the Ebola Epidemic in Swedish News Media and Social Media Pavel Rodin Marina Ghersetti Tomas Odén Department of Journalism, Media and Communication University of Gothenburg Funded by Swedish Civil Contingency Agency IICRC 2017, Orlando, 13-15 March, 2017

JMG The Ebola Outbreak 2014-2016 Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported in March 2014, and rapidly became the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976. 8 augusti 2014 – WHO declared Ebola outbreak as an international emergency. By January, 13th, 2016, 11,315 people have been reported as having died from the disease in six countries; Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the US and Mali.

Theoretical points of departure JMG Theoretical points of departure News media’s role in covering the unfolding outbreak News media meet social media: multiple actors and multiple voices News media logic and Social media logic Real-life events are filtered out through a seive of media logic. An umbrella term for guiding eveluative principles for journalists to select topics and issues for media coverage. Stories around various elit groups (e.g. politicians, celebrities, sportsmen), sensations, bad news, newspaper agenda, follow-ups. Media coverage of complex issues or large events are composed to ”frames”, interpretation packages. Two approaches to framing: how do news media frame an issue and how audience perceive it. Shareability and interactions with the content. Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen; the rhetorical arena. Multi-vocal view on communication space around crisis situations. Crisis publics contribute to the communication within the arena. Coombs and Holladay further developed the theoretical approach and suggest defining sub-arenas, representing a limited where a message is ”heard” and potentially responded by a restricted set of actors, e.g. followers of a Facebook pages or Twitter account. People commenting in the crisis-related news stories become voices in a sub-arena. The analysis of sub-arenas helps to determine how the publics are reacting to crisis communication efforts.

Key learning objectives JMG Key learning objectives To analyze the framing of the Ebola infection in Swedish news media as well as in social media; To align the framing over time and across the analyzed sources; To conduct a sentiment analysis tracing the alarmism across the sources.

Design of the study and data JMG Design of the study and data Content analyses of social media messages are considered an ideal non-reactive way to observe publics‘ responses to crises. Andreas Schwarz, 2012 The study makes account of three datasets. News media coverage of Ebola. Retriever database. Two coders. News artilces published on the web-pages of two Swedish newspapers, video recordings of the Rapport news on SVT (Swedish public service television), as well as audio – Ekot on Swedish radio P1. Intercoder reliability. Facebook pages of the newspapers. App Netvizz. Filtered to Ebola-related. Netvizz. Commentary threads. One coder. Intracoder reliability.

JMG Yellow – is a public sub-arena Blue – semi-public arena (due to privacy settings)

Timeline: the public sub-arena JMG Timeline: the public sub-arena

News media: frames by issues JMG News media: frames by issues   Totalt Dead, diseased, infected 25 Spread of Ebola virus 13 Aid 12 Vaccination, health care, handling of contaminated 11 Local healthcare providers readiness / capacity 9 Protective measures for general public / community 8 General concerns about the virus 5 Societal implications 3 Facts about Ebola Risks to health professionals, aid workers 2 Media coverage 1 Ebola free / restriction highlights Distrust of authorities Other 6 Sum 100 N 1361

News media meet social media JMG News media meet social media Strategic choice of articles Issues: almost the same distribution of issues/topics as in the whole set of news media Sentiment: more alarming than news media articles in overall

Frames by issues of Facebook comments JMG Frames by issues of Facebook comments

Sentiment analysis (index over time) JMG Sentiment analysis (index over time) Index= (reassuring + both) – (alarming + both) / all

Conclusions and takeaways JMG Conclusions and takeaways Ebola as a news story: relevant issues, adequate reporting, ethnocentrism Differences in issues across sources: shifted focus, additional issues appeared (migration policy/crisis), some are not discussed at all (international aid) People didn’t panic!