Creative social media use for Covid-19 prevention in Bangladesh: a structural equation modeling approach

Md Monirul Islam, Md Mazharul Islam*, Faroque Ahmed, Afrin Sadia Rumana

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, information dissemination has been quicker than earlier years with the sky-high development of diverse social media platforms, e.g., Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube and so on, which are more used in creative production. This advancement of social media disclosures has numerous merits and demerits to prevent and control contagious diseases like the Covid-19 pandemic. In this respect, this research scrutinizes the role of creative social media use in preventing the Covid-19 outbreak in Bangladesh utilizing the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. To this end, this study uses an online survey from June to October 2020 engaging 265 (N = 265) Bangladeshi people as respondents at different ages. The study results establish that creative social media use helps enhance the knowledge of Covid-19 precautions online, and this pertinent knowledge contributes to preventing Covid-19 outbreak in Bangladesh. It implies that creative social media use has a significant indirect effect on Covid-19 prevention, whereas knowledge of Covid-19 precautions online mediates this relationship between creative social media use and Covid-19 prevention. The results also discover that the educational level of the people has a significant direct and positive impact on Covid-19 prevention. Therefore, the study suggests more creative use of social media in preventing the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic in Bangladesh.

Original languageEnglish
Article number38
JournalSocial Network Analysis and Mining
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Bangladesh
  • Covid-19 prevention
  • Creative social media use
  • Knowledge of Covid-19 precautions online
  • SEM approach

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Communication
  • Media Technology
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Science Applications

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