Communicating a Health Risk/Crisis: Exploring the Experiences of Journalists Covering a Proximate Epidemic

Thompson, Esi E.

doi:10.1177/1075547019878875

Cited by 22 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…Translating new knowledge into new behaviours in circumstances of disaster is challenging. For this reason, it is essential to provide adequate, clear information through a credible source (Thompson 2019), taking into account the concept that communication is successful (or not), depending on the "communication axis" along which it is transmitted. This concept defines the degree to which each of the various media platforms (i.e.…”

Section: Fifth Ale Can Be Implemented Through Different Platforms Asmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult learning and education as a tool to contain pandemics: The COVID-19 experience

Lopes

McKay

2020

Int Rev Educ

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In combating pandemics, more can be gained by changing citizens' behaviours than by relying solely on the medical route. In the current COVID-19 pandemic, the struggle to contain the outbreak and push back new infection figures will ultimately be won by training citizens how to avoid creating secondary transmission chains. The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the relationship between individual behaviour and group risk. Mass training of all social strata of a country's entire population is therefore critical in mitigating the pandemic. The authors of this article argue that adult learning and education (ALE) can play a pivotal role particularly in countries where average literacy levels are low, as these are usually the same countries in which healthcare systems are more fragile. This article explains why ALE, especially the promotion of health literacy as part of ALE (which is itself part of lifelong learning), is necessary to enable individuals to make informed health-related decisions. Research has shown that low-or non-literate individuals are less responsive to health education, less likely to use disease prevention services, and less likely to successfully manage chronic disease than literate citizens. The authors refer to the evaluation of the health literacy aspect of a large-scale adult literacy campaign launched in South Africa in 2008 which has yielded measurable outcomes and proved that the intervention had enabled adults to better understand health messages. They stress the importance of populations having at least a basic level of literacy and numeracy skills to enable them to receive and act on vital information during a pandemic or disaster. They argue that ALE should in fact be understood as an inherent element of every national emergency strategy, both in terms of prior preparation for possible future emergencies (such as pandemics, earthquakes, tornados, flooding, bushfires etc.), and in terms of reaction to a given emergency such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

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Section: Fifth Ale Can Be Implemented Through Different Platforms Asmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult learning and education as a tool to contain pandemics: The COVID-19 experience

Lopes

McKay

2020

Int Rev Educ

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“…Ghana constitutes a good context because of its proximity to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak sites and its role as the hub for the international Ebola relief effort (Thompson 2019). Ghana also has a public health insurance scheme (NHIS) that fully covers the treatment costs of cholera for Ghanaians in public health facilities.…”

Section: Ebola and Cholera In Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another routinization that ensured that both Ebola and cholera were amplified was sourcing patterns (Shoemaker and Reese 2013). Thompson (2019) has documented how Ghanaian news workers generally rely on official sources for information but adopt different strategies including culling stories from international media and using the flushing out strategy during information scarcity. The media filtered very little at the initial stages of the outbreak and transmitted different kinds of risk signals.…”

Section: Transmitting Risk-routines Facilitate Amplificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The media filtered very little at the initial stages of the outbreak and transmitted different kinds of risk signals. The media generally, and local language media in particular, may have heightened fear and panic through their translation and transmission efforts during this period (Thompson 2019). Drawing from this, it seems that in a time of high uncertainty during a risk event, the media may reduce the filtering process instituted by their organizational routines to allow various risk signals to be further transferred in an effort to provide information or to force authority to provide the needed information.…”

Section: Transmitting Risk-routines Facilitate Amplificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Risk communication in a double public health crisis: the case of Ebola and cholera in Ghana

Thompson

2020

Journal of Risk Research

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During 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, many West African countries experienced perennial outbreaks of various infectious diseases. Given the geographic dynamics of disease outbreaks in the region, it seems obvious that research on risk communication needs to contemplate how these countries manage risk communication about simultaneously occurring infectious diseases. Yet, this is missing in risk communication scholarship. I draw on insights from the social amplification of risk framework to assess how three amplification stations responded to risk signals about proximate Ebola and cholera outbreaks in 2014 in Ghana. Based on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with risk communicators, media workers, and community members, I argue that the differing individual and social experiences of Ebola and cholera in Ghana were shaped by historical, religious, socio-cultural, and institutional processing of risk signals, which guided judgements about risks. This study contributes to the literature on the social amplification of risk framework and risk and crisis communication by showing how the context of an impending crisis can lead to a health crisis for a preventable and treatable disease through the amplification and attenuation of risks signals. The study recommends the inclusion of lay people perspectives in the development of risk and crisis communication campaigns.

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“…Irrespective of vaccine hesitancy or vaccine trial controversies, the media play a role in providing information for individuals to create their views and attitudes. Bearing in mind the key role that the legacy media in developing contexts play in health communication and public health campaigns [ 6 , 7 , 8 ], understanding discourses about vaccines in the media merits research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Botched Ebola Vaccine Trials in Ghana: An Analysis of Discourses in the Media

Thompson

2021

Vaccines

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In June 2015, proposed Ebola vaccine trials were suspended by the Ministry of Health of Ghana amid protests from members of parliament and the general public. Scholarship has often focused on the design, development, and administration of vaccines. Of equal importance are the social issues surrounding challenges with vaccine trials and their implementation. The purpose of this study was to analyze discourses in the media that led to the suspension of the 2015 Ebola vaccine trials in Ghana. I use a sociological lens drawing on moral panic and risk society theories. The study qualitatively analyzed discourses in 18 semi-structured interviews with media workers, selected online publications, and user comments about the Ebola vaccine trials. The findings show that discourses surrounding the Ebola vaccine trials drew on cultural, biomedical, historical, and even contextual knowledge and circumstances to concretize risk discourses and garner support for their positions. Historical, political, and cultural underpinnings have a strong influence on biomedical practices and how they are (not) accepted. This study highlights the complexity and challenges of undertaking much needed vaccine tests in societies where the notion of drug trials has underlying historical and sociological baggage that determine whether (or not) the trials proceed.

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Communicating a Health Risk/Crisis: Exploring the Experiences of Journalists Covering a Proximate Epidemic

Cited by 22 publications

References 39 publications

Adult learning and education as a tool to contain pandemics: The COVID-19 experience

Adult learning and education as a tool to contain pandemics: The COVID-19 experience

Risk communication in a double public health crisis: the case of Ebola and cholera in Ghana

Botched Ebola Vaccine Trials in Ghana: An Analysis of Discourses in the Media

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