The Influence of Perceived Health Messages on Trust in Government During Covid-19 and Source Credibility as the Mediating Effect: A Conceptual Paper

DOI

10.2991/978-2-494069-61-9_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Health messages; Source Credibility; Trust; COVID-19; Malaysian Government

Abstract

In the situation of any health crises like Covid-19, trust in government is paramount in shaping public behaviour in the right direction. However, the trust can be diminished if the health messages provided are unclear, inconsistent and lack of transparency, or delivered by untrustworthy source. In line with this view, this paper was proposed to find empirical evidence about the influence of perceived health messages on public trust in the Malaysian government during Covid-19 through the mediation effect of source credibility. The study is significant to fill in theoretical gaps by utilising Elaboration Likelihood Model to understand the the persuasion process of online health messages and how source credibility can influence the effect of the messages on public trust. This research will be carried out using quantitative approaches, and a vast amount of data will be obtained via online survey involving estimated and then investigated empirically. The researcher will use questionnaires as the primary tool for collecting crucial data/information, and the questionnaire will be distributed to the intended respondents of 384 people via Google Forms. T results can be used to help the government and public health authorities to understand the importance of providing clear, consistent, and transparent Covid-19 messages to the public in order to gain public trust and subsequently persuade them to comply with the recommended preventive measures like social distancing, handwashing, getting vaccinations etc. The outcomes of the study can also be a useful reference to understand the importance of selecting trustworthy officials as Covid-19 spokespersons to enhance the persuasion effect of the Covid-19 messages.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Raja Razana bt Raja Razali
AU  - Mokhtarrudin Ahmad
AU  - Azham Md. Jahid
AU  - Aznul Fazrin Abu Sujak
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/12/26
TI  - The Influence of Perceived Health Messages on Trust in Government During Covid-19 and Source Credibility as the Mediating Effect: A Conceptual Paper
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication, Language, Education and Social Sciences (CLESS 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 239
EP  - 251
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-494069-61-9_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-494069-61-9_23
ID  - Razali2022
ER  -