Infodemic and Public Health Emergencies: Analysing the Emotional Effects of Television News Reportage on the COVID 19
Published 2024-02-19
Keywords
- COVID 19 pandemic,
- Emotional effects,
- Media framing,
- Reportage,
- Television news
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Copyright (c) 2024 Scholarly Journal of Social Sciences Research
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Abstract
The unprecedented waves of panic of the corona virus pandemic at the initial outbreak in Nigeria was shocking and disturbing. Media framing of the COVID 19 especially when reported on television news further ignites viewers’ emotions. Media framing of the virus and audience emotions are crucial concepts in public health emergencies. The paper examines the emotional effects of television news reportage on the COVID 19 pandemic in Nigeria. The objective of this study was to determine how television news reportage on the COVID 19 pandemic in Nigeria affected audience emotions. The study was anchored on media framing theory, which explains that the media focused attention on certain events and then places them within a field of meaning and interpretation. The study purposively surveyed fifty-nine academic staff of the Western Delta University, Oghara, Delta State. Results showed that audience experienced disturbed and fearful emotions as a result of the manner in which the COVID 19 news was presented by television news in a thematic, rhetorical and syntactical structure, coupled with various videos of the pandemic, and the duration and the frequency of the coverage on the story of the pandemic. News on the pandemic was built on panic reporting factors. People experienced disturbed emotions as a result of unguided news airwaves during information pandemic. There is therefore need to guide against panic reporting for it triggers further negative emotions.