scholarly journals “The Looming, Crazy Stalker Coronavirus”: Fear Mongering, Fake News, and the Diffusion of Distrust

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110247
Author(s):  
Alexandrea J. Ravenelle ◽  
Abigail Newell ◽  
Ken Cai Kowalski

The authors explore media distrust among a sample of precarious and gig workers interviewed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although these left-leaning respondents initially increased their media consumption at the outset of the pandemic, they soon complained of media sensationalism and repurposed a readily available cultural tool: claims of “fake news.” As a result, these unsettled times have resulted in a “diffusion of distrust,” in which an elite conservative discourse of skepticism toward the media has also become a popular form of compensatory control among self-identified liberals. Perceiving “fake news” and media sensationalism as “not good” for their mental health, respondents also reported experiencing media burnout and withdrawing from media consumption. As the pandemic passes its one-year anniversary, this research has implications for long-term media coverage on COVID-19 and ongoing media trust and consumption.

1993 ◽  
Vol 162 (5) ◽  
pp. 679-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Tiller ◽  
Ulrike Schmidt ◽  
Janet Treasure

Compulsory treatment for anorexia nervosa was recently once again a topic for discussion following the case of J, a 16-year-old girl who unsuccessfully applied to the Court of Appeal to refuse treatment for her anorexia nervosa. In this instance legal opinion was sought in order to clarify the Children Act 1989. However, much of the media coverage focused on the controversy surrounding the compulsory treatment of anorexia nervosa, under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. There is a lack of research into the compulsory treatment of anorexia nervosa, so debate has to be informed by clinical experience.


Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Jordi Serrat

Catalunya va viure l’1 d’octubre del 2017 un dels moments informatius més importants de la seva història. El Govern català va habilitar, desobeint el Tribunal Constitucional, 2.243 col∙legis electorals per preguntar als ciutadans si estaven a favor o en contra de la inde­pendència de Catalunya. El fet que els principals òrgans dels poders judicial i polític d’Espanya consideressin il∙legal aquest referèndum no va fer desistir els organitzadors. La jornada va estar mar­cada per la gent que va mobilitzar-se per votar i per l’actuació de la policia espanyola que va intervenir amb força. La recerca analitza com un viral de You­Tube, per denunciar irregularitats en la consulta, conté tots els ingredients per considerar-lo la principal fake news d’aquell dia. L’anàlisi es contextualitza amb opinions sobre la cobertura del re­ferèndum de quatre periodistes catalans entrevistats (Crónica Global, El País i Ara). També es confronten els relats de TV3 i TVE, en el Telenotícies i el Tele­diario. Mentre la televisió catalana va presentar l’1-O de manera èpica, per la resistència popular per salvaguardar uns drets que simbolitzaven les urnes enfront les càrregues policials; la televi­sió pública espanyola va emfatitzar que va ser una acció il∙legal, sense garanties democràtiques.   Votes in the Streets on October 1, 2017 in Catalonia: An Example of Covert Fake News On October 1st, 2017 (1-O), Catalonia experienced one of the most important newsworthy moments in its history. The Catalan government set up 2.243 polling stations to conduct a referendum on Catalonia’s independence, thereby disobeying Spain’s Constitutional Court. Although the main bodies of the Spa­nish judiciary and political powers con­sidered the referendum illegal, the orga­nizers persisted. The day was marked by people’s mobilizations, which consisted of defending polling stations and pro­tecting voters from police intervention. With this study, we seek to analyse how a YouTube video, which reported irregu­larities about the referendum and went viral, contains all the ingredients to be considered fake news. The analysis is contextualized with opinions about the media coverage of the referendum by four interviews with Catalan journalists (Crónica Global, El País, Ara). The ac­counts of TV3 (Televisió de Catalunya) and TVE (Televisión Española), in Tele­notícies (TV3’s news) and Telediario(TVE’s news) are also juxtaposed. While the Catalan public television (TV3) pre­sented the 1-O in an epic way, stressing the citizens’ resistance to safeguard the rights as symbolized by the ballot boxes against the Spanish police, the Spanish public television (TVE) emphasised that 1-O was an illegal referendum lacking democratic legitimacy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Ana Pérez-Escoda ◽  
◽  
Gema Barón-Dulce ◽  
Juana Rubio-Romero ◽  
◽  
...  

The explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a major transformation in media consumption and the use of social networks. New habits and extensive exposure to connected devices coupled with unmanageable amounts of information warn of a worrying reality, especially among the younger population. The aim of this research is to discover the degree of trustworthiness of Generation Z towards the media, their media consumption preferences and the association they make between media consumption and fake news. Using a descriptive and exploratory quantitative methodology, a study is presented with a sample of 225 young people belonging to this population niche. The study addresses three dimensions: media consumption, social networks and perception of fake news. The results show that generation Z is an intensive consumer of the media they trust the least and perceive traditional media as the most trustworthy. The findings indicate that social networks are the main source of information consumption for this ge­neration, among other content, despite also being the least trustworthy and the most likely to distribute fake news according to their perceptions. There is a lack of media literacy from a critical rather than a formative perspective.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sacco

"H1 N1 is a virus that has been sensationalized by the media since the first case was discovered in Mexico during the spring of 2009. People around the world feared that the virus would mutate into something as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu, one of the deadliest plagues in history. However experts had discovered by June of 2009 that the Spanish flu was not comparable to H1 N1. Yet for six months newspaper reporters continued to compare the ew epidemic to the Spanish flu, thus keeping alive the threat of an unstoppable pandemic. One year has passed since the first case of H1 N1 was confirmed. After all of the attention that H1 N1 received, it proved to be not much different than a typical seasonal flu, resulting in a lower death rate (Schabas and Rau, 2010). Recently, a number of investigations have begun to determine if the World Health Organization (WHO) overemphasized the level of risk, resulting in a large quantity of sensationalized media coverage, and citizens in a state of panic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1119-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin P. Calvillo ◽  
Bryan J. Ross ◽  
Ryan J. B. Garcia ◽  
Thomas J. Smelter ◽  
Abraham M. Rutchick

The present research examined the relationship between political ideology and perceptions of the threat of COVID-19. Due to Republican leadership’s initial downplaying of COVID-19 and the resulting partisan media coverage, we predicted that conservatives would perceive it as less threatening. Two preregistered online studies supported this prediction. Conservatism was associated with perceiving less personal vulnerability to the virus and the virus’s severity as lower, and stronger endorsement of the beliefs that the media had exaggerated the virus’s impact and that the spread of the virus was a conspiracy. Conservatism also predicted less accurate discernment between real and fake COVID-19 headlines and fewer accurate responses to COVID-19 knowledge questions. Path analyses suggested that presidential approval, knowledge about COVID-19, and news discernment mediated the relationship between ideology and perceived vulnerability. These results suggest that the relationship between political ideology and threat perceptions may depend on issue framing by political leadership and media.


1981 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 202-204
Author(s):  
Leonard Fagin

The spate of suicides and riots in unemployment-stricken towns has recently brought to public attention a feature of joblessness which had not figured in the minds of those that thought that it would only have financial and probably minor social consequences. Since then, a flurry of interest has been spurred by the media; they regularly report on studies that show some association between unemployment and ill health, quite often, and not surprisingly, to make party political meal of a long-term problem that is bound to have implications for health provision in this country, at least over the next two decades. As psychiatrists we all know the central role played by regular, satisfying employment in the mental health of our patients, and I am sure many of us are affected by our total inability to secure adequate rehabilitation alternatives on which we are sure our patients' future, and that of their families, depend to a great extent. Some of us may also have been aware of the increased demand on mental health resources over the past few years and of the worrying tendency for admissions into psychiatric hospitals to be prolonged because of the time it takes for an ex-patient to re-enter the labour force.


2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 331-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Huang ◽  
Stefan Priebe

Aims and MethodWe aimed to assess the contents and tone of articles on mental health care in the UK print media by comparing them with reporting in the USA and Australia. Two broadsheets from each country were analysed using the Internet for a random 4 months over a 1-year period. The number of articles, their content and the views expressed in them were identified and compared.ResultsA total of 118 articles on mental health care issues were found. The predominant tone of the articles in all three countries was negative, though there were slightly more positive articles in the USA and Australian media. Positive articles highlighted in the UK media covered mostly medical conferences and research findings.Clinical ImplicationsEfforts to achieve a more positive attitude towards people with mental illnesses in the public, such as anti-stigma campaigns, operate against a background of predominantly negative coverage of mental health care issues in broadsheets. The coverage in the UK may tend to be even less positive than in the USA and Australia. Medical conferences and research findings can, however, be used to promote positive views of mental health care in the media.


Author(s):  
Xiaosheng Dong ◽  
Xiangren Yi ◽  
Meng Ding ◽  
Zan Gao ◽  
Daniel J. McDonough ◽  
...  

Purpose: Breast cancer patients in treatment suffer from long-term side effects that seriously influence their physical and mental health. The aim of this study was to examine effectiveness of a 12-week multicomponent exercise (ME) with remote guidance intervention on health-related outcomes after one year among breast cancer patients. Methods: In phases I–III, 60 patients (51.2 ± 7.9 years) with breast cancer (BC) who completed chemotherapy/postoperative radiotherapy within the previous four months to two years were randomly assigned to (1) multicomponent exercise with remote guidance (ME) and (2) usual care (UC). Eligible participants were approached to assess cancer-related quality of life (QOL), muscle strength, cardiorespiratory endurance, and physical activity (PA) barriers after one year. Results: The results demonstrated that, after one year, the ME group reported higher vitality-related QOL (5.776, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.987, 10.565, effect size [ES] = 0.360), mental health-related QOL (9.938, 95% CI 4.146, 15.729, ES = 0.512), leg strength and endurance (2.880, CI 1.337, 4.423, ES = 0.557), and strength and endurance of upper extremities (2.745, 95% CI 1.076, 4.415, ES = 0.491) and lower physical activity (PA) hindrance (5.120, 95% CI 1.976, 8.264, ES = 0.486) than the UC group. Conclusions: The ME group observed significant differences from the UC group in QOL, muscle strength, cardiopulmonary endurance, and PA participation. These findings suggested that the multicomponent exercise intervention with remote guidance produced long-term health benefits for breast cancer patients.


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (02) ◽  
pp. 251-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jules Boykoff

AbstractMuch was at stake at the 2010 United Nations climate change conference in Cancún, Mexico. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was being challenged by the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, after these countries reached a tenuous backroom deal one year earlier in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, scientific studies were warning of serious and severe climate change. This article analyzes newspaper articles and television segments from the US media that appeared during the timeframe of the Cancún conference, focusing on two key facets of coverage that continue to be important as negotiations proceed: the economic impacts and opportunities that climate change creates and the role that China plays in negotiations. I also examine which sources were allowed through the news gates and which ones were marginalized. I find that the US media discussed economic opportunities more frequently than economic impacts and that the media treated China in an even-handed way. Established political actors dominated coverage, followed by representatives of nongovernmental organizations and the business community. Meanwhile, grassroots activists and indigenous voices were marginalized.


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