Highly disconcerting at the time, in retrospective, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic looks like much ado about nothing. As a consequence, many accused the media of having created an artificial hype or hysteria around the new virus, thus contributing to unwarranted public fear. The current paper set out to examine the validity of such accusations. We integrated empirical findings on whether the media dramatized H1N1 on a global scale through systematically reviewing prior content-analytic studies. We developed a coding scheme specifying three indicators of dramatized media coverage thattogetherinform about how mass media coverage about H1N1 may amplify risk perceptions in the public: (a) the volume of media coverage, (b) the media content presented, particularly an overemphasis of threat while neglecting measures of self-protection and (c) the tone of coverage. Results show that media attention was immense, that news content stressed threat over precautionary measures, while the pattern of coverage tonality remained nebulous due to conflicting findings. The present review also revealed a critical gap in existing knowledge about the tone of media coverage on H1N1, and discusses implications for future research on dramatization of public health risks by the media.

In 2009, influenza A H1N1 caused the first pandemic of the 21st century. Although a vaccine against this influenza subtype was offered before or at the onset of the second epidemic wave that caused most of the fatal cases in Europe, vaccination rates for that season were lower than expected. We propose that the contradiction between high risk of infection and low use of available prevention measures represents a pandemic public health paradox. This research aims for a better understanding of this paradox by exploring the time-dependent interplay among changing influenza epidemiology, media attention, pandemic control measures, risk perception and public health behavior among five European countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain and the UK). Findings suggest that asynchronicity between media curves and epidemiological curves may potentially explain the pandemic public health paradox; media attention for influenza A H1N1 in Europe declined long before the epidemic reached its peak, and public risk perceptions and behaviors may have followed media logic, rather than epidemiological logic.

Journalistic role perceptions have been extensively studied in general contexts, but little is known as to how roles – or role prioritization – may shift across contexts, and professional characteristics. The aim of this study was gaining an understanding of journalists’ changing role perceptions in health crisis coverage, and moreover to examine potential differences between general and specialist reporters. We conducted 22 in-depth interviews with reporters with experience in health crisis reporting in Germany and Finland. Findings suggest that journalists’ roles shift when covering health crises (versus non-crises), towards a role as public mobilizers, towards classifying risks and from a watchdog to a more co-operative role. Furthermore, professional characteristics matter in journalists’ understanding and performance of their roles. Specialist reporters appear better equipped to deal with the challenges of health crisis coverage, such as balancing remaining critical with co-operation with authorities in their efforts to contain crises. Specialist reporters are also less likely to get swayed by the panic often accompanying health crises than general reporters are.

This study examined the veracity of the common assumption that news coverage of epidemic outbreaks spawns heightened fears and risk perceptions. An online experiment with 1,324 participants investigated the interplay of the form of news coverage (factual/emotion-laden) and key aspects of actual risk (low/high vulnerability, low/high severity) on audience responses. Participants read one of eight versions of a newspaper article followed by measures on risk perceptions, negative affect, behavioral intentions, and perceived sensationalism. Risk perceptions and fear were primarily driven by objective risk characteristics, whereas emotion-laden news form only increased perceptions of disease severity, not of fear or personal vulnerability.

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