Social Media Effectiveness in COVID-19 Risk Communication: A Case Study of Chinese External Media During the Winter Olympics

With the widespread adoption of social media worldwide, countries are increasingly using these platforms to manage potential risks and disseminate their content. This study examines the communication effectiveness of six Chinese external media outlets on Facebook during the Winter Olympics, focusing on their COVID-19 coverage. Using structural equation modeling, we analyze how presentation engagement and dialogue intervention impact communication effectiveness. The results indicate that scientific risk description, effective risk information dissemination, and heightened risk awareness in information presentation, as well as dialogue expansion in dialogue dialogue intervention, significantly enhance social media communication effectiveness. However, dialogue contraction had no significant effect. Social media technical functionality mediated the relationship between information presentation and communication effectiveness but did not show a significant mediating effect for dialogue intervention. Achieving optimal communication outcomes through social media requires a comprehensive consideration of contextual and motivational factors.