Longitudinal study of an emerging COVID-19 stigma: Media exposure, danger appraisal, and stress.

Abstract

Media coverage of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has played a critical role throughout the pandemic: sharing news about the novel virus, policies and practices to mitigate it, and the race to create and distribute vaccines. The media coverage, however, has been critiqued as stigmatizing. Although this critique is not new, there is limited understanding of how and why new stigmas emerge from exposure to media coverage. Drawing upon the model of stigma communication (Smith et al., 2019) and the attribution model of stigma (Corrigan et al., 2003), we investigated a novel model of stigma emergence that delineates two kinds of longitudinal processes: (a) a message-effects process, in which exposure to mediated messages about COVID-19 leads to public stigma through danger appraisal and (b) a coping process in which stress and rumination shape later perceptions of public stigma. To test the model, we tracked an emerging COVID-19 stigma with a two-wave survey of a prospective, longitudinal cohort living in one county in a mid-Atlantic state (N = 883). The results supported this model. The longitudinal processes of stigma emergence and implications for COVID-19 stigma are discussed.

Depression Related to COVID-19, Coping, and Hopelessness in Sports Students

“…The recovery time for injured athletes was extended, the time and quality of communication improved, and the exposure to the media and public was reduced. Coaches and the technical staff, if they manifested themselves as supportive and empathetic, constituted an important resource for athletes [ 68 , 69 , 70 ]. The media, which emphasized problems and mental imbalances, determined a reduction in stigma and labeling, normalizing psychological disorders and opening the way for therapeutic programs [ 71 ].…”

A multi-country study of the associations between HIV vulnerability status, perception of COVID-19 related stigma and post-traumatic stress symptoms during the first wave of the pandemic

“…Key populations, sexual minority individuals and people living with HIV face devalued social status and thus, are more likely to respond to social cues of stigma associated with COVID-19. The negative social cues associated with COVID-19 were reinforced by public messages of COVID-19 infection danger appraisal [ 81 ]. This increases the possibility of COVID-19 related stigma being a global phenomenon.…”

Coping Strategies and Perceiving Stress among Athletes during Different Waves of the COVID-19 Pandemic—Data from Poland, Romania, and Slovakia

“…When fundamental issues, such as health and survival, are threatened, people appraise everyday problems differently [ 64 , 65 ]. Moreover, the reduction in sports events resulted in a significant reduction in athletes’ media exposure, which could have been a major source of pressure [ 66 , 67 ]. The increase in stress during the fourth wave of the pandemic could have been caused by the depletion of personal resources and poorer adaptation to the permanent conditions of the pandemic [ 68 , 69 ], as well as chronic fatigue syndrome [ 70 ].…”