COVID-19 coverage from six network and cable news sources in the United States: Representation of misinformation, correction, and portrayals of severity

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is marked by divisions in perceptions of disease severity as well as misperceptions about the virus and vaccine that vary along ideological and political party lines. Perceptual differences may be due to differences in the information about the virus that individuals are exposed to within their own identity-affirming ideological news bubbles. This content analysis of six different national network transcripts highlights differences in coverage of severity, and the prevalence of misinformation and its correction that are consistent with previously established preferred news channels of conservatives/Republicans and liberals/Democrats and their perceptions and misperceptions about the pandemic. Results contribute to the growing body of country-specific COVID-19 media studies that allow for comparisons across nations with different cultures and media systems, as these factors play a pivotal role in national responses and experiences.

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“…Specifically, the Cohen's Kappa scores range from "Moderate" to "Substantial," signifying a reliable level of consistency in the annotators' assessments. Furthermore, the Gwet's AC1 scores fall into the "Very good" category, underscoring the robustness of the agreement across our annotating pairs, exceeding or resembling the agreement levels reported in other published studies (Maloney et al 2023).…”