State, Media, People During COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract
This article overviews studies exploring the onset of the COVID‑19 pandemic and is aimed at detailing the interrelation between state, traditional media and society via the proposed four-component framework. Methodologically the research is based on agenda-setting theory (McCombs &Shaw, 1972) and dependency theory (Ball-Rokeach, S. J., & DeFleur, M. L., 1976), bringing to the forefront the issues of efficiency of the traditional media as a key transmitter of the state policy to the public. It can be concluded that despite frames and foci employed in the media in line with the key principles of risk communication the state fail to establish efficient communication with the public. Furthermore, due to uncertainties on the state level at the onset of the pandemic, a certain disarray was observed in media’s agenda, leading to the state’s failure to encourage public trust neither in the media nor in the government. Discriminatory rhetoric was used to shift responsibility to the third party in order to justify failures and uncertainties. To conclude, it seems that the framework proposed and an array of the issues discussed may constitute a universal framework applicable for studying interrelation between the state, media and society at the time of a world crisis.
Acknowledgment:This article is part of the research project № 22-28-00015 funded by Russian Science Foundation.
Downloads
References
Allen, G., & Chan, D. (2017). Artificial Intelligence and National Security. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Harvard Kennedy School.
Andreeva, E.V., Arkhipova, M.P. (2021). Rechevoe manipulirovanie kak metod vozdeistviya na obshchestvennoe mnenie v period pandemii COVID-19. Philology: Research, (6), 52-61.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J., Defleur, M. L. (1976). A Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects. Communication Research, 3(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365027600300101
Basch, C., Hilyer, G., Meleo-Ervin,Z., Mohlman, J., Cosgrove,A. (2020). News coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic: Missed opportunities to promote health sustaining behaviors. Infection, Disease & Health, 25 (3), 205-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idh.2020.05.001.
Capurro, G., Jardine, C. G., Tustin, J., & Driedger, M. (2021). Communicating scientific uncertainty in a rapidly evolving situation: a framing analysis of Canadian coverage in early days of COVID-19. BMC public health, 21(1), 2181. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12246-x
Casero-Ripollés, A. (2020). Impact of Covid-19 on the media system. Communicative and democratic consequences of news consumption during the outbreak. El profesional de la información 29 (2): e290223. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.mar.23
Cho, S., Wang, Z. (2021). Towards media systems framework in Asia Chinese and Korean media on framing the initial COVID-19 pandemic. International Communication Gazette, 83(5):474–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485211029056
Dankova, N. S., Krekhtunova, E. V. (2020). Media Representation of the Pandemic: a Metaphorical Image of War (based on American Newspapers). Nauchnyi dialog 8: 69-83. https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2020-8-69-83
Davis, M. D., Stephenson, N., Lohm, D., Waller, E., & Flowers, P. (2015). Beyond resistance: social factors in the general public response to pandemic influenza. BMC public health, 15, 436. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1756-8
Dollmann, J., & Kogan, I. (2021). COVID-19-associated discrimination in Germany. Research in social stratification and mobility, 74, 100631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2021.100631
El-Far Cardo, A., Kraus, T., and Kaifie, A. (2021). Factors That Shape People’s Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany—The Influence of Media, Politics and Personal Characteristics. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(15), 7772. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157772
Fowler, E., Gollust, S. (2015). The content and effect of politicized health controversies. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 155–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214555505
Fowler, E. F., Nagler, R. H., Banka, D., & Gollust, S. E. (2022). Effects of politicized media coverage: Experimental evidence from the HPV vaccine and COVID-19. Progress in molecular biology and translational science, 188(1), 101–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pmbts.2021.11.008.
Gupta, M., Keshri, V. R., Konwar, P., Cox, K. L., & Jagnoor, A. J. (2022). Media coverage of COVID-19 health information in India: a content analysis. Health promotion international, 37(2), daab116. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daab116
Haman M. (2020). The use of Twitter by state leaders and its impact on the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Heliyon, 6(11), e05540. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05540.
Hart, P. S., Chinn, S., Soroka, S. (2020). Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage. Science Communication, 42(5), 679–697. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020950735
Hubner, A. (2021). How did we get here? A framing and source analysis of early COVID-19 media coverage. Communication Research Reports, 38 (2), 112–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2021.1894112
Ittefaq, M., Abwao, M., Baines,A., Belmas G., Kamboh,S.A., Figueroa,J. (2022). A pandemic of hate: Social representations of COVID-19 in the media. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12300
Jia, W., Lu, F. (2021). US media’s coverage of China’s handling of COVID-19: Playing the role of the fourth branch of government or the fourth estate? Global Media and China, 6(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436421994003
Kalinin, O. I. (2020). Diskursivnaja metafora koronavirusa v smi KNR [Discursive metaphor of the coronavirus in the Chinese media]. Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo lingvisticheskogo universiteta. Gumanitarnye nauki, 8 (837), 26–37.
Krieg S., Schnur, J., Marshall, J., Schoenbauer, M., Chawla, N. (2020). Pandemic Pulse: Unraveling and Modeling Social Signals during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Digital Government: Research and Practice, 2(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3431805
Li, S., Liu, Z. and Li, Y. (2020). Temporal and spatial evolution of online public sentiment on emergencies. Information processing & management, 57(2), 102177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.102177
Li, Y., Nicholson Jr, H. (2021). When “model minorities” become “yellow peril”—Othering and the racialization of Asian Americans in the COVID‐19 pandemic. Sociology Compass 15. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12849
Makusheva M. O., Nestik T. A. (2020). Socio-Psychological Preconditions and Effects of Trust in Social Institutions in a Pandemic. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes, (6), 427–447. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2020.6.1770.
Mayer M., Bichler, B.F., Pikkemaat, B., Peters, M. (2021). Media discourses about a superspreader destination: How mismanagement of Covid-19 triggers debates about sustainability and geopolitics. Annals of Tourism Research, 91(4), 103278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103278.
McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176–187. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2747787
Mellado C., Hallin, D., Cárcamo, L., Alfaro,R., Jackson, D., Humanes, M.L., Márquez-Ramírez,M., Mick, J., Mothes, C., I-Hsuan LIN, C., Lee, M., Alfaro, A., Isbej, J., Ramos, A. (2021). Sourcing Pandemic News: A Cross-National Computational Analysis of Mainstream Media Coverage of COVID-19 on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Digital Journalism, 9 (9), 1261-1285. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1942114
Mwangale Kiptinness, I., Okoye J. (2021). Media coverage of the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Kenya and Tanzania: Content analysis of newspaper articles in East Africa. Cogent Medicine, 8 (1), 1956034. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331205X.2021.1956034
Naumann, E., Möhring, K., Reifenscheid, M., Wenz, A., Rettig, T., Lehrer, R., Krieger, U., Juhl, S., Friedel, S., Fikel, M., Cornesse, C., Blom, A. (2020). COVID-19 policies in Germany and their social, political, and psychological consequences. Eur Policy Anal, 6(2), 191– 202. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1091
Nielsen, R., Schulz, A., Fletcher, R. (2021). An Ongoing Infodemic: How People in Eight Countries Access News and Information about Coronavirus a Year into the Pandemic (May 27, 2021). Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism 2021. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3873257
Oberiri D., Bahiyah O. (2020). How do Nigerian newspapers report COVID-19 pandemic? The implication for awareness and prevention. Health Education Research, 35 (5), 471–480. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyaa031
Ogbodo, J. N., Onwe, E.C., Chukwu, J.C., Nwasum, C.J., Nwakpu, E.S., Nwankwo, S.U., Nwamini, S.C., Elem, S., & Iroabuchi Ogbaeja, N. (2020). Communicating health crisis: a content analysis of global media framing of COVID-19. Health promotion perspectives, 10(3), 257–269. https://doi.org/10.34172/hpp.2020.40
Okan, O., Bollweg, T.M., Berens, E.-M., Hurrelmann, K., Bauer, U., Schaeffer, D. (2020). Coronavirus-Related Health Literacy: A Cross-Sectional Study in Adults during the COVID-19 Infodemic in Germany. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(15), 5503. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155503
Ophir Y. Dror W., Arnon D., Lokmanoglu A., Tizzoni M., Carota J., D'Antiga L. & Nicastro E. (2021). The Framing of COVID-19 in Italian Media and Its Relationship with Community Mobility: A Mixed-Method Approach. Journal of Health Communication, 26 (3), 161–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1899344
Paek, H. J., Hilyard, K., Freimuth, V. S., Barge, J. K., & Mindlin, M. (2008). Public support for government actions during a flu pandemic: lessons learned from a statewide survey. Health promotion practice, 9 (4 Suppl), 60–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839908322114
Radina, N. K. (2013). Vlast' v informacionnom pole prirodnyh i tehnogennyh katastrof (po materialam dokumental'nyh fil'mov) [Power in the Information Field of Natural and Technogenic Disasters (Based on Documentary Films)]. Polis. Politicheskie issledovanija, (1), 112–124.
Radina, N.K. (2021). “Voobrazhaemaja geopolitika” v rossijskom medijnom diskurse o koronaviruse [“Imaginary geopolitics” in the Russian media discourse on the coronavirus.]. Polis. Politicheskie issledovanija, (1), 110–124.
https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.01.08
Raunack-Mayer, A., Tooher, R., Collins, J. E., Street, J. M., & Marshall, H. (2013). Understanding the school community’s response to school closures during the H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic. BMC Public Health, (13), 344. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-344
Reyes Bernard N., Basit, A., Sofija, E., Phung, H.N., Lee, J., Rutherford, S., Sebar, B., Harris, N., Phung, D., & Wiseman, N. (2021) Analysis of crisis communication by the Prime Minister of Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102375.
Schmidt, H. (2022). Pandemics and Politics: Analyzing the Politicization and Polarization of Pandemic-Related Reporting. Newspaper Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/07395329221095850
Shazia A., Imtiaz A., Saeed R. (2022). Framing COVID-19 in Pakistani mainstream media: An analysis of newspaper editorials. Cogent Arts &Humanities 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2022.2043510
Sizonenko, A. Yu., Gnedash, A. A., Katermina, V. V. (2021). Setevoi diskurs i rossiiskii mer: formirovanie tsifrovoi sotsial'no-politicheskoi povestki dnya v sotsial'nykh setyakh (opyt setevogo i lingvodiskursivnogo analiza). the Bulletin CHGPU I. Yakovlev 3, (112), 100-111.
Skog F., Lundström R. (2022). Heroes, victims, and villains in news media narratives about COVID-19. Analysing moralising discourse in Swedish newspaper reporting during the spring of 2020. Social Science & Medicine, 294(6), 114718, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114718.
Soroka, S., Maioni, A., Martin, P. (2013). What moves public opinion on health care? Individual experiences, system performance, and media framing. Journal of health politics, policy and law, 38(5), 893–920. https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-2334656
Sommer U., Rappel-Kroyzer O. (2021). Online coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak in Anglo-American democracies: internet news coverage and pandemic politics in the USA, Canada, and New Zealand. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2021.1997869
Starosta, K., Onete, C.B., Grosu, R.M.,Pleșea, D.A. (2020). COVID-19 Mass Media Infodemic in Six European Countries. (2020): COVID-19 Mass Media Infodemic in Six European Countries. Advance. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.13333697.v1
Sukhankin, S. (2020). COVID-19 As a Tool of Information Confrontation: Russia’s Approach. The School of Public Policy Publications, 13(3). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3566689
Sumayya,E. (2022). The corona chronicles: Framing analysis of online news headlines of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, USA and South Africa. Health SA Gesondheid (Online) 27: 1-8. https://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hsag.v27i0.1683
Teufel M., Schweda, A., Dörrie, N., Musche, V., Hetkamp, M., Weismüller, B., Lenzen, B., Stettner, M., Kohler, H., Bäuerle, A., Skoda, E.-M. (2020). Not all world leaders use Twitter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: impact of the way of Angela Merkel on psychological distress, behaviour and risk perception, Journal of Public Health, 42 (3), 644–646. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa060
Van Scoy L., Snyder, B., Miller, E.L., Toyobo, O., Grewel, A., Ha, G., Gillespie, S., Patel, M., Reilly, J., Zgierska, A.E., & Lennon, R.P. (2021). Public anxiety and distrust due to perceived politicization and media sensationalism during early COVID-19 media messaging. Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 14 (3), 193–205.https://doi.org/10.1080/17538068.2021.1953934
Velikaja N., Sakka F., Irsetskaja E. (2021). Pandemija koronavirusa v publichnom diskurse sovremennoj rossii: ugrozy, vyzovy i vozmozhnosti [The Coronavirus Pandemic in the Public Discourse of Modern Russia: Threats, Challenges and Opportunities]. Voprosy upravlenija, 1(68), 8–22 https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/pandemiya-koronavirusa-v-publichnom-diskurse-sovremennoy-rossii-ugrozy-vyzovy-i-vozmozhnosti
Vermeer, S., Kruikemeier, S., Trilling, D., de Vreese, C. (2022). Using Panel Data to Study Political Interest, News Media Trust, and News Media use in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journalism Studies, (23), 740–760. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.2017790
Wallace, R., Lawlor, A., Tolley, E. (2021). Out of an Abundance of Caution: COVID-19 and Health Risk Frames in Canadian News Media. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 54(2), 449–462. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423921000214
Wang S., Chen X., Li,Y., Luu, C., Yan,R., Madrisotti, F. (2021) ‘I'm more afraid of racism than of the virus!’: racism awareness and resistance among Chinese migrants and their descendants in France during the Covid-19 pandemic. European Societies, (23 sup1), 721–742. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2020.1836384
Wen J. ,Aston, J., Liu, X., Ying, T. (2020). Effects of misleading media coverage on public health crisis: a case of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in China. Anatolia, 31(2), 331–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2020.1730621
Wu, Y., Shen, F. (2021). Exploring the impacts of media use and media trust on health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Journal of Health Psychology, 27(6), 1445–1461. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105321995964
Zeemering, E.S. (2021). Functional fragmentation in city hall and Twitter communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Government Information Quarterly, 38(1), 101539.
Zhan L., Liu, Z., Shan, J., Delaloye, M., Piguet, J., Glassey Balet, N. (2020). The Role of Public Trust and Media in Managing the Dissemination of COVID-19-Related News in Switzerland. Journalism and Media, 1(1), 145–158. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia1010010
Zhang R. (2021). How media politicize COVID-19 lockdowns: a case study comparing frame use in the coverage of Wuhan and Italy lockdowns by The New York Times. Media Asia, 48(2), 89–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2021.1884518
