Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage.

P Sol Hart,Sedona Chinn,Stuart Soroka

doi:10.1177/1075547020950735

P Sol Hart, Sedona Chinn + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020950735

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Abstract

This study examines the level of politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news in U.S. newspapers and televised network news from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content analytic approaches, we find that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized. We find that politicians appear in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists are more equally featured in network news. We suggest that the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in U.S. COVID-19 attitudes.

Highlights

The global increase in COVID-19 infections through early 2020 led the United States to declare COVID-19 a national emergency on March 13 (The White House, 2020), and the majority of states had issued stay-at-home orders by the end of March 2020 (KFF, 2020).While there has been broad public agreement for some preventative measures, such as restricting international travel to the United States, closing K-12 schools, and canceling major sports and entertainment events (Van Green & Tyson, 2020), Americans have been divided in their perceptions of the government response, confidence in scientists, and support for protective actions
We did so by identifying articles and broadcasts that mentioned “covid,” “coronavirus,” or “corona.” In order to limit our analyses to stories that had substantive coverage of COVID-19, we restricted our analysis to stories in which a COVID-19 keyword was mentioned at least three times
The analysis finds that newspaper coverage is highly politicized, network news coverage is somewhat less politicized, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized

Summary

Introduction

The global increase in COVID-19 infections through early 2020 led the United States to declare COVID-19 a national emergency on March 13 (The White House, 2020), and the majority of states had issued stay-at-home orders by the end of March 2020 (KFF, 2020).While there has been broad public agreement for some preventative measures, such as restricting international travel to the United States, closing K-12 schools, and canceling major sports and entertainment events (Van Green & Tyson, 2020), Americans have been divided in their perceptions of the government response, confidence in scientists, and support for protective actions. The current study speaks to these issues by investigating the degree to which mainstream newspaper and network TV news coverage on COVID-19 was politicized and polarized between March and May 2020.

Results

Conclusion