- 강연 제목: From Emotion and Trust to Action: Understanding Health Behavior in the Social Media Era
- 일시: 6월 17일 (화) 12:30 - 14:00                  
- 장소: 서울대학교 64동 (IBK커뮤니케이션센터) 501호 
- 강연자: 오상화 교수님 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

- 강연 내용: In times of public health crises, people no longer wait for official statements or traditional news coverage. Instead, they turn to social media for real-time health information. This digital environment can raise awareness and promote preventive action, but it also has the potential to trigger emotional overreactions and reinforce misbeliefs. Ultimately, the impact of health information depends less on its content and more on how it is emotionally and cognitively processed through the lens of emotion and trust. Drawing on two empirical studies, this talk explores the psychological mechanisms that link social media exposure to health behavior and policy support. One study investigates how fear and anger elicited by social media information during an infectious disease outbreak amplify risk perception and drive preventive behavior. The other study, focused on HPV vaccination, reveals that social media exposure can strengthen vaccine-related misbeliefs and weaken policy support. However, institutional trust appears to buffer the negative effects of misinformation, acting as a psychological safeguard in the digital information environment. Together, the findings underscore that effective health communication depends not only on message accuracy but also on how information resonates within emotional and trust-based contexts. Understanding this psychological pathway offers critical insights for designing effective digital health communication strategies in the social media era.

- 강연자 소개: Sang-Hwa Oh is an Assistant Professor of Advertising at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducting interdisciplinary research that integrates strategic communication, media effects, and public health. She earned her PhD from the University of South Carolina in Mass Communications/Public Health. She specializes in the impacts of digital media environments, such as social media, and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence on public health behavior and risk communication, particularly in combating misinformation.