(Press-News.org) Measures to contain the Corona pandemic are the subject of politically charged debate and tend to polarize segments of the population. Those who support the measures motivate their acquaintances to follow the rules, while those who oppose them call for resistance in social media. But how exactly do politicization and social mobilization affect the incidence of infection? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have examined this question using the USA as an example. Their findings were published in Applied Network Science.
Limit crowds, keep a safe distance, and wear masks. Such non-pharmaceutical interventions, which should be implemented by everyone if possible in order to contain the incidence of infection, have played a central role since the beginning of the Corona pandemic. These measures have been disseminated via not only traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and television but also social media to a large extent. We can see that the appeals, recommendations, and regulations of governments are not only met with approval and understanding but also stimulate politically charged discussions, polarization, conspiracy narratives, and mobilization against the measures - often mixed with personal opinions.
But what does the rejection of Corona measures depend on? And is there a connection between the politicization of Corona topics in social networks and the development of the infection figures? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have investigated this using a mobilization model based on the example of Facebook in the USA. The subject of the study was a hypothetical political campaign in which the Democratic Party recommends non-pharmaceutical measures to combat the spread of Corona virus.
The results of the model calculations show that the hypothetical Democratic campaign would have spread to Democratic states three times faster than to Republican states. No matter in which direction, this political polarization makes it difficult to reach most segments of the population equally. "Accordingly, the acceptance and further dissemination of measures depends on whether the sender and receiver are politically like-minded," says Inho Hong, lead author of the study and a research grant holder in the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
The researchers then examined the relationship between social mobilization and the actual spread of COVID-19 cases in the USA. They found that, on one hand, mobilization can have a positive effect on pandemic response when large numbers of people join together online to support the regulations by disseminating them quickly and early. On the other hand, there are indications that the political charge and resulting actions may have exacerbated the incidence of infection in some geographies. For example, infection rates spiked starting in mid-April 2020 after Republicans demonstrated against the first lockdown and did not consistently comply with the specified hygiene rules. This means that political regulations such as lockdowns can have the opposite effect after they are reinterpreted by politically polarized opponents - and even exacerbate the situation.
The researchers used a mobilization model to simulate the processes of social mobilization. The data for this came from two sources: The "Facebook Social Connectedness Index", a measure for calculating social connections between people from different regions, and demographic information and data sets from election protocols of the New York Times. Based on this data, the researchers calculated how the Democratic campaign would have spread via Facebook and whether it would have led to political actions such as demonstrations.
In previous studies, researchers have used this mobilization model to examine how political actions have formed and spread on social networks in the USA. "The model has allowed us to show a link between the social divide in the USA, the spread of information via Facebook, and the evolution of the incidence of infection," says Alex Rutherford, senior research scientist and principal investigator with the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and co-author of the study.
The study results show that a political charging of the measures to combat the pandemic can have a counterproductive effect and even fuel the incidence of infection. "On social media, the mask was quickly re-interpreted as a political statement and used to polarize the population. Governments should therefore consider to whom and through which channels they disseminate information and whether they want to target mobilization," says Manuel Cebrian, Leader of the Digital Mobilization Research Group at the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and co-author of the study.
The focus of the study was on political attitudes of US citizens. Other possibly decisive social factors such as occupation, income, gender, and origin would have to be investigated in further studies. These could provide information for planning the communication of future measures - for example, government vaccination strategies.
INFORMATION:
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
The Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin was founded in 1963. It is an interdisciplinary research institution dedicated to the study of human development and education. The Institute belongs to the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, one of the leading organizations for basic research in Europe.
Cancerous tumors thrive on blood, extending their roots deep into the fabric of the tissue of their host. They alter the genetics of surrounding cells and evolve to avoid the protective attacks of immune cells. Now, Penn State researchers have developed a way to study the relationship between solid, difficult-to-treat tumors and the microenvironment they create to support their growth.
The method has the potential to act as a testbed for drugs and other anticancer treatments, according to Ibrahim T. Ozbolat, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics and biomedical engineering, who led the research. The details of the approach were published in Advanced Biology.
Using ...
Despite human inventiveness and ingenuity, we still lag far behind the elegant and efficient solutions forged by nature over millions of years of evolution.
This also applies for buildings, where animals and plants, have developed extremely effective digging methods, for example, that are far more energy-efficient than modern tunnelling machines, and even self-repairing foundations that are unusually resistant to erosion and earthquakes (yep, we're talking about roots here).
Researchers from all over the world are therefore seeking inspiration in nature to develop the buildings of the future, and researchers from Aarhus University ...
Honeybees have a complex communication system. Between buzzes and body movements, they can direct hive mates to food sources, signal danger, and prepare for swarming - all indicators of colony health. And now, researchers are listening in.
Scientists based in Germany - with collaborators in China and Norway - have developed a way to monitor the electrostatic signals that bees give off. Basically, their wax-covered bodies charge up with electrostatic energy due to friction when flying, similar to how rubbing your hair can make it stand on end. That energy then gets emitted during communications.
"We were thrilled by the ...
The majority of top-rated fertility apps collect and even share intimate data without the users' knowledge or permission, a collaborative study by Newcastle University and Umea University has found.
Researchers are now calling for a tightening of the categorisation of these apps by platforms to protect women from intimate and deeply personal information being exploited and sold.
For hundreds of millions of women fertility tracking applications offer an affordable solution when trying to conceive or manage their pregnancy. But as this technology grows in popularity, experts have revealed that most of the top-rated fertility apps collect and share sensitive ...
T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a very aggressive type of blood cancer. It is relatively rare but still draws a lot of attention as it mostly develops in children under the age of 20. The standard treatment for T-ALL involves heavy chemotherapy procedures, which result in favorable outcomes with an overall survival of 75% after 5 years.
However, some patients do not respond to this treatment, or they only respond for a short period, after which the disease grows back. These patients therefore need alternative therapies.
Researchers from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, have now identified a combination treatment, which could potentially benefit patients ...
University of Bristol research into octopus vision has led to a quick and easy test that helps optometrists identify people who are at greater risk of macular degeneration, the leading cause of incurable sight loss.
The basis for this breakthrough was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology and describes new technology developed by lead researcher, Professor Shelby Temple, to measure how well octopus- which are colour-blind - could detect polarized light, an aspect of light that humans can't readily see. Using this novel technology, the research team showed that octopus have the most sensitive polarization vision system of any animal tested to date. Subsequent research ...
When COVID-19 patients began filling up ICUs throughout the country in 2020, health care providers faced difficult decisions. Health care workers had to decide which patients were most likely to recover with care and which were not so resources could be prioritized.
But a new paper from the University of Georgia suggests that unconscious biases in the health care system may have influenced how individuals with intellectual disabilities were categorized in emergency triage protocols.
The state-level protocols, while crucial for prioritizing care during disasters, frequently ...
(Boston)--If you come from a family where people routinely live well into old age, you will likely have better cognitive function (the ability to clearly think, learn and remember) than peers from families where people die younger. Researchers affiliated with the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) recently broadened that finding in a paper published in END ...
Brain implants are used to treat neurological dysfunction, and their use for enhancing cognitive abilities is a promising field of research. Implants can be used to monitor brain activity or stimulate parts of the brain using electrical pulses. In epilepsy, for example, brain implants can determine where in the brain seizures are happening.
Over time, implants trigger a foreign body response, creating inflammation and scar tissue around the implant that reduces their effectiveness.
The problem is that traditional implants are much more rigid than brain tissue, which has a softness comparable to pudding. Stress between the implant and ...
A new auroral phenomenon discovered by Finnish researchers a year ago is probably caused by areas of increased oxygen atom density occurring in an atmospheric wave channel. The speculative explanation offered by the researchers gained support from a new study.
Observations made by University of Helsinki researchers increased the validity of a speculative mechanism according to which a type of aurora borealis named 'dunes' is born. In the new study, photographs of the phenomenon taken by an international group of hobbyists in Finland, Norway and Scotland were compared to concurrent satellite data.
The rare type of aurora borealis was seen in the sky on 20 January 2016 and recorded in photos taken by ...
