The Mediator Role of Communication about COVID-19 on the Relationship between Exaggeration of Media and Generated Fear: Case of North Cyprus

In the first half of 2020 the world population was hit by a Novel Coronavirus outbreak that leads to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which later named as COVID-19. The countries soon started to report their first cases and in March the COVID-19 which was initially declared as a public health emergency then later declared as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO). The fear generated as a result of the pandemic among the people has many antecedents. The aim of this study was to find out the hypothesized relationship between the generated fear and the exaggeration of the media about pandemic, as well as to look at whether communication from health professionals, family and friends mediates this relationship. According to the results of the analysis which has been carried out by the data collected by questionnaire, there is a positive and strong relationship between all three variables. Additionally, mediation analysis showed that the relationship between exaggeration of media and generation of fear is mediated by the communication by health professionals, friends and family meaning that communication plays an important role in terms of generated fear.