Report Publish Date: August 2023
This journal article analyzes local TV news stories about masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission and examines whether stations framed the issue as controversial or with a partisan lens.
This journal article analyzes local TV news stories about masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission and examines whether stations framed the issue as controversial or with a partisan lens.
Masking recommendations from the CDC changed several times during the pandemic as the evidence base regarding masks’ effectiveness against COVID-19 infection evolved, and as COVID-19 levels fluctuated. Masking was more controversial and partisan in the U.S. than in other countries, the authors say. And while previous studies have looked at coverage of masking in newspapers and national network news, researchers had paid less attention to local TV news coverage, which many people watch.
The authors wanted to know whether local TV news stations covered the story, how they covered it and whether they sensationalized it, and how much they covered it over time. The researchers looked at how local factors, like the size of the television market, population density, and political leanings, affected coverage.
Among other things, the authors expected
“Our findings suggest that local TV news coverage of masks was prominent but variable throughout the pandemic, and sometimes featured controversy and partisan controversy in the stories presented to the public.”
—Markus Neumann, Steven T. Moore, Laura M. Bauma, Pavel Oleinikova, and Erika Franklin Fowler, Wesleyan University; Yiwei Xu, Jeff Niederdeppe, and Neil Lewis Jr., Cornell University; and Sarah E. Gollust, University of Minnesota
“The results add further support to the notion that the messaging surrounding COVID-19 on television varies in part based on geographic location and corresponding demographics but may also vary based upon ideological commitments of station owners,” the authors write.
To better communicate with a broad range of people and keep the public safe, public health communicators need to understand how people in different parts of the country receive information about public health guidelines.
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly became a political and health communication crisis whose impact varied by geographic location in the United States. Although local television is known to be an important source of public information, little was known about how it covered the pandemic. We analyzed the volume and content of local TV coverage of masks from 758 stations across all 210 U.S. media markets in the first 22 months of the pandemic to assess how often news mentions masks and the extent to which mask wearing is framed as a contentious issue by highlighting controversy and partisan cues. Overall, we found widespread but variable attention to masks throughout the pandemic at levels frequently matching or exceeding the initial coverage of the CDC recommendation to wear face coverings. Controversial coverage of face masks peaked in late summer 2021 at roughly 23%, amid the rise of the new Delta variant, although partisan controversy comprised a relatively small portion of mask-related television news. Case rates, population size and density of the market, and partisanship of the local area are associated with volume and content of mask coverage, but these relationships varied over time. We also found evidence that stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group aired fewer stories about masks and more controversy including partisan conflict in their mask coverage. These results added further support to the notion that the messaging surrounding COVID-19 on television varies in part based on geographic location and corresponding demographics but may also vary based upon ideological commitments of station owners.
POLITICAL COMMUNICATION, 2024, VOL. 41, NO. 1, 66–106
https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2239181
This study and report were conducted and created by the following people.
