Fear of the Fear of the Flu: Assumptions About Media Effects in the 2009 Pandemic

Bjørkdahl, Kristian; Carlsen, Benedicte

doi:10.1177/1075547017709792

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Public health organizations may consider shaping media coverage in such a way that it motivates appropriate public behavioral responses (Liu, Austin, Lee, Jin, & Kim, 2020). Instructions can be aimed at regular media (Bjørkdahl & Carlsen, 2017) as well as social media platforms (Guidry, Jin, Orr, Messner, & Meganck, 2017;Guzmán Do Nascimento, 2018). This requires an understanding of the pros and cons of different platforms and knowledge about the role of news media and comments on Facebook (Rodin, Ghersetti, & Oden, 2019), YouTube (Tang, Bie, Park, & Zhi, 2018), Twitter, and Instagram (Guidry et al, 2017).…”

Section: Domain V: Instructions To the Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Crisis Communication. A 30-item Checklist for Assessing Performance during COVID-19 and Other Pandemics

Jong

2020

Journal of Health Communication

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The primary objective of this paper is to propose a conceptual checklist to assess crisis communication efforts during pandemics and in their aftermath. No consolidated checklist exists for assessing the effectiveness of crisis communication at all levels during pandemics. A literature review was conducted, encompassing articles on crisis communication during SARS, swine flu, H1N1, ZIKA, Ebola, and/or COVID-19. Based on the review, a comprehensive checklist was developed to enable researchers and evaluators to assess and review all important aspects of crisis communication during pandemics. The final Assessment tool for Crisis Communication during Pandemics (ACCP) consists of 30 criteria. Further research is suggested to validate the checklist. The global COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis of unprecedented proportions. The crisis arrived in full view, yet it caught everyone off guard: politicians, hospital administrators, pundits, business owners, and the general population (Boin, Ekengren, & Rhinard, 2020). What distinguishes a pandemic from other crises are its characteristics as a "long wave event" (McInnes & Hornmoen, 2018). Where crises such as a major fire or airplane crash are over within a few hours or days, COVID-19 is, at the time of writing, an ongoing crisis that has generated widespread socioeconomic impact. Insight into how governments, citizens, businesses, and media have communicated during the pandemic may help to improve our learning from this crisis and support preparation for future pandemics. Countries on all continents have placed their citizens under various forms of lockdown during COVID-19, implementing measures from the obligation to wear face masks and maintain distance from others, to quarantines and school closures. Similar to earlier pandemics (Abraham, 2011), the initial need is for clear communication on what the public needs to do to reduce transmission as well as treatment advice. Everywhere, crisis communication is used as a public health intervention to inform and advise the public on necessary measures to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as COVID-19 progresses around the world, communication efforts are also needed in terms of citizens' resilience, (national) public leadership, and in communicating with stakeholders whose businesses are closed or suffering from lockdown situations. At the same time, we have observed public leaders around the world who did not agree with the measures proposed by experts. US President Trump and Brazilian president Bolsonaro are examples of public leaders who consistently underplayed the messaging of experts with regard to social distancing and the wearing of face masks,

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Section: Domain V: Instructions To the Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Crisis Communication. A 30-item Checklist for Assessing Performance during COVID-19 and Other Pandemics

Jong

2020

Journal of Health Communication

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“…There is some previous work on macro-level factors that might explain why some countries are more resilient to false information about politics (see, e.g., Humprecht, Esser, and Van Aelst, 2020). The effects of news and social media on peoples' understanding of rare virus outbreaks deserve further research: these range from underreaction to inducing panic (Fu and Zhu, 2020;Bjørkdahl and Carlsen, 2017;Klemm, Das, and Hartmann, 2016;Kilgo, Yoo, and Johnson, 2019). While audiences across the world were exposed to false claims about COVID-19 during the first three months of the pandemic, surveys indicated that many people recognised or ignored these (Ofcom, 2020;Cushion, Kyriakidou, Morani, and Soo, 2020;Nielsen, Fletcher, Newman, Brennen, and Howard, 2020).…”

Section: Methodological Considerations: Focusing On Potential Harmmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 information disorder: six types of harmful information during the pandemic in Europe

Hansson

Orru

Torpan

et al. 2021

Journal of Risk Research

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The outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 propelled the creation, transmission, and consumption of false informationunverified claims, misleading statements, false rumours, conspiracy theories, and so onall around the world. When various official or unofficial sources issue erroneous, misleading or contradicting information during a crisis, people who are exposed to this may behave in ways that cause harm to the health and well-being of themselves or others, e.g., by not taking appropriate risk reducing measures or blaming or harassing vulnerable groups. To work towards a typology of informational content that may increase people's vulnerability in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, we explored 98 instances of potentially harmful information that spread in six European countries-France, Italy, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, and Estoniabetween March and May 2020. We suggest that during the pandemic, exposure to harmful information may have made people more vulnerable in six ways: (1) by discouraging appropriate protective actions against catching/spreading the virus, (2) by promoting the use of false (or harmful) remedies against the virus, (3) by misrepresenting the transmission mechanisms of the virus, (4) by downplaying the risks related to the pandemic, (5) by tricking people into buying fake protection against the virus or into revealing their confidential information, and (6) by victimising the alleged spreaders of the virus by harassment/hate speech. The proposed typology can be used to guide the development of risk communication plans to address each of these information-related vulnerabilities.

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“…Why? Because the press is not making a splash out of the annual flu story (Bjorkdahl and Carlsen, 2017). So, on the one hand, one must remember that, in fact, coronavirus does not pose a more serious threat than the "ordinary" flu, but, on the other, this is not a reason to neglect prevention (Zhang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coronavirus Media Discourse and Current Situation (Qca for Different Responses to Combat Covid-19)

Singer

2020

HSSR

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Purpose of the study: Given the immense spread of the Coronavirus disease, it is imperative to note how the leaders and governments approach the issue and the suggestions made to protect the people and not spread panic. Methodology: The study incorporates scrutiny of the available online media with official statements and news outlets made by state officials and leaders. Thus, one can note the implementation of qualitative comparative analysis to determine the difference in the attitudes and approaches of various world leaders to combat the disease. Main Findings: Most world leaders acknowledge the threat Coronavirus poses to humanity yet are willing to sacrifice economic development for the survival of their people. Whereas others are more inclined to disregard the seriousness of the threat despite evidence of the lethal nature of the coronavirus and its effect upon people of all ages. Applications of this study: The application of the study is primarily in the assessment of the position of world leaders with regards to the assessment of their leadership qualities and the success or failure of their decisions in terms of fighting the onset of the disease. When humanity overcomes coronavirus, numerous world leaders are likely to lose their job with this utilized information being the reason. Novelty/Originality of this study: Considering the recent outbreak of the pandemic, no-one has utilized nor compared any of the information in terms of how the world leaders and various countries are combating the disease. This study provides a comparative analysis bringing successful and openly failed decisions to the fore of the society allowing every individual to assess the scope and effort made by the state.

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Fear of the Fear of the Flu: Assumptions About Media Effects in the 2009 Pandemic

Cited by 21 publications

References 32 publications

Evaluating Crisis Communication. A 30-item Checklist for Assessing Performance during COVID-19 and Other Pandemics

Evaluating Crisis Communication. A 30-item Checklist for Assessing Performance during COVID-19 and Other Pandemics

COVID-19 information disorder: six types of harmful information during the pandemic in Europe

Coronavirus Media Discourse and Current Situation (Qca for Different Responses to Combat Covid-19)

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