From Networking to Mitigation: The Role of Social Media and Analytics in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Due to quarantine and social distancing, people are attached to and rely on social media more than ever before. The main goal of this paper is to highlight several important areas of research on studying Covid-19 through the lens of social media for information system researchers and call for more future research. The paper will not only discuss their significance and urgency, but also shed light on existing work and potential future research issues and challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• social media
• public health
• misinformation
• information technology

Notes

1. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200815-covid-19-sitrep-208.pdf?sfvrsn=9dc4e959_2

2. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

3. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/14/7point5-million-small-businesses-are-at-risk-of-closing-report-finds.html

4. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dongsong Zhang

Dongsong Zhang is a Belk Endowed Chair Professor in Business Analytics at the Belk College of Business, UNC Charlotte. His research interests include social media analytics, health IT, mobile HCI, and intelligent decision-making. He has published more than 160 research papers in academic journals and conference proceedings, including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, and ACM and IEEE Transactions, among others. His research has been supported by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, and Google, Inc., etc. He received his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the Eller School of Management, the University of Arizona.

Lina Zhou

Lina Zhou is a Professor in the Department of Business Information Systems and Operations Management in the Belk College of Business at UNC Charlotte. Her research interests span the areas of social media analytics, deception detection, biomedical informatics, and intelligent mobile interface. She has (co-)-authored articles published in journals such as MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Information & Management, and Decision Support Systems.

Jaewan Lim

Jaewan Lim is a Ph.D. student at the Belk College of Business, UNC Charlotte. He focuses on exploring issues about how individuals and organizations leverage information systems for sustainable resilience. Data mining, social media analytics, and human-computer interaction compose the core of his research. He earned his master’s degree in Information Management from the College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.