Understanding the conditional media effects: trust, new media exposure, and preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study analyzed three-wave panel survey data gathered from August 2020 (n = 3,190) to April 2022 (n = 1,153) in Hong Kong to examine the effects of conditional media on preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic. By using the differential susceptibility to media effects model (DSMM), this study demonstrates the usefulness of trust as an effective cultivator of media exposure, especially with regard to the contradictory effects of interpersonal and institutional trust on the use of new media. Moreover, this study innovatively suggests that the nature of media, specifically new media decentralization, also influences differential media effects in the DSMM. The analysis of longitudinal survey data further revealed a significant mediating role of cognitive risk perception in people’s preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings make theoretical contributions to the DSMM and to the understanding of conditional media effects. The practical implications are discussed in this paper. © 2024 The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.