Diversity of COVID-19 News Media Coverage across 17 Countries: The Influence of Cultural Values, Government Stringency and Pandemic Severity

Ng, Reuben; Tan, Yi Wen

doi:10.3390/ijerph182211768

Cited by 32 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…To minimize potential bias, the videos were rated by two researchers and evidenced high interrater reliability. Nevertheless, in view of the rising popularity of TikTok and its power to shape public perceptions, we encourage more TikTok-related research on the topic that could include psychometrics ( Ng, Allore et al, 2020 ; Ng & Levy, 2018 ; Ng & Rayner, 2010 ), big data techniques ( Giest & Ng, 2018 ; Ng, 2018 ; Ng, Lim et al, 2020 ; Ng & Tan, 2021a ) used to analyze news media ( Ng, 2021a , 2021b ) across cultures ( Ng et al, 2021a , 2021b ; Ng & Indran, 2021a , 2021b ; Ng & Tan, 2021b ) and time ( Ng & Chow, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hostility Toward Baby Boomers on TikTok

Indran

2022

The Gerontologist

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Background and Objectives The recent entry of the hashtag #OkBoomer into social media vernacular underscores the collective frustration of younger people with a group whose views they find increasingly incompatible with theirs. Most social media analyses in gerontology focus on content on Twitter and Facebook, with content on TikTok virtually unexplored. Given the burgeoning popularity of TikTok among younger people, we assess the content of TikTok videos with the hashtags #OkBoomer or #Boomer to distill the undercurrents of hostility expressed by younger people towards Baby Boomers. Research Design and Methods We collated TikTok videos (N=332) with the hashtags #OkBoomer or #Boomer, which received over 5.4 billion views. Both inductive and deductive approaches guided the qualitative content analysis of the videos. Results Five themes emerged. Most videos (79%) described ‘Negative Encounters with Baby Boomers’ (Theme 1). 58% were about ‘Conflicting Values/Beliefs between Baby Boomers and Younger People’ (Theme 2). 39% were about ‘Baby Boomers Antagonizing Younger Generations’ (Theme 3). 22% of the videos made references to the ‘Karen Meme’ (Theme 4). 7% bemoaned the existence of a ‘Wealth Gap’ between Baby Boomers and younger people (Theme 5). Discussion and Implications Findings reveal that the usage of the hashtags #OkBoomer and #Boomer is highly nuanced, at times explicitly ageist, and at others, emblematic of a phenomenon far more complex than ageism. There is a need to leverage social media as a space to foster interaction between older and younger people. Society is ultimately well served by intergenerational interaction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hostility Toward Baby Boomers on TikTok

Indran

2022

The Gerontologist

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“…Within the healthcare setting, older adults’ lives have been imperiled by the age‐based rationing of resources—a disquieting practice that many have criticized as being suggestive of older adults as an expendable group (Fraser et al., 2020 ). Governments across the globe have also come under fire for what has been deemed a flagrant mismanagement of the COVID‐19 situation (Ng et al., 2021b ; Ng & Tan, 2021b ). Nursing homes in various countries have emerged as hotbeds of infections as a result of policies which failed to prioritize the care of older adults (Amnesty International, 2020 ; Fallon et al., 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Indran

Liu

2022

Journal of Social Issues

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The COVID‐19 crisis has sparked a resurgence of scholarly interest in the issue of ageism. Whether the outbreak thwarts or facilitates efforts to combat ageism hinges upon public sentiments toward the older demographic. This study aims to explore discourse surrounding older adults by analyzing 183,179 related tweets posted during the COVID‐19 pandemic from February to December 2020. Overall, sentiments toward older adults became significantly less negative over time, being the least negative in April, August, and October, though the score remained below the neutral value throughout the 11 months. Our topic modelling analysis generated four themes: “The Need to Protect Older Adults” (41%), “Vulnerability and Mortality” (36%), “Failure of Political Leadership” (12%), and “Resilience” (11%). These findings indicate nascent support for older adults, though attempts to show solidarity may well worsen benevolent ageism.

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“…Delving further, we argue that the negative rhetoric against Asians promoted "otherness" [32][33][34]. In times of crises such as the current pandemic, it is common for individuals with similar attributes to be categorized as the ingroup, and those who are "different" as the outgroup.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Anti-Asian Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic Across 20 Countries: Analysis of a 12-Billion-Word News Media Database (Preprint)

Ng¹

2021

Preprint

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BACKGROUND US president Joe Biden signed an executive action directing federal agencies to combat hate crimes and racism against Asians, which have percolated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is one of the first known empirical studies to dynamically test whether global societal sentiments toward Asians have become more negative during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate whether global societal sentiments toward Asians across 20 countries have become more negative, month by month, from before the pandemic (October 2019) to May 2020, along with the pandemic (incidence and mortality rates) and cultural (Hofstede’s cultural dimensions) predictors of this trend. METHODS We leveraged a 12-billion-word web-based media database, with over 30 million newspaper and magazine articles taken from over 7000 sites across 20 countries, and identified 6 synonyms of “Asian” that are related to the coronavirus. We compiled their most frequently used descriptors (collocates) from October 2019 to May 2020 across 20 countries, culminating in 85,827 collocates that were rated by 2 independent researchers to provide a Cumulative Asian Sentiment Score (CASS) per month. This allowed us to track significant shifts in societal sentiments toward Asians from a baseline period (October to December 2019) to the onset of the pandemic (January to May 2020). We tested the competing predictors of this trend: pandemic variables of incidence and mortality rates measured monthly for all 20 countries taken from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions of Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity for the 20 countries. RESULTS Before the pandemic in December 2019, Jamaica and New Zealand evidenced the most negative societal sentiments toward Asians; when news about the coronavirus was released in January 2020, the United States and Nigeria evidenced the most negative sentiments toward Asians among 20 countries. Globally, sentiments of Asians became more negative—a significant linear decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. CASS trended neutral before the pandemic during the baseline period of October to November 2019 and then plummeted in February 2020. CASS were, ironically, not predicted by COVID-19’s incidence and mortality rates, but rather by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: individualism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance—as shown by mixed models (N=28,494). Specifically, higher power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance were associated with negative societal sentiments toward Asians. CONCLUSIONS Racism, in the form of Anti-Asian sentiments, are deep-seated, and predicated on structural undercurrents of culture. The COVID-19 pandemic may have indirectly and inadvertently exacerbated societal tendencies for racism. Our study lays the important groundwork to design interventions and policy communications to ameliorate Anti-Asian racism, which are culturally nuanced and contextually appropriate.

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Diversity of COVID-19 News Media Coverage across 17 Countries: The Influence of Cultural Values, Government Stringency and Pandemic Severity

Cited by 32 publications

References 24 publications

Hostility Toward Baby Boomers on TikTok

Hostility Toward Baby Boomers on TikTok

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Anti-Asian Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic Across 20 Countries: Analysis of a 12-Billion-Word News Media Database (Preprint)

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