Communicating COVID-19

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. The Interdisciplinary Communication Dynamics of the COVID-19 Pandemic

   • Monique Lewis, Kate Holland, Eliza Govender

   Pages 1-18

3. News Media at the Coalface: Reporting COVID-19

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. The Pandemic and Public Interest Journalism: Crisis, Survival—and Rebirth?

      • Melissa Sweet, Megan Williams, Ruth Armstrong, Marie McInerney

      Pages 21-40

   3. Reporting from the Front Line: The Role of Health Workers in UK Television News Reporting of COVID-19

      • Maria Kyriakidou, Marina Morani, Nikki Soo, Stephen Cushion

      Pages 41-58

   4. Mapping National News Reports on COVID-19 in Australia: Topics, Sources, and Imagined Audiences

      • Kate Holland, Monique Lewis

      Pages 59-81

4. Communicating the Public Health Response

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

      PDF

   2. Communication Inequality, Structural Inequality, and COVID-19

      • Mohan J. Dutta

      Pages 85-98

   3. Tailoring COVID-19 Communication for Local South African Contexts: Challenges, Contradictions, and Consequences of a Dominant Public Health Response

      • Eliza Govender

      Pages 99-117

   4. Disentangling Science and Ideology in a Rapidly Evolving Pandemic: Moments in the COVID-19 Maelstrom

      • Warren Parker

      Pages 119-138

   5. Disability and Communication in the COVID-19 Pandemic

      • Gerard Goggin, Katie Ellis

      Pages 139-162

   6. Argumentum ad solidaritatem: Rhetorical Leadership Strategies in Scandinavia During COVID-19

      • Kristian Bjørkdahl, Jens E. Kjeldsen, Lisa Villadsen, Orla Vigsø

      Pages 163-184

   7. Underpinnings of Pandemic Communication in India: The Curious Case of COVID-19

      • SubbaRao M. Gavaravarapu, Ravindra Kumar Vemula

      Pages 185-202

   8. Analysis of the Government of Israel’s COVID-19 Health and Risk Communication Efforts: Between a Political-Constitutional Crisis and a Health Crisis

      • Anat Gesser-Edelsburg

      Pages 203-225

5. Citizens, Social Media, and Digital Technologies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 227-227

      PDF

   2. Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories: Tracing Misinformation Trajectories from the Fringes to the Mainstream

      • Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, Edward Hurcombe

      Pages 229-249

   3. Responding to Fake News: The Use of Facebook for Public Health Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

      • Alessandro Lovari, Gea Ducci, Nicola Righetti

      Pages 251-275

   4. ‘South Africa Laughs in the Face of Coronavirus’: Presidential Addresses, Face Masks, and Memetic Humour in South Africa

      • Sarah Gibson

      Pages 277-298

   5. Beijing’s Multi-Sector E-health Smart Crowdsourcing During COVID-19: Political, Economic, and Sociocultural Impacts

      • Huiling Ding

      Pages 299-324

   6. Uncertainty and Coping During COVID-19

      • Walid A. Afifi, Tamara D. Afifi

      Pages 325-344

This book explores communication during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring the work of leading communication scholars from around the world, it offers insights and analyses into how individuals, organisations, communities, and nations have grappled with understanding and responding to the pandemic that has rocked the world. The book examines the role of journalists and news media in constructing meanings about the pandemic, with chapters focusing on public interest journalism, health workers and imagined audiences in COVID-19 news. It considers public health responses in different countries, with chapters examining community-driven approaches, communication strategies of governments and political leaders, public health advocacy, and pandemic inequalities. The role of digital media and technology is also unravelled, including social media sharing of misinformation and memetic humour, crowdsourcing initiatives, the use of data in modelling, tracking and tracing, and strategies for managing uncertainties created in a pandemic.

• coronavirus communication
• pandemic communication
• reporting covid-19
• covid-19 communication
• coronavirus social media
• covid-19 social media
• public health
• communication inequality
• disinformation
• risk communication
• crisis communication
• health communication
• news journalism

“While written in the early stages of the pandemic, the wide-ranging Communicating COVID-19: Interdisciplinary Perspectives offers key observations. The volume demonstrates that the rhetoric during the pandemic was largely shaped by each country’s government and tailored to what each saw as their primary goal. … These results are a strong reminder for journalism academics to re-explore the great variety of ways health messages can be brought across to the public and to re-examine critically the effects of news source selection.” (Beate Josephi, Australian Journalism Review, Vol. 44 (1), 2022)

“It is refreshing to read frank accounts of the negatives and difficult challenges of public communication and how these can be addressed, rather than glowing accounts of the importance and success of communication that characterizes many collections of case studies. This is an often raw and provocative collection of studies worthy of the attention of journalism and media studies scholars, health communication researchers and professionals, and public health officials.” (Jim Macnamara, International Journal of Communication, Issue 16, 2022)


'An invaluable document of COVID-19’s media life, which offers a richly nuanced examination of COVID-19 news journalism, public facing health sector communications and social media.  Communicating COVID-19 is a touchstone for the emerging field of pandemic media.'

- Mark D M Davis, Monash University, Australia, co-author of Pandemics, Publics and Narrative (2020)

'As governments and scientists scrambled to find solutions in the face of grave uncertainty created by COVID-19, there was a massive public demand for information. Filling this communication gap is the focus of this must-read, timely book, which includes excellent scholarly contributions from across the globe.'

- Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University, USA, and Associate Scientific Director at CAPRISA

'Communicating COVID-19 takes on a global event in a truly global way, bringing together perspectives on pandemic communication from a wide range of national contexts.  It makes a powerful case for the centrality of communication in the social response to the pandemic, and brings substantial early research to bear on issues related to journalistic practice and ethics, inequality and voice and uncertainty in the face of an emerging disease.'

- Daniel Hallin, Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego

• Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

  Monique Lewis

• Culture, Communication and Media Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

  Eliza Govender

• News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

  Kate Holland

Monique Lewis is a communications scholar, sociologist, and lecturer in media and communication at Griffith University, Australia, and a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.

Eliza Govender is Associate Professor and Head of Department of the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS), University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Kate Holland is Senior Research Fellow in the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra, Australia. 

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