AGENDA SETTING AND FRAMING DURING THE FIRST WAVE OF CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF NEWS IN GREEK MEDIA
AGENDA SETTING AND FRAMING DURING THE FIRST WAVE OF CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF NEWS IN GREEK MEDIA

Summary/Abstract: Objectives. Drawing heavily on theories focusing on the ways media represent health issues, and more specifically pandemics, the current research seeks to scrutinize the information conveyed by the Greek media to the public regarding the coronavirus pandemic. It also explores the ways that agenda-setting and framing affect the representations of the coronavirus pandemic. These two (agenda setting and framing) are highly influential concerning the conceptualization of a crisis. Material and methods. The research method implemented is quantitative content analysis. For the scope of the current research, 2389 research units (TV bulletins news items and online news articles) were gathered and analyzed. This research covers, in temporal terms, the period during which the Greek media started focusing on the coronavirus issue in tandem with the developments of the coronavirus crisis worldwide and in Greece, namely from February 1st until April 30th , 2020. Results. Our results showed that the time period (either before or after the announcement of the first death in Greece due to the pandemic) was a crucial factor in the media coverage of the pandemic. Second, pandemic issues were presented through thematic frames, which outweighed the episodic ones. Finally, the Greek media were found to place more emphasis on governmental measures decided during the pandemic compared to personal and social precautionary measures. Conclusions. The media coverage of the pandemic increased dramatically after the announcement of the first death in Greece. In this rationale, the media of our research increased significantly both the time (TV news bulletins) and extent (news sites) of the coverage of the pandemic. Thus, the event of the first death announcement appears to constitute an important milestone and can be used as an independent variable for the examination of the coverage of the pandemic in different countries/media systems. Apart from that, we have seen a prevalence of thematic and human-interest frames.

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