Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage.

COVID-19 media coverage polarization politicization risk communication

Journal

Science communication
ISSN: 1075-5470
Titre abrégé: Sci Commun
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 9889281

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
Oct 2020
Historique:
medline: 1 10 2020
pubmed: 1 10 2020
entrez: 11 4 2024
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

This study examines the level of politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news in U.S. newspapers and televised network news from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content analytic approaches, we find that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized. We find that politicians appear in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists are more equally featured in network news. We suggest that the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in U.S. COVID-19 attitudes.

Identifiants

pubmed: 38602988
doi: 10.1177/1075547020950735
pii: 10.1177_1075547020950735
pmc: PMC7447862
doi:

Types de publication

News

Langues

eng

Pagination

679-697

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2020.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Auteurs

P Sol Hart (PS)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

Sedona Chinn (S)

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.

Stuart Soroka (S)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

Classifications MeSH