Comparative Study of the Information about the COVID-19 Pandemic and COVID-19 Vaccines on the Covers of United Kingdom, France, Spain and United States’ Main Newspapers

Santiago Tejedor (), Laura Cervi, Fernanda Tusa and Mónica Gracia Villar
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Santiago Tejedor: Department of Journalism and Communications Studies, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Laura Cervi: Department of Journalism and Communications Studies, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Fernanda Tusa: Social Sciences Faculty, Technical University of Machala, Machala 170524, Ecuador
Mónica Gracia Villar: Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Universidad Europea del Atlántico, 39011 Santander, Spain

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: This study compares the information coverage of the vaccine against the information of the COVID-19 pandemic in eight newspapers (two per country) from the United Kingdom, France, Spain and the United States. The newspapers analyzed are The Times and The Guardian (United Kingdom), Le Monde and Le Figaro (France), El País and El Mundo (Spain), and The New York Times and The Washington Post (United States). On a methodological level, the work uses a descriptive approach of hemerographic analysis. As a result, it is observed—in the case of coverage of the pandemic—that the presence of affected persons and health personnel in the front-page information was negligible, with a predominance of news journalistic genres (brief and newsworthy, especially), evidencing a leading role of political figures and the high degree of politicization of the crisis. In addition, the visual frames in the analyzed newspapers tended to promote humanization through emotional representation. On the other hand, the results of the news coverage of the vaccine showed a predominance of news journalistic genres, wherein supranational entities and pharmaceutical companies starred in the front pages to a greater extent. The study denotes the importance of media literacy among citizens, especially in the face of this type of informational events of global significance.

Keywords: coronavirus; COVID-19; front pages; news coverage; information processing; pandemic; vaccine; newspaper; daily information press; media; comparative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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