Disease and Information Dissemination: Analyzing the Media’s Role in Promoting the Public Health Agenda During the 1918 and 2020 Pandemics

Abstract

When health crises emerge, the mass media play a crucial role in disseminating information. Through this dissemination, media outlets have the power to influence how health agendas promoted by policymakers and health practitioners are received by the public. This thesis focuses specifically on legacy outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, which have been around for over a century. I draw on them to examine their framing of two debilitating public health crises in the United States—the 1918 influenza and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic—and to assess how this framing might have influenced public behaviors and opinions. To conduct this research, two methods were utilized. In chapters 2-4, ProQuest databases were used to select articles from each publication covering the respective public health crises. Specific searches were conducted to create a research pool of articles that could address questions posed on the following topics: the degree to which “alarm” vs “panic” were relayed, how “patriotism” was defined and what behaviors were defined as “patriotic,” and the degree to which “foreignness” was conveyed to blame “the other.” In chapter 5, nationally representative survey data were analyzed to draw the connection between media coverage and general public opinions and behaviors as they shifted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall findings revealed shortcomings in the media during both pandemics. First, there was a failure on the part of both outlets to relay productive and preventative messages on how to “cope” with the disease, missing an opportunity to encourage broad public cooperation. While during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic public commotion was spotlighted, censorship during the 1918 influenza discouraged the public from panicking, despite the higher lethality of the disease. Each of the outlets also reacted much too late in portraying public health strategies as American “duties” or “obligations,” thereby failing to tap into the prevalent “nationalist” fervor that arose during each pandemic as a means of encouraging adherence to public health recommendations. Moreover, while by the 2020 pandemic greater effort was exerted to assure that xenophobic rhetoric such as “Kung flu” was condemned, such terms were given publicity alongside articles that vilified foreigners, reinforcing stigmas surrounding specific demographic groups during a time of crisis. Following the completion of this media coverage analysis, chapter 5 examined the connection between media coverage and public behavior, showing the potential of rhetoric to amplify public reactions and create partisan divides. Given the media’s power to influence opinion, as well as the excess of information in today’s increasingly globalized world, the following recommendations were made to assure public health agendas are furthered during future crises. First, news outlets should approach reporting on public health differently than they approach other news. For example, they should not repeat statements that encourage any sort of failure to cooperate with the public health agenda or any blame being directed toward specific demographic groups. Outlets should also establish a stronger connection with health policy makers and practitioners to ensure that preventative strategies are communicated to all audiences. Lastly, audiences should also be given a stronger understanding of how to interpret and digest media content, with an increased focus on media literacy being necessary in today’s schools.