Time matters in pandemic risk communication: A moderated effect of information timeliness on stakeholder perception...

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shows the increasing importance of determining the factors of the public perceptions of personal and societal risks. These perceptions can shape people's behaviors, which, in turn, alter the spread of a pandemic on the community level. However, previous research on risk communication was inconsistent, and little is known about the impact of timely warning messages on stakeholders' perceptions of public health emergencies. To address this theoretical gap, this study analyzes the survey data (N = 538) from Singapore to explore the main effect of information timeliness on the respondents' stakeholder perceptions. This effect is moderated by normative factors, including attention and threat perceptions. We find that the more timely the government updates the risk information, the more trustworthy the stakeholders appear in respondents' opinions. Such an effect is weakened when the pre-decision attention or the threat perception interacts with the predictor independently. However, this effect on stakeholder perceptions becomes stronger if both moderators interact with the information timeliness. That is, an appropriate combination of the information released by the government can effectively enhance the image of the stakeholders during the pandemic.