Content Analysis of American Network News Coverage of Prevention Strategies During the Initial Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Broadcast media is a method to communicate health information to the general public and has previously been used in prior public health emergencies. Despite the current ubiquity of social media, traditional news programming retains relatively large audiences, which increased during the COVID-19 pandemic's early days. Viewership of broadcast media networks' evening news skews toward older groups (age 65 and up) which were vulnerable to health complications related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: The current study explored the trends in American broadcast network news media coverage of prevention during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Quantitative content analysis using the Public Health Framework for Prevention was used to analyze three major US media networks' evening news content for thematic trends in COVID-19 coverage during the first US pandemic wave from March to May 2020.

Subjects: A total of 117 episodes of the evening news, 39 from each of the three major US media networks, evenly divided among the first 13 weeks of the pandemic in the US.

Main measures: Outcome variables included average seconds of coverage per episode devoted to prevention strategies, COVID-19 coverage not related to prevention, and non-COVID-19 coverage.

Key results: The proportion of coverage dedicated to COVID-19 sharply increased in the first 2 weeks of March and decreased in the last 2 weeks of May. Networks focused approximately half the COVID-19 coverage time on prevention issues (288 seconds/episode) compared to non-prevention issues (538 seconds/episode). Prevention coverage varied over time.

Conclusions: Although coverage included COVID-19 prevention content, more of the coverage was on other pandemic-related issues (e.g., economic impacts). Because public network news outlets have broad reach and accessibility, they could be an effective partner for public health agencies disseminating prevention messaging for current and future disease outbreaks and threats to public health.

Keywords: COVID-19 prevention; health communication messaging; news media; primary prevention.