It is no secret that we live in a world that is a lot different than it was just 2 years ago. The COVID-19 virus has plagued us with more than just being sick. Just in 2020 we were hit with mask mandates that made it impossible to get in anywhere unless you were wearing a mask. There was also the curfews and stay at home orders. Now some of us are faced with getting vaccinated or losing our jobs. All of these issues have been getting a lot of media coverage. What we see in the media has the power to shape the way we view the world and what we think is important. How and why the issue of COVID-19 became so important is a question many of us have asked.
Agenda setting is the idea that the media has the power to influence what problems we think are important. So, as COVID-19 cases and casualties rose so did the concern for public safety. When it comes to what is covered in the media there are 3 entities that are involved. Coutts et al. (2017) state, “The public agenda involves the issues that the public thinks are important. The policy agenda involves the issues that government officials and policy makers think are important. The media agenda involves the issues that the media are covering extensively.” It is more common for the media agenda to impact the public agenda and then the policy agenda but in some cases it can be the other way around. It is the presidents jobs to protect all citizens even from deadly new viruses like COVID-19. In the case of COVID-19 the policy agenda influenced the media agenda which then influenced the public agenda. The media has shaped the way that we think about COVID-19, and for good reason.
COVID-19 has taken over our news stations and T.V. shows. For example, the show Greys Anatomy is now centered around the pandemic .We see the doctors covered in personal protective equipment being anxious about how many beds they have available and how their patients keep dying from COVID-19. With all of the media coverage around COVID-19 there is no doubt that it has in some way shape or form effected the way we think about the virus. According to Coutts et al. (2017), “… TV cultivates heavy viewers’ social reality. Research has consistently found that TV influences heavy viewers’ perceptions of the world”. This demonstrates how so much fear has been instilled in us about COVID-19. This is because of the cultivation theory. This theory is centered around the effects of watching TV for long periods of time. The media has been saturated with death rates and rising new cases, that it has indeed scared many of us.
Coutts, L., Gruman, J., & Schneider, F. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. (3rd ed.) Sage Publications.
Many people feel the advantages and disadvantages of new media in the dissemination of information. But the recent coronal pneumonia outbreak is a highly specialized health event. There are many privately operated new media and even some traditional media because there is generally no professionalism in health and scientific research, do not know the scientific sense of right and wrong, and cannot verify. It may produce articles that mislead the masses, creating unnecessary panic and hurting social management. We are beginning to realize the critical role of the media in disseminating public health and policy messages (Mach, 2021). we should validate Pandemic-related news to allow for multiple indicators of scientific quality.
Reference:
Mach, K.J., Salas Reyes, R., Pentz, B. et al. News media coverage of COVID-19 public health and policy information. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8, 220 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00900-z
COVID-19 is a virus that seems to be never-ending. No matter if we wear masks or if we stay home or even if we are forced to get a vaccine. We were told by the media that if we were to wear our masks and stay a home when we were sick that we could need the COVID-19 virus but now that people are starting to realize that you are still able to get the virus even when wearing a mask the government wants to mandate the vaccine. I won’t get onto that topic since we are talking about the media and its relation to COVID-19. I personally feel that the media should be defunded as each media station has its own agenda. I don’t believe that the media has our best interest when choosing the stories and information given out. They air the stories that they can embellish and scare the audition. When you turn on your TV and you turn on one news station and then switch to a different one you will be getting two different perspectives of what actually happened. This is where we will need to do our own research to piece together the truth of what actually is going on.
So knowing that you can get two different versions of a story what do we really know is true about the virus. During the pandemic we had nonstop coverage as to what was happening globally, regionally, and locally. Many people would say that this was a good thing but at what point do we just take the information needed and move on. I believe that given all the death and people being hospitalized was just to scare us into wearing a mask and getting the vaccine. Which if you still choose to wear a mask and get the vaccine I respect that that’s your right as an American but I don’t feel that anyone should be scared into it or given false information to persuade them.
Pazzanese, C. (2020, May 11). Social media used to spread, create covid-19 falsehoods. Harvard Gazette. Retrieved October 25, 2021, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/social-media-used-to-spread-create-covid-19-falsehoods/.