Who is Responsible? Analyzing the Influence of Covid-19 Severity and Political Orientation on Social- Individual Responsibility Framing of Covid-19 measures in News Media

by Lilian Li

Thesis supervisor: dr. Theo Araujo

Since the first appearance of Covid-19 in December 2019, many different, and some controversial, measures were put forward to fight the pandemic (e.g., lockdown, public mask-wearing, travel restrictions and vaccination). Affecting most parts of our social life, these measures were extensively covered by news media. This study examined the news coverage of Covid-19 measures under the framework of the social-individual responsibility frame. First, the study asked whether the news media placed more responsibility on personal behavioural changes (e.g., reforming unhealthy habits) or social factors (e.g., healthcare system and social environment) when reporting Covid-19 measures. Furthermore, the study investigated if the social-individual responsibility framing is affected by the political orientation of news outlets and the severity of Covid-19. Lastly, it explored if the relationship showed country-specific patterns.

 

Method

To answer the research question, a content analysis was performed on 744 articles sampled by 6 constructed weeks from 2020.03.01 to 2021.09.01. The news articles were from 6 news outlets with left or right political orientations in 3 countries (see table below). Meanwhile, to measure the severity of Covid-19, daily death cases were collected from the COVID-19 Data Repository by Johns Hopkins University.

 

News Outlet	Political Orientation	Country of Publication	N
Daily Mirror	Left	United Kingdom	157
Irish Times	Left	Ireland	180
Crickey	Left	Australia	34
Total			371
The Daily Telegraph	Right	United Kingdom	135
The Irish Independent	Right	Ireland	118
The Australian	Right	Australia	120
Total			373

 

To study the relationship between social-individual framing, political orientation, and severity of Covid-19, the data was analysed by the following logistic regression models. The models were first applied to the full sample and then applied to country-specific subsets.

 

log_e(odds[SocialFrame]) = b0 + b1PoliticalOrientation + b2Severity + b3SocialDistancing + b4MaskWearing + b5LockDown + b6TravelPolicy + b7Vaccination + b8Testing + b9CountryofPublication

 

log_e(odds[IndividualFrame]) = b0 + b1PoliticalOrientation + b2Severity + b3SocialDistancing + b4MaskWearing + b5LockDown + b6TravelPolicy + b7Vaccination + b8Testing + b9CountryofPublication

 

Results

First, based on past studies, it was expected that left-leaning newspapers use more social frame while right-leaning newspapers use more individual framing (Lee and Paik, 2017). In this study, the hypotheses were not supported in the overall sample but partially supported in the Irish subset. The findings suggest that left and right leaning newspapers do not always resort to the same responsibility frame when covering the Covid-19 measures. The choice of social-individual framing could be dependent on the local context.
Second, previous research shows that the progression of pandemic is accompanied by higher prevalence of social responsibility frame (Beaudoin, 2007). However, this study failed to find the same pattern in Covid-19 measure related news. The inconsistent result could be due to the different conceptualization of severity (e.g., measured by death cases or time). The results call for future research to further explore how the severity of pandemic affects the use of social-individual responsibility framing.

 

References

Beaudoin, C. E. (2007). SARS News Coverage and Its Determinants in China and the US. International Communication Gazette, 69(6), 509–524. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048507082839

Lee, S., & Paik, J. E. (2017). How partisan newspapers represented a pandemic: The case of the Middle East respiratory syndrome in South Korea. Asian Journal of Communication, 27(1), 82–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2016.1235592