insight into how a risk event interacts with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural communication processes to shape Covid-19 risk perception. Methods Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 7,024 mask tweets reflecting 6,286 users between January 24 and July 7, 2020, to identify how citizens expressed Covid-19 risk perception over time. Descriptive statistics were computed for (a) proportion of tweets using hyperlinks, (b) mentions, (c) hashtags, (d) questions, and (e) location. Results Six themes emerged regarding how mask tweets amplified and attenuated Covid-19 risk: (a) severity perceptions (18.0%) steadily increased across 5 months; (b) mask effectiveness debates (10.7%) persisted; (c) who is at risk (26.4%) peaked in April and May 2020; (d) mask guidelines (15.6%) peaked April 3, 2020, with federal guidelines; (e) political legitimizing of Covid-19 risk (18.3%) steadily increased; and (f) mask behavior of others (31.6%) composed the largest discussion category and increased over time. Of tweets, 45% contained a hyperlink, 40% contained mentions, 33% contained hashtags, and 16.5% were expressed as a question. Conclusions Users ascribed many meanings to mask wearing in the social media information environment revealing that COVID-19 risk was expressed in a more expanded range than objective risk. The simultaneous amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception on social media complicates public health messaging about mask wearing. 

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3. The Social Amplification and Attenuation of COVID-19 Risk Perception Shaping Mask Wearing Behavior: A Longitudinal Twitter Analysis

   Suellen Hopfer, Emilia Julia (January 2021, PloS one)

   Introduction Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplification risk framework offers insight into how a risk event interacts with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural communication processes to shape Covid-19 risk perception. Methods Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 7,024 mask tweets reflecting 6,286 users between January 24 and July 7, 2020, to identify how citizens expressed Covid-19 risk perception over time. Descriptive statistics were computed for (a) proportion of tweets using hyperlinks, (b) mentions, (c) hashtags, (d) questions, and (e) location. Results Six themes emerged regarding how mask tweets amplified and attenuated Covid-19 risk: (a) severity perceptions (18.0%) steadily increased across 5 months; (b) mask effectiveness debates (10.7%) persisted; (c) who is at risk (26.4%) peaked in April and May 2020; (d) mask guidelines (15.6%) peaked April 3, 2020, with federal guidelines; (e) political legitimizing of Covid-19 risk (18.3%) steadily increased; and (f) mask behavior of others (31.6%) composed the largest discussion category and increased over time. Of tweets, 45% contained a hyperlink, 40% contained mentions, 33% contained hashtags, and 16.5% were expressed as a question. Conclusions Users ascribed many meanings to mask wearing in the social media information environment revealing that COVID-19 risk was expressed in a more expanded range than objective risk. The simultaneous amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception on social media complicates public health messaging about mask wearing. 

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4. The social amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception shaping mask wearing behavior: A longitudinal twitter analysis

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0257428  

   Hopfer, S; Fields, EJ; Lu, Y; Ramakrishnan, G; Grover, T; Bai, Q; Huang, Y; Li, C: Mark (September 2021, PloS one)

   null (Ed.)

   Introduction Twitter represents a mainstream news source for the American public, offering a valuable vehicle for learning how citizens make sense of pandemic health threats like Covid-19. Masking as a risk mitigation measure became controversial in the US. The social amplifica- tion risk framework offers insight into how a risk event interacts with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural communication processes to shape Covid-19 risk perception. Methods Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 7,024 mask tweets reflecting 6,286 users between January 24 and July 7, 2020, to identify how citizens expressed Covid-19 risk per- ception over time. Descriptive statistics were computed for (a) proportion of tweets using hyperlinks, (b) mentions, (c) hashtags, (d) questions, and (e) location. Results Six themes emerged regarding how mask tweets amplified and attenuated Covid-19 risk: (a) severity perceptions (18.0%) steadily increased across 5 months; (b) mask effectiveness debates (10.7%) persisted; (c) who is at risk (26.4%) peaked in April and May 2020; (d) mask guidelines (15.6%) peaked April 3, 2020, with federal guidelines; (e) political legitimiz- ing of Covid-19 risk (18.3%) steadily increased; and (f) mask behavior of others (31.6%) composed the largest discussion category and increased over time. Of tweets, 45% con- tained a hyperlink, 40% contained mentions, 33% contained hashtags, and 16.5% were expressed as a question. Conclusions Users ascribed many meanings to mask wearing in the social media information environ- ment revealing that COVID-19 risk was expressed in a more expanded range than objective risk. The simultaneous amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 risk perception on social media complicates public health messaging about mask wearing. 

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5. Seeing the “Unseeable,” A Student-Led Activity to Identify Metals in Drinking Water

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00553  

   Neu, Heather M.; Lee, Merton; Pritts, Jordan D.; Sherman, Angela R.; Michel, Sarah L. (August 2020, Journal of Chemical Education)

   Municipal drinking water, regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency via the Safe Drinking Water act, has long been assumed to be contaminant-free. However, crises related to drinking water have emerged, most notably the “Flint Water Crisis” in Flint, MI, where high levels of lead (Pb) were detected in the area’s water. Much of the water-sampling data collected in Flint was obtained by “Citizen Scientists” working closely with a team of researchers at Virginia Tech, who used the analytical technique of Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to quantify metal ions present in the water. Inspired by these efforts, we developed adaptable public water testing outreach efforts, led by students in Baltimore city (Middle School, High School, and College), to test the city’s drinking water. These “student-scientists” read news and scientific articles to understand the public health impact of lead in drinking water and the analytical approaches scientists use to detect metal ions in water. The students then developed a written “water collection protocol” and sought participation from colleagues (other students, faculty, and staff) who collected their home drinking water to be tested. The student scientists prepared and analyzed samples for lead (Pb) as well as copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn) metal ions commonly found in drinking water, to be tested via ICP-MS. Data were then plotted onto a map of Baltimore City, with the metal levels indicated for each Zip code. This outreach event connects science to real-life news events while teaching analytical methodology and can be tailored to students at various stages of their education. 

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