It has perhaps never happened before that presidents or prime ministers of almost all countries have spoken to their citizens in so short a time on the same topic—COVID-19. When the scientific community did not have correct answers or adequate explanations for the questions that people and patients were asking, world leaders took up the gauntlet and spoke to their citizens. What did they tell them? What facts did they choose to dwell on, and how did they present them? How did they provide comfort and support? What offer did they make? We selected the speeches of leaders from five countries with the highest (nominal) GDP—the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India, and analysed it using a qualitative method—framing analysis. All the speeches except that of China’s were relatively short and contained four dominant frames: prevention-protection, the other, solidarity and hope and comfort. However, each leader’s address had a unique frame. The manner in which the leaders framed their arguments and announcements shows how they understand and construct the identity of their fellow citizens.

We will be using the COVID-19 pandemic as the case to examine mitigating behaviors and the lack of compliance of many individuals with the recommended safe practices. We will look for reasons for risky behaviors by individuals by reviewing behavior change research, with special reference to psychosocial theory-based behavior change communication (BCC) models. We will then examine limitations of health communication research in terms of not examining cultural, social and other systemic processes that may impede the adoption of new and safe behaviors by individuals. We will conclude by offering a framework which posits a role and place for health communication research in inclusive development and progressive social change with social justice as an important anchor.

Background Video and mobile games have been shown to have a positive impact on behavior change in children. However, the potential impact of game play patterns on outcomes of interest are yet to be understood, especially for games with implicit learning components. Objective This study investigates the immediate impact of fooya!, a pediatric dietary mobile game with implicit learning components, on food choices. It also quantifies children’s heterogeneous game play patterns using game telemetry and determines the effects of these patterns on players’ food choices. Methods We analyzed data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 104 children, aged 10 to 11 years, randomly assigned to the treatment group (played fooya!, a dietary mobile game developed by one of the authors) or the control group (played Uno, a board game without dietary education). Children played the game for 20 minutes each in two sessions. After playing the game in each session, the children were asked to choose 2 out of 6 food items (3 healthy and 3 unhealthy choices). The number of healthy choices in both sessions was used as the major outcome. We first compared the choice and identification of healthy foods between treatment and control groups using statistical tests. Next, using game telemetry, we determined the variability in game play patterns by quantifying game play measures and modeled the process of game playing at any level across all students as a Markov chain. Finally, correlation tests and regression models were used to establish the relationship between game play measures and actual food choices. Results We saw a significant main effect of the mobile game on number of healthy foods actually chosen (treatment 2.48, control 1.10; P<.001; Cohen d=1.25) and identified (treatment 7.3, control 6.94; P=.048; Cohen d=.25). A large variation was observed in children’s game play patterns. Children played an average of 15 game levels in 2 sessions, with a range of 2 to 23 levels. The greatest variation was noted in the proportion of scoring activities that were highly rewarded, with an average of 0.17, ranging from 0.003 to 0.98. Healthy food choice was negatively associated with the number of unhealthy food facts that children read in the game (Kendall τ=–.32, P=.04), even after controlling for baseline food preference. Conclusions A mobile video game embedded with implicit learning components showed a strong positive impact on children’s food choices immediately following the game. Game telemetry captured children’s different play patterns and was associated with behavioral outcomes. These results have implications for the design and use of mobile games as an intervention to improve health behaviors, such as the display of unhealthy food facts during game play. Longitudinal RCTs are needed to assess long-term impact. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04082195; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04082195, registered retrospectively.

Vast majority of parents continue to immunize their children against deadly infectious diseases. However, of late, growing number of them in both developed and developing nations have refused vaccination forcing the World Health Organization to declare vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten major threats to global health. This research reviews literature published in the last few years to understand and explain the phenomenon. It identifies 10 reasons for people’s reluctance for vaccination: parental concerns, perceived disease susceptibility, parent–provider relationship, government policies, role of school authorities, weak interpersonal communication (IPC) skills of health workers, religious beliefs, role of media, social media and information on vaccines, and lack of trust. The review categorizes parents who hesitate or refuse vaccination into four categories: obedients, ditherers, doubters and defiants. Finally, it summarizes recommendations and steps that researchers and policy makers have made to stem the growing concerns regarding vaccine hesitancy.

There is a rising epidemic of pediatric obesity in the United States and worldwide. While many factors contribute to pediatric overweight and obesity, dietary decisions are a leading cause. Children spend many hours a day playing video games, mostly on mobile devices. Hence, personalized gamification and learnification on mobile devices have great potential to influence children’s dietary-lifestyle behaviors during the habit formation stage of early childhood. In fact, video games on mobile devices have become a platform through which children learn in a fun and enjoyable way. While there is some early evidence of the positive impact of neuropsychology-based, cartoon-styled, immersive video games on healthy eating behaviors in children, the mechanisms underlying these improved outcomes are yet to be understood. To design appropriate interventions in the game environment for children’s behavior formation and change, we need to learn more about the underlying patterns of player behaviors evidenced during gameplay through techniques of machine learning and stochastic optimization. Building on prior descriptive work, this study examines the impact of a diet and lifestyle focused mobile game on children’s game play patterns and associate these patterns with their actual food choices using machine learning and statistical models. Our dataset was generated from an IRB-approved, informed consent–based randomized controlled trial (RCT) with pre- and post-treatment measurements of almost 100 school children using fooya!, a novel mobile gaming, iOS/Android based App that is being developed as a low-risk and non-invasive “digital vaccine” for lifestyle diseases, for 2 exposures of 20 minutes each. Based on artificial intelligence, neuropsychology and cognitive behavior therapy, fooya! has been shown to deliver positive outcomes with respect to food choices, self-reported dietary choices, and healthy eating intentions. We first model the process of game playing at any level across all students as a discrete, time-homogeneous, first-order Markov chain with multiple states, each representing a status of the game. Process mining identifies distinct patterns in the game sequences and statistical models establish the relationship between game patterns combined with demographic and behavioral data with actual food choices at the end of the game. We find strong evidence of the positive effect of the mobile game on actual food choices, just after 40 minutes of intervention exposure (T: 2.46; C: 1.10; P<.001). Analysis of children’s play patterns shows significant variations in game play mechanics among players. Regression analyses further reveal that more engaged, dynamic, and strategic game play patterns are associated with better actual food choices. This study adds to the growing body of evidence that learning about healthy eating in a fun and exciting way via mobile games, acting as Digital Vaccines, can positively impact children’s actual food choices. While promising, additional RCTs in varied settings and deeper analysis of the resulting data are needed to confirm Digital Vaccines’ potential to reduce the long-term risk of nutrition related non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as health risks from the double burden of overweight vs malnutrition and under-nutrition by educating children regarding healthy lifestyle choices using mobile games.

Background In 2014, the Government of India's Ministry of Health & Family Welfare constituted an expert group for development of pictorial health warnings for tobacco products. Accordingly, six prototypes were developed with warnings displayed on the front and back occupying 85 percent of the space. The packs visually showed the adverse impact of tobacco consumption. The prototypes were pretested. The objective of the pretest was to assess the effectiveness of the health warnings and messages on different target groups in terms of noticeability, comprehension, informativeness, credibility, legibility, clarity of color & design, and intention to change behavior. The main task of the study was to exhibit six types of pack warnings developed separately for cigarette, bidi, and smokeless tobacco users and non-users and rank them based on their reactions to each of the attributes listed above. Methods The pre-testing was undertaken in one district each of the three states of India. In all, the study area covered 28 locations. The total number of respondents was 300 comprising of tobacco users and non-users. The sample included adult women and men. The study used qualitative methodology for pre-testing the pack warnings on cigarette, bidi and smokeless tobacco packs. It conducted: 28 focus group discussions and 20 in depth interviews. Results The study concluded that the image on cigarette, bidi or smokeless tobacco packs is the main source of information. Pack warnings which showed damage on the face or a disease were more impactful and understood. Cigarette/ Bidi are often bought loose, especially by those who are in the age group 18-25 years. Hence, the likelihood of noticing the pack warning is much lower by this age group. Conclusions The study recommended that the image and the written warning on the pack must match and must be in English and an Indian language.

This study reviews the articles related to gratifications of Facebook use. An analysis of 20 gratifications studies states that mostly target audience of these studies is youth, especially students. The analysis concludes that these studies relied on the literature to develop the gratifications scale. Some of the gratifications factors identified are same and some of them differ. It was observed that there is an overlap among some gratifications factors due to similarities and differences in the operationalization of the gratification factors. Study highlights the need of the development of a gratifications scale exclusively for Facebook. It also emphasizes on a large scale study in Indian context.

This chapter examines health communication programs in India, using a gender integrative approach. The health sector has retained the attention of policymakers, educationists, and social change leaders alike as a crucial development sector, and it is also one sector where gender is critical. Health communication programs in India have been impacted by both the paradigm changes vis-à-vis development and the changing approaches to communication for development. From big-media based top-down communication programs, there has been a gradual appreciation of local, context based, and participatory communication approaches in the health sector. At the same time, gender has emerged as a key component in debates surrounding development and communication. This chapter will describe how gender is an important category in the design and implementation of health programs in India, where the voices and experiences of women have to be considered while creating these programs.

Ayodhya dispute is the longest running legal case in India. This paper attempts to study how The Supreme Court’s judgment on this dispute was covered in news channels. The study analyzed the news coverage on the television channels: DD News- Hindi and English, CNN IBN, Aaj Tak, and IBN7. More specifically, this study investigates that how Indian television channels frame the Ayodhya verdict news? The study identified three dominant frames: peace and communal harmony, verdict and the way forward, religion- Mandir vs. Masjid. All the three frames were observed in all the channels. Our study found out that the public broadcaster tried to present the news without any sensationalism and dramatization, by not using provocative visuals. English News channels presented the news in much more objective manner compared to the Hindi News channels.

This article analyses the H1N1 flu crisis coverage, in the Ahmedabad edition of The Times of India, the highest circulated English daily in India as well as in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The study aimed to look at the journalism practices followed in the coverage of the crisis and to determine how the newspaper framed the H1N1 issue. Systematic random sampling was used to select 127 from all 381 news stories that appeared in the Times between August and November 2009. The article identified six frames in the coverage: fear and panic, severity, safety, human interest, attribution of responsibility and scientific information It concludes that the article set the agenda for H1N1 crisis as a threat to human life and framed it as a war between humans, where the virus has an edge over humans.

Construction and meaning-making are central to the process of communication. Studying the way media frame a public health issue gives insight into how people are likely to perceive the information on that issue. Death is considered as the most significant contributory factor of fear in any public health crisis. In this article we analyze the H1N1 death coverage in The Times of India, the largest circulated English daily published from India. We describe and analyze the framing of H1N1 by reviewing 62 death-reporting news stories that appeared in the daily in 2009. Our analysis yielded four dominant frames: fear-panic, attribution of responsibility, action and human interest. We conclude that the newspaper framed H1N1 as a deadly disease and its coverage presented death in such a manner as to produce fear and panic.

Major objective of the present study is to look at the relationship of personality traits of the young Facebook users with their behaviour on Facebook and the gratifications they obtain from Facebook usage. We have measured the gratifications with the help of 16 item scale developed on the basis of review of literature. The Facebook behaviour was measured in terms of number of friends and use of privacy settings on Facebook. The personality trait of users was measured in terms of the self-schema of Separateness-connectedness. A survey questionnaire was administered to the sample of 550 students who came from all over the country to attend the admission process of a well-known communication management school in India. Study concluded that perception of real self always gets reflected in the virtual behaviour of Facebook users. This can be considered as an extension of real self in their virtual behaviour. However, the comparison of the data between real space self-schema with the Facebook friendship behaviour gives more space to understand weather it is a mere extension or a modification in their real perception about their self.

In this study, we describe the Facebook-use behaviour of a segment of college-going Indian youths. A survey of 455 students revealed that they started using the Internet in their teens and that they spend on average 1.6 hours a day on Facebook. Male and female students do not differ significantly in spending time on either the Internet or Facebook. The female respondents tend to be more connected than their male counterparts. Despite showing more connectedness, female students tend to be choosier while accepting friends’ requests than their male counterparts. Factor analysis revealed five major gratifications the student-users seek while using Facebook: relationship maintenance, userfriendliness, relaxation, connecting with old friends and social interaction. Additional informationNotes on contributorsRahul GadekarRahul Gadekar is Research Associate at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India. Pradeep Krishnatray is with the School of Media & Communication, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India. Shubhra Gaur is Professor at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India.Pradeep KrishnatrayRahul Gadekar is Research Associate at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India. Pradeep Krishnatray is with the School of Media & Communication, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India. Shubhra Gaur is Professor at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India.Shubhra GaurRahul Gadekar is Research Associate at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India. Pradeep Krishnatray is with the School of Media & Communication, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry, India. Shubhra Gaur is Professor at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India.

The study is an investigation of the influence of an organization’s citizenship practices on its employees, in the Indian context. The major objective of the research is to explore and empirically investigate whether the perception of being a responsible company leads to increased employee commitment. Primary data for the study was collected through a web-based questionnaire survey of a cross-sectional sample of business executives working in the Indian service industry. The results of the regression analyses show that the employee perception of corporate citizenship has a positive and significant influence on an employee’s affective commitment and the relationship is mediated by organizational identification. Providing empirical support to the social identity theory, the study indicates that employees identify more with a company when they believe it to be a good corporate citizen and this identification translates into increased commitment. This study thus provides insights into the employee outcomes that organizations can hope to achieve from their citizenship investments.

There has been a veritable television explosion in India in the last 10 years or so. And nowhere is this better seen than in the Hindi language television space where a number of national and regional channels have emerged vying for the audience’s share of attention. Conducted in two towns (Jaipur and Patna), this article maps the relative position of seven leading Hindi news channels (HNCs) vis-à-vis 10 editorial attributes of news. The study found channel Aaj Tak enjoying a considerable lead over its rivals in both the cities. In addition, the study answers the question: Who watches what channel and what is their demographic profile? The study found differences in the demographic profile of viewers from the two cities emphasizing that viewers’ tastes and preferences have to be examined more deeply than what Television Rating Points (TRPs) indicate.

Several uses and gratification (U&G) studies provide bases for understanding motivations for the uses of traditional mass media such as television and radio. As a new medium, U&G research on Internet has tended to rely on studies of such traditional media. This article assumes that Internet is a unique medium and offers a set of gratifications different from those offered by traditional mass media. This study, therefore, sought to first identify motivations for using the Internet and then extract the structure of gratifications. In addition, it determined the gratifications of male and female respondents separately assuming that access to and use of any new and emergent media tends to favour the male gender. The study identified an eight-factor gratification structure. The study concludes that the underlying motivations for the use of Internet for the entire sample as well as the male and the female sample, separately, varies slightly but is largely stable and consistent.

Several uses and gratification (U&G) studies provide bases for understanding motivations for the uses of traditional mass media such as television and radio. As a new medium, U&G research on Internet has tended to rely on studies of such traditional media. This article assumes that Internet is a unique medium and offers a set of gratifications different from those offered by traditional mass media. This study, therefore, sought to first identify motivations for using the Internet and then extract the structure of gratifications. In addition, it determined the gratifications of male and female respondents separately assuming that access to and use of any new and emergent media tends to favour the male gender. The study identified an eight-factor gratification structure. The study concludes that the underlying motivations for the use of Internet for the entire sample as well as the male and the female sample, separately, varies slightly but is largely stable and consistent.