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Disentangling rhetorical subarenas of public health crisis communication: A study of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in the news media and social media in Sweden
Author(s) -
Rodin Pavel,
Ghersetti Marina,
Odén Tomas
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.12254
Subject(s) - newspaper , rhetorical question , social media , crisis communication , politics , media studies , content analysis , political science , advertising , health communication , sociology , public relations , social science , law , business , art , literature
Drawing on rhetorical arena theory, this study investigates the variations of content across communication channels (subarenas), guided by different media logics, during the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak. Restricting the study to one country, Sweden, a content analysis was conducted of two national newspapers (in total 848 articles), their posts on branded Facebook pages (47) and user comments on these Facebook posts (1,661). Some conclusions to be made are, that content differed between subarenas, with Facebook news being more sensational and focused on human interest stories, and Facebook comments to a greater extent related to other current socio‐political issues. Also, news media were more alarmist than Facebook comments, although alarmism declined on all subarenas as the danger became more tangible.