This study aimed to analyze main groups accused on social media of causing or spreading the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. In this analysis, blame is construed as a vehicle of meaning through which the lay public makes sense of an epidemic, and through which certain classes of people become ''figures of blame''. Data was collected from Twitter and Facebook using key word extraction, then categorized thematically. Our findings indicate an overall proximate blame tendency: blame was typically cast on ''near-by'' figures, namely national governments, and less so on ''distant'' figures, such as generalized figures of otherness (''Africans'', global health authorities, global elites). Our results also suggest an evolution of online blame. In the early stage of the epidemic, blame directed at the affected populations was more prominent. However, during the peak of the outbreak, the increasingly perceived threat of inter-continental spread was accompanied by a progressively proximal blame tendency, directed at figures with whom the social media users had pre-existing biopolitical frustrations. Our study proposes that pro-active and on-going analysis of blame circulating in social media can usefully help to guide communications strategies, making them more responsive to public perceptions.
Since its initial publication, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has been the object of criticism which has led to regular revisions by the American Psychiatric Association. This article analyses the debates that surrounded the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Building on the concepts of public arenas and reception theory, it explores the meaning encoded in the manual by audiences. Our results, which draw from a thematic analysis of traditional and digital media sources, identify eight audiences that react to the American Psychiatric Association’s narrative of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.): conformist, reformist, humanist, culturalist, naturalist, conflictual, constructivist and utilitarian. While some of their claims present argumentative polarities, others overlap, thus challenging the idea, often presented in academic publications, of a fixed debate. In order to further discuss on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, we draw attention to claims that ‘travel’ across different communities of audiences.
This study analyzes comments from two major social media, Facebook and Twitter, regarding the controversial cancellation of the 2015 African Cup of Nations (CAN) in Morocco and its transfer to Equatorial Guinea, a move precipitated by the contemporaneous outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa. Using frame analysis methodology (frames being the central ideas structuring a narrative account of an issue, event or controversy), it investigates how the sporting and health worlds are understood and conceptualized on Twitter and Facebook, in the context of a specific event. We also investigated the extent to which these frames are platform-specific. Data were collected by keyword extraction and submitted to a qualitative thematic and frame analysis, from which we identified six frames (Epidemic management, Sporting event, Political, Skepticism, Religion, and Economic). Analysis of these frames identified a number of classic issues from the sociology of not only football and epidemics but also of African political issues. The cancellation of the CAN thus provides an excellent window into the complex links between sport, heath and politics. Indeed, the online comments of social media users expressed a rich range of pre-existing frustrations, beliefs and political positions. Our results show that, in the context of the cancellation of the 2015 CAN, tweets mostly framed the event as an epidemic management issue, while Facebook comments typically framed it as an epidemic management, sporting and political event. Some themes treated in a factual way on Twitter became politicized on Facebook where, in addition, new political themes emerged. We conclude that studying social media conversations relating to a mega-sporting event could provide sociologically valuable insights about topics not typically directly associated with sport or health.
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