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1. Introduction
The world has experienced the harsh period in the history of humanity because of the devastation of the COVID-19. With an astonishing speed of spreading, only after one year from the first confirmed cases detected in December 2019, there were more than 80 million confirmed infected cases, and more than 1.8 million deaths at the end of the first COVID-19 year (as of December 31, 2020) (Johns Hopkins University, 2020). The COVID-19 was described as the “worst nightmare” for the whole world, as it paralyzed most health-care systems and caused severe and long-lasting socio-economic damages (Fernandes, 2020; Tran et al., 2020). The COVID-19 has been the most challenging crisis facing the humanity since the Second World War. In addition, the Great Lockdown because of this coronavirus was considered the worst recession since the Great Depression and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis (Bastiampillai et al., 2020; Gopinath, 2020).
The successful containment of a pandemic often required rapid and effective responses from the governments (Coombs and Holladay, 2008; Hartanto and Siregar, 2021). Literature has documented that during a pandemic, in addition to important containment measures such as quarantine, travel and mobility restrictions, social distancing and so forth, risk communication has been an important task to enhance public awareness, thereby contributing to the containment of a pandemic (Abraham, 2011; Ding, 2013; Duong et al., 2020; Li et al., 2008). Risk communication could ensure complete, transparent and prompt information exchange and, thus, helps the government and health authorities make timely responses and reduce the serious consequences. Effective risk communication could help the citizens make appropriate decisions during a health crisis (Li et al., 2008). In addition, intensive risk communication could improve public awareness and knowledge of a pandemic, thereby enhancing their compliance with preventive measures (Kwok et al., 2021; Lin et al., 2016). In the recent decades, information and communication technologies have been important instruments that support governmental policies and decision-making processes and enhance the outreach of risk communication messages, especially during the time of a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic (Ar and Abbas, 2020; Shen et al., 2018). In the digital age, internet can spread useful information to a large audience, but it is also a good...