Using framing analysis, this article explores how the English language press organized coverage of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The coverage began with a standard “outbreak” narrative that defined the problem in terms of “primitive” lifeways and inadequate humanitarian aid. However, after the World Health Organization declared an international emergency and after Ebola carriers began to appear in the West, the framing changed toward a “pandemic” narrative that shifted attention away from medical solutions, humanitarian aid, and national safety toward government and military action, biosecurity, and the global species network. This change in the press narrative makes sense to populations in the West because they increasingly live within a “pandemic culture” that has become characteristic of globalized societies.Cet article a recours à une analyse des cadres pour explorer comment la presse de langue anglaise a couvert l’épidémie d’Ébola en Afrique de l’Ouest. Cette couverture a commencé par une narration conventionnelle sur les origines de la maladie qui a mis l’accent sur les modes de vie « primitives » et l’aide humanitaire inadéquate. Cependant, suivant l’état d’urgence déclaré par l’Organisation mondiale de la santé et l’arrivée de personnes atteintes d’Ébola en Occident, le cadre narratif a changé, soulignant l’idée d’une « pandémie » tout en attirant l’attention du public sur les interventions gouvernementales et militaires, la biosécurité et le réseau mondial d’espèces plutôt que sur les solutions médicales, l’aide humanitaire et la sécurité nationale. Ce changement narratif paraît normal pour les populations occidentales parce que celles-ci vivent de plus en plus dans une « culture de la pandémie » typique des sociétés mondialisées.
In 1998, Chicago physicist Richard Seed's announcement that he would clone a human being set off an international media furor that revealed important insights into our understandings of biotechnology, scientists, and governmental regulation of genetic research. This study examines English-language media coverage of Seed over a 5-year period, tracing how his initial framing as a "mad scientist" was quickly contained and managed by the scientific community through his reframing as a "bad scientist." Amid media calls for a response from government regulators, it became apparent that the state has failed to adequately prepare itself and the public for the eventuality of human cloning, a failure of biogovernance. This article discusses how three tensions in current biogovernmental practice were made visible once Seed was read as a biogovernmental event.
Background Examining press coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, this article analyzes the work of the hazmat suit as a visual signifier of disease.Analysis Hazmat imagery from Africa operated to make the disease visible, both “othering” it and contributing to fantasies of containment. In American imagery, the suit became a figure of biosecurity and reassurance, while also connoting the prospect of American “diseaseability.”Conclusion and implications African hazmat imagery reinforced pre-existing schema for understanding Ebola within a news category while American imagery straddled the boundary between the geography of disease fear and the imagined immunological community, potentially destabilizing press narratives of reassurance.Contexte Par l’intermédiaire de la couverture journalistique de l’épidémie Ébola en Afrique de l’Ouest en 2014, cet article analyse les combinaisons Hazmat en tant que signifiants visuels de maladie. Analyse La combinaison Hazmat a servi de métonymie pour représenter la maladie en Afrique, la rendant « autre » et contribuant à l’espoir qu’elle puisse être limitable. Au États-Unis, la combinaison a symbolisé biosécurité et rassurance tout en soulevant l’idée que cette épidémie pourrait atteindre les États-Unis.Conclusion et implications Pour la compréhension d’Ébola, l’imagerie Hazmat provenant de l’Afrique renforce certains schémas préexistants correspondant à des cadres journalistiques particuliers. En même temps, l’imaginaire américain brouille la frontière entre la peur d’une maladie franchissant ses confins géographiques et la confiance en la communauté immunologique, brouillage potentiellement déstabilisateur pour les médias se voulant rassurants envers leurs publics.
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