Online news portals’ representation and coverage of the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination promotion stories in Africa are produced and disseminated to inform and give all-around updates on the COVID-19 pandemic to the respective audience.
During the coverage of news stories, various news media platforms, including online news portals attach a given definition to the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination campaign, relate the interpretation to the information regarding COVID-19 vaccines, and presented evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic to promote, strengthen, as well as naturalize the interpretation.
Digital media platforms, especially news portals in Africa produce and circulate news stories on the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccinations, as well as pertinent issues that confront the daily lives of the citizenry. In the production as well as distribution of news, journalists do not just share information but also paint reality.
Journalists across the globe depict reality by describing events and employing some aspects of those events as proof or justify their interpretations. In reality, the news portals often portray a particular perspective of the situation and thereafter follow the reporting of evidence not only strengthens and legitimizes the news event but also naturalizes the interpretation.
Another important news portal strategy that influences COVID-19 representation or portrayal is framing. Framing contends that images, as well as the portrayal of reality, are indicators of selection as well as the portrayal of reality by media. The perceptions, representations, and the creation of images, depend on a given media, since people do not only understand but also explain various matters as presented in the news. The construction of images requires information, which should be provided by a given media within a selected as well as crystallized manner.
Universally, media outlets, especially news portals employ different tones in reporting news stories, intending to influence the audience to hold or have an attitudinal change towards a phenomenon. A tone can be deployed to tell a story from the perspective of either positive neutral or negative angles. The attribute of a tone in reporting a news item on a particular issue is influenced primarily by characteristics and the media environment.
News portals sourcing or search that considers what kind of information a journalist acquires from whom is undoubtedly essential as it affects the type of news that a website disseminates. Traditional media and website sourcing offer individuals an opportunity to present their stories and provide important evidence relating to the argument. By sharing information from a single source over another’s information, news sourcing not only portrays reality but also represents the image of society.
In one of such a recent study, John Demuyakor, Stevens Justice Avenyo, and Adwoa Sikayena Amankwah adopted a comparative quantitative content analysis to explore how the frames, tones, and information sources can influence the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination in four countries in Africa. The news portals and countries for this study were purposively sampled based on the World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders for 2021. Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, and Botswana were among the top ten countries in Africa with the best Media Freedoms.
The findings showed that Ghana’s news portals’ coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination campaigns used mainly non-official sources in the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination stories, whereas Botswana, Namibia, and South African media used official sources. Other findings show that Ghana’s news portals covered COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccination stories in a negative tone, and employed conflict, and economic consequence frames. Botswana, Namibia, and South African news portals, however, adopted neutral and positive tones and framed them according to human interest, responsibility, and morality.
The results suggest that the text of the news articles from the four African countries’ on COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination adopted different generic framing styles, and the tones were predominantly a mixture of positive, neutral, and negative.
This study has proposed some practical and theoretical implications. Both traditional and online media’s roles are to educate, inform and entertain. However, the reliance nature of some of the generic frames on how the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccinations news stories are presented as variations in the sources of news, might make it extremely difficult for the news portals to present the issues all around, and substantially.
Also, the unique nature of the COVID-19 pandemic might make it difficult for all the news portals to fully represent all aspects of the COVID-19 vaccine debate. Finally, news portals and online content creators across the four countries, need to be aware of how to access news from rightful sources and also must take advantage of their wide local and global audience to get diverse opinions, before their voices are added to the COVID-19 vaccines for creditable news production and dissemination. Specialization in news reporting and journalism practice must also be encouraged. Health journalists and medical experts must be at the forefront of telling the COVID-19 vaccine story in Africa.
In conclusion, this current study makes some contributions to framing, by demonstrating how the framing theory, could be employed to show how variables like tone and source could be used to explain how the digital media platforms in Africa covered the COVID-19 vaccine stories. For very critical issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings from this study have shown that economic consequences, responsibility, and conflict frames, with official news sources were predominant in the representation and coverage of the COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccination campaigns in Africa.
This study is published by Communication and the Public. Sage Journals. https://doi.org/10.1177/20570473231225299
Dr. John Demuyakor, Mr. Stevens Justice Avenyo, and Prof. Adwoa Sikayena Amankwah, Department of Communication Studies, University of Professional Studies, Accra