In the event of a risk or a health problem, it is vital for the management of the situation, to i... more In the event of a risk or a health problem, it is vital for the management of the situation, to inform the public. The managers of that situation are public authorities. While they produce their own material, the success (or failure) of their efforts depend also on the media because the latter constitute one of—sometime the—most important information source for the lay public. Informed by social constructivism, this work adopts the view that journalists create a certain reality by their reporting, and that this reality significantly influences other social actors (for example readers, i.e. the lay public). Taking an interpretivist stance, a qualitative approach was chosen to analyse how the 2009 influenza pandemic was represented in the German media. Precisely, a framing analysis of articles of “Süddeutsche Zeitung” was carried out in the course of 2009. The established hypotheses, that this newspaper's coverage was very critical towards officials and vaccination, and transported contradictory messages which were likely to have caused confusion and feelings of unsettlement among the public. However, these results can not explain the low vaccination rate. But, this work represents a starting point for further analysis, such as processes of media production and how audiences process information. Moreover, it is able to make recommendations for public authorities and their communications in the event of a pandemic.
In the event of a risk or a health problem, it is vital for the management of the situation, to i... more In the event of a risk or a health problem, it is vital for the management of the situation, to inform the public. The managers of that situation are public authorities. While they produce their own material, the success (or failure) of their efforts depend also on the media because the latter constitute one of—sometime the—most important information source for the lay public. Informed by social constructivism, this work adopts the view that journalists create a certain reality by their reporting, and that this reality significantly influences other social actors (for example readers, i.e. the lay public). Taking an interpretivist stance, a qualitative approach was chosen to analyse how the 2009 influenza pandemic was represented in the German media. Precisely, a framing analysis of articles of “Süddeutsche Zeitung” was carried out in the course of 2009. The established hypotheses, that this newspaper's coverage was very critical towards officials and vaccination, and transported contradictory messages which were likely to have caused confusion and feelings of unsettlement among the public. However, these results can not explain the low vaccination rate. But, this work represents a starting point for further analysis, such as processes of media production and how audiences process information. Moreover, it is able to make recommendations for public authorities and their communications in the event of a pandemic.
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Papers by Maret Petersson
Informed by social constructivism, this work adopts the view that journalists create a certain reality by their reporting, and that this reality significantly influences other social actors (for example readers, i.e. the lay public).
Taking an interpretivist stance, a qualitative approach was chosen to analyse how the 2009 influenza pandemic was represented in the German media. Precisely, a framing analysis of articles of “Süddeutsche Zeitung” was carried out in the course of 2009. The established hypotheses, that this newspaper's coverage was very critical towards officials and vaccination, and transported contradictory messages which were likely to have caused confusion and feelings of unsettlement among the public. However, these results can not
explain the low vaccination rate. But, this work represents a starting point for further analysis, such as processes of media production and how audiences process information. Moreover, it is able to make recommendations for public authorities and their communications in the event of a pandemic.
Informed by social constructivism, this work adopts the view that journalists create a certain reality by their reporting, and that this reality significantly influences other social actors (for example readers, i.e. the lay public).
Taking an interpretivist stance, a qualitative approach was chosen to analyse how the 2009 influenza pandemic was represented in the German media. Precisely, a framing analysis of articles of “Süddeutsche Zeitung” was carried out in the course of 2009. The established hypotheses, that this newspaper's coverage was very critical towards officials and vaccination, and transported contradictory messages which were likely to have caused confusion and feelings of unsettlement among the public. However, these results can not
explain the low vaccination rate. But, this work represents a starting point for further analysis, such as processes of media production and how audiences process information. Moreover, it is able to make recommendations for public authorities and their communications in the event of a pandemic.