Gen Z perceptions and behavioural responses to health crisis communication during COVID-19 in South Africa

This dataset aims to determine the views, perceptions and behaviours of Generation Z in South Africa towards health crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews, and the 12 participants were selected from across the gender among Gen Z at the University of Pretoria. These interviews dwelled on areas like trust in government messaging, adherence to health measures, using social and digital platforms to share information and attitudes towards contradictory or inconsistent health information.The semi-structured interview methodology combining some extent of formal questions and answers with detailed participants’ descriptions gave profound qualitative data. It was, therefore, essential to come up with questions that would bring out episodes, feelings and thought processes that people went through during the pandemic. This way of working was helpful in thoroughly investigating the topics of interest while respecting the participants’ priorities. The dataset is central to this part of the analysis because cognitive dissonance, communication strategies, and behavioural outcomes are presumably linked in this population.

本数据集旨在探究南非Z世代在COVID-19疫情期间对健康危机沟通的观点、认知和行为。数据通过半结构化面对面访谈收集，访谈对象为普林斯顿大学的Z世代学生，其中12名参与者跨越性别界限。访谈内容涉及对政府信息信任度、对健康措施遵守情况、利用社交和数字平台分享信息以及对待矛盾或不一致的健康信息的立场等方面。半结构化访谈方法结合了一定程度的正式问答与详细的参与者描述，从而提供了深刻的定性数据。因此，提出能够揭示人们在疫情期间所经历的事件、情感和思维过程的问题至关重要。这种工作方式有助于全面调查感兴趣的主题，同时尊重参与者的优先顺序。该数据集在分析此部分内容中占据核心地位，因为认知失调、沟通策略和行为结果在此人群中被认为存在关联。