Delegitimizing Rural Public Health Departments: How Decaying Local News Ecologies, Misinformation, and Radicalization Undermine Community Storytelling Networks

Nikki Usher

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2023, vol. 707, issue 1, 90-108

Abstract: This article considers the public communication challenges that health officials in rural America faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. I analyze the role that public health officials played in communicating news and information about the pandemic in 29 rural counties in Illinois. These officials were challenged by a diminished reporting capacity among local media outlets, and by a political radicalization of local Republicans, who no longer regarded local media as trusted nodes in local storytelling networks. I find that while public health officials can help fill a community’s critical information needs about risk and emergency, the public’s take-up of this information depends on sociocultural and political forces that shape the broader communication context.

Keywords: COVID-19; public health; local news; communication infrastructure theory; misinformation; Facebook (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:707:y:2023:i:1:p:90-108

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231215655

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