Framing COVID-19 in Pakistani mainstream media: An analysis of newspaper editorials

Crisis risk communication and public behavior: Analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan

“…Pakistan, a developing nation with a population of approximately 220 million, faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in major urban centers like Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Faisalabad (Abid et al, 2020;Aziz et al, 2022). As of August 30, 2020, the government reported 293,261 confirmed cases, 6,244 casualties, 276,829 recoveries, and 686 critical cases (Aziz et al, 2022). Limited resources, an overloaded urban population, and socioeconomic disparities worsened healthcare (Abid et al, 2020).…”

“…By January 2022, 59,365,688 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 934,735 reported deaths worldwide (Gavi Org., 2022). COVID-19, primarily transmitted through respiratory droplets, is a rapidly spreading respiratory disease that often leads to severe acute respiratory syndromes (Aziz et al, 2022). The pandemic has had farreaching effects, caused immense human loss, and disrupted various aspects of life, including public health, food supply, employment, work, and education on a global scale (Li et al, 2020).…”

“…Every country worldwide responded to the crisis by applying recommended measures such as social distancing, lockdowns, confinements, travel restrictions, and vaccination campaigns. In line with global standards, Pakistan also employed these measures alongside robust testing protocols to diagnose COVID-19 cases (Aziz et al, 2022;Pakistan Health Department, 2020).…”

Framing of COVID-19 News in Font-Page Headlines of Standard (Hardcore) Swahili Newspapers in Tanzania

“…The framing of mass media could be advising, discouraging, encouraging, promoting, demoting, sorting the source etc. Consequently, the audience is likely to be influenced either negatively or positively by the decision of the journalists to frame a given information (Aziz, Imtiaz, Saeed 2022). This happens because framing of the information helps in sense-making among the audience.…”

“…In mass media, the choice of catchy keywords is one of the strategies that journalists employ to frame the news. Both resources by Aziz, Imtiaz, and Saeed (2022) and Mutanga, Abayomi (2020) have shown that as the world faces the impact of COVID-19, journalists tend to utilize the popular keywords such as CORONA, COVID-19, LOCKDOWN, PANDEMIC, VACCINES and WORKOUTS. Thus, I look at the choice of keywords in the reporting of COVID-19 pandemic in the Swahili newspapers published and circulated in Tanzania.…”