Emotions, Risk Perception and Preventive Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Media Use
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for this interesting study. Overall, it was well carried out. SEM and path analyses showed a good model fit. It was also good that the questionnaire was tested for language competence and comprehension. It showed rigor.
However, paper needs to be more coherent in explaining theoretical assumptions and demographics. Your study's objective at the start states that this is a study carried out in Israel and data was collected in Israel. However, your discussion reported effects between Jews and Arabs. Why the decision to include the social groups in this segment? It is not one of the hypotheses and the authors made no practical implications after reporting the results. For example, you reported that perceived risk of infection ... is higher among Arabs and among married people ... and you continued to report the differences between social groups from lines 270 through to 278. My question is 'so what?' How by reporting the differences in social groups help you to answer your research questions when your research questions did not appear to be curious of the differences.
You briefly mentioned in your conclusion that "during a pandemic, policymakers should use the media to deliver messages to the public ..." More elaboration should be offered as to how public health communication should frame health messages in the media is important and not well addressed here. You have examined seven variables and their relationships and to simply conclude that media exposure impacts behaviors and hence, policymakers should use media to deliver messages to the public is highly inadequate for practical implications. You may wish to expand on the types of messages and how should public health communication professionals/authorities strategize or design their health communication and message-cum-media strategies to mitigate perceived risk, attitudes etc.
You may wish to read Yeo, S.L., Phua, D. Y., and Hong, Y.Y. (2022). The effects of dangerous world beliefs on Covid-19 preventive behaviors in Singapore. The moderating role of public health communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 16 (3), 485-498.
Line 60: Rephrase hypothesis 1 to read "During the Covid-19 pandemic, negative emotions will be positively associated with greater/higher media exposure". To say "extent of media exposure" does not indicate the direction of the association between the examined variables. Similar for Hypotheses 2, 3 and so on.
Lines 243-Table 5 needs to be reworked or deleted because it is hard to read. Information in this table is already indicated in the hypothesized model
Line 211: Sentence is broken. Please fix it between Tables 3 & 4
Tidy up path model inserted between lines 223 and 224. Either group or cluster the variables so that it is easily to follow. Demographics like income, age, religion and marital status do not need to be displayed in the path model because they are not hypothesized. Also, were demographics variables controlled? If so, they do not need to be shown in the path model.
Author Response
Dear Editor, Covid Journal
Thank you for your prompt reply that aided us in making further changes to the manuscript.
We are grateful to the reviewers for their thorough reading of the paper. Their helpful suggestions were instructive. We sincerely appreciate the effort spent on the paper. In light of the reviewers' comments, we made clarifications in our text as requested.
We are confident the manuscript is improved as a result of their guidance. Please find below, each comment and our reply.
Dr. Sharon Garyn-Tal
The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College
Reviewer 1
Major comments
- Thank you for this interesting study. Overall, it was well carried out. SEM and path analyses showed a good model fit. It was also good that the questionnaire was tested for language competence and comprehension. It showed rigor.
Answer: we thank the reviewer for this comment.
- However, paper needs to be more coherent in explaining theoretical assumptions and demographics. Your study's objective at the start states that this is a study carried out in Israel and data was collected in Israel. However, your discussion reported effects between Jews and Arabs. Why the decision to include the social groups in this segment? It is not one of the hypotheses and the authors made no practical implications after reporting the results. For example, you reported that perceived risk of infection ... is higher among Arabs and among married people ... and you continued to report the differences between social groups from lines 270 through to 278. My question is 'so what?' How by reporting the differences in social groups help you to answer your research questions when your research questions did not appear to be curious of the differences.
Answer: we thank the reviewer for this comment. Accordingly, we rewrote the Introduction section, which now includes the theoretical framework. In addition, we agree that the focus of the study is not on the differences between social groups in Israel, therefore we omitted this paragraph (lines 270-278) from the discussion.
- You briefly mentioned in your conclusion that "during a pandemic, policymakers should use the media to deliver messages to the public ..." More elaboration should be offered as to how public health communication should frame health messages in the media is important and not well addressed here. You have examined seven variables and their relationships and to simply conclude that media exposure impacts behaviors and hence, policymakers should use media to deliver messages to the public is highly inadequate for practical implications. You may wish to expand on the types of messages and how should public health communication professionals/authorities strategize or design their health communication and message-cum-media strategies to mitigate perceived risk, attitudes etc.
Answer: Done. According to the reviewer's suggestion, we expanded on the types of framing messages in the Conclusions section.
- You may wish to read Yeo, S.L., Phua, D. Y., and Hong, Y.Y. (2022). The effects of dangerous world beliefs on Covid-19 preventive behaviors in Singapore. The moderating role of public health communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 16(3), 485-498.
Answer: we thank the reviewer for this recommendation. We now cited Yeo et al., (2022) in the paper.
Detail comments
- Line 60: Rephrase hypothesis 1 to read "During the Covid-19 pandemic, negative emotions will be positively associated with greater/higher media exposure". To say "extent of media exposure" does not indicate the direction of the association between the examined variables. Similar for Hypotheses 2, 3 and so on.
Answer: Done. All hypotheses were corrected according to the reviewer's suggestion.
- Lines 243-Table 5 needs to be reworked or deleted because it is hard to read. Information in this table is already indicated in the hypothesized model
Answer: According to the reviewer's suggestion, Table 5 was removed from the paper.
- Line 211: Sentence is broken. Please fix it between Tables 3 & 4
Answer: Done.
- Tidy up path model inserted between lines 223 and 224. Either group or cluster the variables so that it is easily to follow. Demographics like income, age, religion and marital status do not need to be displayed in the path model because they are not hypothesized. Also, were demographics variables controlled? If so, they do not need to be shown in the path mode
Answer: Done. Fig. 1 with the path model was updates according to the reviewer's suggestion: Variables were controlled and we remove them from the path model as suggested.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Review report for Journal COVID
Manuscript ID: covid-2953841
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of media use
Introduction
Please highlight the research problem in Israel that motivates the authors to examine this topic in Israel.
Authors need to spend more effort to discuss the research background and the contribution of the study.
Please support this research by relevant theories and provide conceptual framework for this study.
Methods
Please provide a set of questionnaire as appendix.
Results
Figure 1 is not well presented. Which variables reflect which hypotheses? They are not being explained in the manuscript.
Discussion
Please separate the some of the contents to the conclusion section.
Overall
This study is not well developed from good research problem. There is not theory to support this study. Conceptual framework is missing, it makes readers have difficulty to understand the results. What are the theoretical framework to link Media, emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior? The novelty of this study is not being mentioned.
General
All of the tables are not consistently presented.
Review report for Journal COVID
Manuscript ID: covid-2953841
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of media use
Introduction
Please highlight the research problem in Israel that motivates the authors to examine this topic in Israel.
Authors need to spend more effort to discuss the research background and the contribution of the study.
Please support this research by relevant theories and provide conceptual framework for this study.
Methods
Please provide a set of questionnaire as appendix.
Results
Figure 1 is not well presented. Which variables reflect which hypotheses? They are not being explained in the manuscript.
Discussion
Please separate the some of the contents to the conclusion section.
Overall
This study is not well developed from good research problem. There is not theory to support this study. Conceptual framework is missing, it makes readers have difficulty to understand the results. What are the theoretical framework to link Media, emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior? The novelty of this study is not being mentioned.
General
All of the tables are not consistently presented.
Author Response
Dear Editor, Covid Journal
Thank you for your prompt reply that aided us in making further changes to the manuscript.
We are grateful to the reviewers for their thorough reading of the paper. Their helpful suggestions were instructive. We sincerely appreciate the effort spent on the paper. In light of the reviewers' comments, we made clarifications in our text as requested.
We are confident the manuscript is improved as a result of their guidance. Please find below, each comment and our reply.
Dr. Sharon Garyn-Tal
The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College
Reviewer 2
Major comments
Review report for Journal COVID
Manuscript ID: covid-2953841
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of media use
Introduction
- Please highlight the research problem in Israel that motivates the authors to examine this topic in Israel.
Answer: Done. We rewrote the Introduction section, which now highlights the research problem in Israel that motivates us to examine this topic in Israel.
- Authors need to spend more effort to discuss the research background and the contribution of the study.
Answer: Done. We rewrote the Introduction section according to the reviewer's guidance.
- Please support this research by relevant theories and provide conceptual framework for this study.
Answer: Done. Following the reviewer's comment, we rewrote the Introduction section, which now includes the theoretical framework of Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model (Griffin et al., 1999). This model link between media, emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior.
Methods
- Please provide a set of questionnaire as appendix.
Answer: Done
Results
- Figure 1 is not well presented. Which variables reflect which hypotheses? They are not being explained in the manuscript.
Answer: We updated Figure 1 according to the reviewer's suggestion. All variables are defined in the Questionnaire section. Now the figure describes the model according to the hypotheses.
Discussion
- Please separate the some of the contents to the conclusion section.
Answer: Done.
Overall
- This study is not well developed from good research problem. There is not theory to support this study. Conceptual framework is missing, it makes readers have difficulty to understand the results. What are the theoretical framework to link Media, emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior? The novelty of this study is not being mentioned.
Answer: Following the reviewer's comment, we rewrote the Introduction section which now includes the theoretical framework of Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model (Griffin et al., 1999). This model link between media, emotions, risk perception and preventive behavior. In addition, the Introduction section now includes the novelty of this study.
General
- All of the tables are not consistently presented.
Answer: DONE
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Please split into the Introduction section and Literature Review section. The introduction section should not consist of hypothesis development.
Some of the tables are very confusing. Table 3, what are M and SD? Not all readers know they are Median and Standard Deviation if there are no notes to explain them. Table 4, what is level Religiosity level? I believe that the format has run away.
Please split into the Introduction section and Literature Review section. The introduction section should not consist of hypothesis development.
Some of the tables are very confusing. Table 3, what are M and SD? Not all readers know they are Median and Standard Deviation if there are no notes to explain them. Table 4, what is level Religiosity level? I believe that the format has run away.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for these comments.
Detail comments
Please split into the Introduction section and Literature Review section. The introduction section should not consist of hypothesis development.
Answer: Done.
Some of the tables are very confusing. Table 3, what are M and SD? Not all readers know they are Median and Standard Deviation if there are no notes to explain them.
Answer: Done.
Table 4, what is level Religiosity level? I believe that the format has run away.
Answer: Done.
