Framing the MERS information crisis: An analysis on online news media's rumour coverage

Abstract

Purpose This paper explores the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea in 2015 in order to examine social implications of news media's roles during rumour propagation. There was an alarming level of public fear during the disease outbreak due toan information crisis, resulted by the government's holdback of vital information and the widespread MERS rumours on social media. By paying attention to news coverage patterns of rumours and comparing them across the outbreak period, the paper examines the following research questions: (a) Under what media frames were the MERS rumours reported by the online news? (b) Which media frame did the online news use most frequently? (c) How did the media frames change during and after the information vacuum? Methods Content analysis of news articles that covered MERS rumours during the outbreak has been conducted. Inductive open coding has been performed to investigate what reactions and media frames the news coverages have demonstrated to report the rumour propagation. Sample The article samples were retrieved for big data analysis from the Big Kinds or the Korea Integrated News Database System (http://www.bigkinds.or.kr), by using the search terms, “MERS” and “SNS (Social Network Services).” A total of 142 articles have been sampled. Results The paper found 7 reaction variables and categorized them into 2 risk‐reporting media frames: risk‐alarming frame(Anxiety, Criticisms and Damage) and risk‐mitigating frame (Government, Correction, Remedies and Causes). The paper discovered that anxiety was the most frequently observed reaction variable across all phases. The paper also concluded that there has been a decrease in risk‐alarming media frames and an increase in attempts to analyze causes for the rumour propagation (Causes), as the outbreak proceeds to the second phase, when the information vacuum finally ended. Conclusion By exploring a disease outbreak in which ineffective risk management and absence of official information caused significant problems, the paper underlines the need for systematic risk communication measures, endorsed by effective collaboration among political leadership, media and the public.

Accuracy of health‐related information regarding COVID‐19 on Twitter during a global pandemic

“…In addition to relaying inaccurate medical information, Twitter has been identified as a source for unfounded conspiracy theories during disease outbreaks. Government conspiracies to hide information, control populations, or hide treatments were rumored during Ebola, Zika, influenza‐H1N1, and MERS outbreaks (Sell et al, 2020 ; Smallman, 2015 ; Vijaykumar et al, 2018 ; Yang & Lee, 2020 ). With COVID‐19, an unfounded rumor linking the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus to 5G (fifth‐generation mobile phone) networks began in late January 2020 and spread rapidly leading to widespread misinformation and the burning of 5G towers in the United Kindgom (Ahmed et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Multiple organizations (i.e., WHO, United Nations, Centers for Disease Control, and IFCN) and experts have provided recommendations for combating misinformation on social media (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020 ; International Fact‐Checking Network, 2020 ; United Nations, 2020 ; World Health Organization, 2020b ). Proposals include a sustained coordinated effort by independent fact‐checkers like the IFCN, an independent (nonbiased) news media, tracking of misinformation plus dissemination of accurate, easy to read, information by public health and government authorities/agencies, and censorship by social media companies (Brennan et al, 2020 ; Garrett, 2020 ; Limaye et al, 2020 ; LLewyllen, 2020 ; Sell et al 2020 ; Yang & Lee, 2020 ). Our study was conducted after Twitter implemented a policy stating they would delete tweets that run the risk of causing harm by spreading misinformation about COVID‐19.…”

Echo Chamber Effect in Rumor Rebuttal Discussions About COVID-19 in China: Social Media Content and Network Analysis Study

“…The high risk and uncertainty of the emerging infectious disease were likely to cause widespread public concern. Its suddenness and the insufficiency of the official response inevitably caused an information vacuum [ 60 ], which provided a breeding ground for rumors [ 46 , 61 ]. Due to geographical social distancing, rumor resolution mainly relied on online rebuttal.…”

Structural Topic Model Analysis of Mask-Wearing Issue Using International News Big Data

“…Several studies [ 4 , 5 ] have implied that providing citizens with accurate information related to certain crises is key to overcoming them. Several scholars have indicated that effective crisis communications improve communities’ ability to resist and overcome adversities [ 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”

“…Song et al [ 9 ] explored the spreading patterns of fake information about MERS by analyzing 8,671,695 related online documents in Korean online channels. Yang and Lee [ 5 ] explored how information crises affected the mainstream media through content analysis of online news channels during the Korean MERS outbreak. From the analysis of online news in English over 5 years, Lansdall-Welfare et al [ 10 ] found that the attitude and sentiment of the media toward nuclear energy in the Fukushima disaster changed significantly.…”