Media attention toward COVID-19 across 18 countries: The influence of cultural values and pandemic severity.
PLoS One
; 17(12): e0271961, 2022.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36477463
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Current media studies of COVID-19 devote asymmetrical attention to social media, in contrast, newspapers have received comparatively less attention. Newspapers are an integral source of current information-that are syndicated and amplified by social media to a wide global audience. This is the first-known study to investigate the impact of cultural values and pandemic severity on media attention towards COVID-19. Findings lay the groundwork for targeted public health communications that are culturally nuanced.OBJECTIVE:
We investigated the impact of cultural values and pandemic severity on Media Attention towards COVID-19 across 18 countries.METHODS:
We tracked the global volume of COVID-19 coverage (to measure media attention) over 8 months in a news media database of 12 billion words with 30 million articles from over 7,000 news media sites. Predictors of Media Attention towards COVID-19 came from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (incidence and mortality) and Hofstede's Cultural Values.RESULTS:
Media attention toward COVID-19 increased 55 times over 8 months. Higher rates of new cases and deaths predicted this exponential increase. Countries with higher power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation, were associated with increased media attention, controlling for covariates.CONCLUSIONS:
Cultural values play a significant role in the news media's attention toward COVID-19, controlling for pandemic severity. We provided a framework to design targeted public health communications that are culturally nuanced.
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
COVID-19
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Año:
2022
Tipo del documento:
Article