Communication of COVID-19 Variables in Explanatory Journalism
Communication of COVID-19 Variables in Explanatory Journalism
This project analyzes how the reproduction number (R) of COVID-19 is communicated in The Conversation in comparison with forms of journalism found in more traditional news publications. The reproduction number of a virus is a concept that allows researchers to quantify the infectiousness of a disease and determine whether or not the disease can become an epidemic. R has been one of the leading variables used to qualify COVID-19’s contagiousness. R is used to explain the threat posed by COVID-19, and the actions taken by health authorities to contain the disease.
To analyse how R is communicated, Dr. Shiga’s team has collected a corpus of articles from The Conversation and traditional news media outlets, in which R is the main topic of discussion. Drawing on the codebook created by Dr. Schryer’s team, this project focuses on the stylistic and rhetorical techniques used in both types of articles. This research also employs the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) analysis software to investigate how The Conversation’s explanatory journalism pieces compare to traditional news articles in terms of emotional tone, analytical thinking, and other variables.
This project will offer valuable insights into how scientific concepts are communicated by scholarly contributers to The Conversation, compared to journalists’ explanations in traditional news media, improving our understanding of the affordances and constraints of The Conversation as a medium for communicating and popularizing scientific concepts.
The Explanatory Journalism Project is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.