“We Became Sceptics”: Fear and Media Hype in General Public Narrative on the Advent of Pandemic Influenza

Abstract

In this article, we examine the apparent resistance of publics to messages regarding pandemic influenza. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic was addressed through media: governments used print, broadcast, and digital media to advise publics to enact hygiene practices and comply with social isolation; news media took up the pandemic as a lead story. Publics, however, rated the pandemic as not serious, even before it was widely known that it was mild for most. This problem is presently constructed as complacency: where individuals are seen to lack appropriate motivation to avoid risk. We combine perspectives on media reflexivity on the part of audiences with general public interviews and focus groups in Australia and the UK, to offer an alternative explanation for complacency. Publics endorse public health advice, but are skeptical of pandemic risk communication. They exhibit critical awareness of outbreak narrative and concomitant emotions, such as fear, which are coded into media stories. We, therefore, challenge the view that publics are complacent. Instead, governments must navigate an emerging terrain of ramified and critical media consumption to shape effective risk communication in time of global health emergency.

Risk society online: Zika virus, social media and distrust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“…Indeed, the comparisons may well have contributed to a decrease in public health authority influence for future, more serious episodes of EIDs. Davis et al (2014) report similar findings regarding 2009 swine flu in the UK and Australia. Participants in that study were also sceptical of media representations of pandemic hype in the mediaand altered their own risk perceptions based on that.…”

“…Davis et al . () report similar findings regarding 2009 swine flu in the UK and Australia. Participants in that study were also sceptical of media representations of pandemic hype in the media – and altered their own risk perceptions based on that.…”

“…Indeed, the authors argue that ‘prescriptive communications are likely to be met with scepticism … further[ing] the gap between public health systems and the public …’ (Davis et al . :516). Alternatively, a sense of risk for infection in the United States actually increased with media exposure to reports on swine flu in 2009 (Mesch et al .…”

“…The information that is cast by medical and public health authorities is represented with linguistic symbols as cultural representations technically, but readers of that information perceive it based on their own experiences, group values and belief systems, regardless of what the original representation is meant to convey (Davis et al . , Hall , Joffe ). Indeed, Hall () argues that this moment of decoding for the actor is far more important to meaning formation in the recipient than is that of the text original written formation.…”

“…Furthermore, Hall's (1980) theory of encoding/decoding has noted that the symbolic meaning of text lay not in the representation itself but in the many interpretations that emanate from different actors with varying social backgrounds who encounter the text. The information that is cast by medical and public health authorities is represented with linguistic symbols as cultural representations technically, but readers of that information perceive it based on their own experiences, group values and belief systems, regardless of what the original representation is meant to convey (Davis et al 2014, Hall 1980, Joffe 2011. Indeed, Hall (1980) argues that this moment of decoding for the actor is far more important to meaning formation in the recipient than is that of the text original written formation.…”