261 research paper final

Interreality Comparison of Ebola Threat and Perceived Threat Expressed in U.S. Media 1

Ebola Joke? You Probably Won’t Get It—Interreality Comparison of Ebola Threat and

Perceived Threat Expressed in U.S. Media

Morgan Cullen

Conrad Foreman

Liad Lehavy


Abstract: This study examined American news coverage of Ebola, focusing on episodic framing,

dramatization, and geographical bias in coding articles. A content analysis of 44 randomly

selected articles from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The L.A. Times from June

1, 2014 to February 28, 2015 demonstrated dramatized and episodically framed news coverage

of Ebola. Gallup survey data indicates American’s believe Ebola to be a much greater concern

in the United States than data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims. The

news coverage of Ebola also demonstrated geographical bias through an ethnocentric emphasis

on Ebola in the United States while minimizing or omitting the epidemic in Africa. Although we

cannot prove the dramatized, ethnocentric, episodically framed coverage of Ebola caused

American’s skewed perception of the prevalence of the disease in the United States our data

suggests it may have affected it.

Introduction

News coverage of crime can alter the public’s perception of its prevalence in society

(Gans, 1979). The more frequently crime stories are presented in the news, the more prevalent

the viewer may perceive crime to be in his or her environment. Repeated depictions of crime,

especially violent crime, may cultivate perceptions of a violent world (Romer, 2003). Our

research seeks to ascertain if the same understanding is true of news coverage about diseases and

if news coverage of diseases shapes the public’s perception of their prevalence. If so, the more a

specific disease is presented in the news, the more prevalent viewers may believe that disease is

in their country.

This study analyzes coverage of Ebola in the U.S. media. Ebola has been plaguing

Africa’s population for years and corresponding American news coverage is anomalous. Long

after the Ebola crisis began in Africa, the U.S. news media began presenting Ebola as a pressing,


newsworthy topic and cover it extensively in the second half of 2014. All of a sudden, it seemed

the U.S. news environment became completely saturated with Ebola coverage. This study is

interested in examining what may have led to the spark of Ebola coverage in U.S. media. We

desire to assess if the immense coverage of Ebola in the U.S. cultivated an excessive fear of

contracting Ebola among U.S. residents. If dramatized news coverage of Ebola skews public

perception of its prevalence in the U.S. and/or the likelihood of contracting the disease, the news

may be skewing the perception of the significance of other issues as well. To examine this idea,

we conducted a content analysis of Ebola coverage in U.S. newspaper articles and an analysis of

survey data from the Gallup organization.

Literature Review

In constructing sampling procedures, and methods for examining the sensationalization of

health risks in media, past studies were referred to, and utilized in acquiring methods. Some of

these studies, specifically a 2011 study by Villar and Zamith, broadly examine disease coverage,

and are excellent precursors for studies discerning Ebola sensationalization. In today’s

technology-driven industry controlling news distribution, mass media becomes a main channel of

health communication to the general public. In light of this immense public dependence, media

will influence what audiences will perceive to be important regarding these diseases, coinciding

with agenda setting theories (Villar, Zamith, 2011). Further enabling this agenda setting is how

prevalent a source news is becoming, with people gaining more health knowledge from informal

sources (press reports, internet) than personal experience (Villar, Zamith, 2011). Because of how

epidemics become framed through journalists’ experiences, which shape what aspect consumers

focus on, this study hypothesized that: 1) The frequency of media coverage correlates with

public perceptions of personal and societal risk for these certain diseases 2) Frequency of media


coverage is not correlated with actual mortality of disease. 3) The public’s perception of personal

and societal risk of diseases does not correlate with actual mortality of diseases/injuries

While mortality data was acquired to assess news environments, a series of article coding

was also completed using data bases similar to those used in our Ebola study. Using key-word

searches in analyzing articles from prominent newspapers, the study measured the public’s

perceived risk of diseases in an online survey, asking respondents to rate their levels of concern

over each inquired-about disease. After mortality data identified the three most, and least-

common causes of death, and content analysis reported that they were accurately represented,

perceived risk surveys showed that respondents believed the causes of death to be greater threats

to society than to themselves (Villar, Zamith, 2011). While survey data reflected accuracy in H1,

the other two hypotheses were not supported. Possible limitations of this study, though, stemmed

from the higher socioeconomic and educational status of the survey sample, perhaps implying

higher media literacy. Additionally the article keyword search approach to coding could have

skewed the way in which media coverage framed health issues. We considered the limitations of

various studies when designing our study’s methodology.

To further discern effective methods of content analysis, we referenced a studied done in

2005 about representations of Mad Cow disease in British newspapers, and how they evolved

during the ten-year period of 1986-1996. Specifically, it looks at risk as a variable in assessing

portrayal-accuracy of diseases, maintaining that risk is often over-reported (Washer, 2005). This

study also examined social representations of how new threats are shaped, and introduced to

news circulation, specifically through shaping of historical events and other symbolism.

Similarly to past and current studies, Washer chose prestige British newspapers,

searching for mentions, and presented contexts of Mad Cow disease within articles published in


the ten year span. While some trends were found, a theme that emerged in Mad Cow disease

coverage was that of panic (Washer, 2005). This was done mostly by reporting the measures that

schools and other public institutions took to avoid beef. While multiple health experts vocalized

the excessiveness of these measures, panic-inducing words kept appearing in articles. What was

found was that disease’s representations were often determined by authors, but that it was

government, media, and the popularity of health-interest which made Mad Cow more salient

(Washer, 2005).

In studies examining health news reporting, “panic” is a recurring concept. The media

used a dramatized, panicked tone in articles to convey significance of risk to audiences. This is

something we expected to find upon examining recent Ebola coverage. One article published by

the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1995 does this with the concept of

“moral panic.” This is something often incited by politicians, and media in general (McRobbie,

Thornton, 1995). What is so effective in inciting this moral panic, according to the article, is its

ability to inspire the necessary emotional involvement to keep audiences interested in an issue

and partially guaranteeing its relevancy. Due to this persuasive effect, moral panics have now

become a way to bring attention to certain issues media deem important, and that act “on behalf

of the dominant social order” (McRobbie, Thronton, 1995).

A study which builds on this notion of moral panic was done by Sheldon Ungar in 2008,

and examined the dramatization of Bird Flu which, at the time, was not a new phenomenon

(Ungar, 2008). To do this, the study chose “Daily Topics” from news articles, which were

selected if they corresponded to predetermined indicators of fear or reassurance, with indicators

being: 1) Predicted number of deaths from bird flu 2) Coverage of actual deaths due to the bird

flu 3) Spread of the bird flu, especially when threat to Europe was mentioned 4) Medical plans


and preparations to deal with bird flu announced by EU countries. After analyzing news content

throughout the crisis, results showed that three stages of communication discourse developed,

referred to as “sounding the alarm”, dominated by fearful claims, “mixed messages”, where

continuation of threats was combined with reassurance, and “hot crisis and containment”,

involving efforts to undo the frightfulness of the threat stage (Ungar, 2008).

A similar, earlier study essentially studied the “alarm” stage of Unger’s study, and looked

at whether British media constructed Ebola as a threat in the mid-1990’s. The study, by Helene

Joffe and Georgina Haarhoff in 2002, viewed Ebola as way to study responses to diseases that

have no local implications on the people consuming news about them. Emphasizing the

insignificance that Ebola should have had on British citizen’s perceived-risk at the time, this

study most importantly sought to understand whether Ebola was represented as threat or as

contained and if there were group differences in social representations of Ebola in Britain. To

study this, British newspaper articles covering Ebola during the 1990’s were collected, spanning

48 articles over eight newspapers. A coding framework was then constructed to discern the

different themes related to Ebola, and the images that accompanied them. Researchers then

compiled 50 respondents to undergo interviews asking them of their knowledge of Ebola, how it

is spread, whether they believe they are at risk, and other questions. Analyses of the articles

essentially showed that while newspapers attempted to “make Ebola ‘real’ and relevant” to their

audiences, many consumers treated it as if it were essentially fictional. Readers tended to label

Ebola as an African epidemic, and not something that could realistically infringe on Western

cultural, and medical practices.

This study was conveniently done after Sheldon Unger, the researcher who explored Bird

Flu coverage, also analyzed Ebola coverage before its recent media breakout. Unger’s study


(1998) argued that media shifted from alarming to reassuring coverage in the face of potential

grass root panic. To infer this, researchers analyzed coverage of Ebola compared to coverage of

other “emerging diseases”, and found that in presenting Ebola, certain coverage packages were

used to frame it at certain points in its development. It was found that initially, after “following

their standard practices,” media framed it in terms of a “mutation-contagion” package--a highly

dramatized, crisis-ridden frame. After presenting Ebola as an “impending epidemic of fear” they

were able to switch to the more reassuring “containment package.” This was ultimately able to

“other” the situation--meaning it located Ebola as a problem unrelated, geographically and

culturally to the Western consumer base. The analysis further suggested that the strategy of

“othering” is not based on any existing cultural boundaries, but is used as a way to curve

audience concerns, and act as reassurance to them (Unger, 1998).

Data/Procedure

The theoretical population in this content analysis is all news media stories about Ebola

in the United States from June 1, 2014 to February 28, 2015. To set the scope of the news articles

to correspond with the scope of American population we desired to examine (the entire

American population on a national scale), we chose three national news organizations: The

Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. Through a library database

at the University of Michigan, we searched “Ebola” to retrieve articles from each news

organization. Each resulting article was assigned a number in numerical order from most recent

to least recent—this list of articles was the sampling frame. Each of the three news organizations

had an individual sampling frame from which we randomly selected 15 articles. To do so, we

utilized a random number generator to randomly choose 15 unique numbers. The numbers that

correspond to the articles in the sampling frame were selected to be a part of the sample. This


was repeated for each news organization, resulting in 15 articles each from The Washington Post

and The New York Times and 14 articles from The Los Angeles Times — a total of 44 randomly

selected articles in our sample (one was removed because it was not relevant to Ebola).

Measurement

To establish inter-coder reliability when coding items from our sample, the 3 coders met

to code 2 articles independently. After each article, we compared our results. We found that we

attained over 80% inter-coder reliability, as 1 coder differed from the others by 1 variable of the

6 variables coded (3 for each article). Since we had attained high inter-coder reliability, we felt

comfortable dividing the articles to have each coder code 15 articles independently, as we would

likely assign the same values regardless of the coder. The articles were assigned by distributing

each coder one article in alphabetical order of first names—article 1 was assigned to Conrad,

article 2 was assigned to Liad, article 3 was assigned to Morgan, article 4 was assigned to

Conrad, and so on.

For the content analysis of Ebola national news coverage, Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 3

are relevant. Hypothesis 1 broke down into two variables. The first H1 variable, EPF, denotes the

presence or absence of episodic framing in an article. If the issue in the article is presented as an

event-oriented report that focused on individual instances instead of the broader impact of the

virus, then we coded it as using episodic framing. This variable is set on a 0 to 2 value system. A

0 score means that the article does not contain elements of episodic framing and focuses on the

issue in its broader context. A score of 2 exemplifies extreme episodic framing, where the

majority of the article is focused on one instance while ignoring the broader context of the issue.

A strong prevalence of episodic framing in an article affects blame attribution and may skew the

perception of the prevalence of Ebola by presenting isolated incidences without broader context.


The second H1 variable is DRA (dramatization). It is characterized by emphasizing emotional

impact of Ebola and exaggerating its burden. This variable is also set on the same 0 to 2 value

system. A 0 score indicates the absence of dramatization, relying on facts and statistics rather

than emotional burden. A score of 2 means the article focuses on the emotional burden of Ebola

and exaggerates the threat it poses.

In the content analysis, Hypothesis 3 is analyzed through Variable 3—GEO. GEO

concerns geographical bias and ethnocentrism in the United States’ news coverage of Ebola. This

variable emphasizes the extent to which an article focuses on the United States compared to

Africa. These articles were coded on a scale from 0 to 3. If the article discussed the Ebola crisis

in Africa without discussing the United States, the article was coded as a 0. A 0 means that the

article had no ethnocentric geographical bias. If Ebola in Africa was not discussed in the article

at all, it was coded as a 3 for the GEO variable. A 3 in the GEO variable shows a high level of

ethnocentric geographical bias for the United States according to the codebook.

To analyze Hypothesis 2, we utilized survey data from Gallup about the public’s

perception of Ebola. We chose to use their data to assure the scope of the news coverage we

were analyzing corresponded to the survey data (both were national). If we distributed a survey

we created, we would not reach a representative group of respondents on the national level. We

used 3 Gallup surveys to look at the public’s perceived threat of Ebola for H2.

One survey — conducted between October 4-5, 2014 — through the Gallup Daily

tracking survey system examined a random sample of 1,016 adults (18 and older) living in any of

the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The first survey question in this survey reads,

“Now thinking about the Ebola virus that has been in the news, did you, personally, worry

yesterday about getting the Ebola virus, or not?” The second question asks, “How likely do you


think it is that you or someone in your family will get the Ebola virus– very likely, somewhat

likely, not too likely, or not likely at all?” Question 3 asks, “How confident are you that the

federal government will be able to handle an outbreak of the Ebola virus in this country — very

confident, somewhat confident, not too confident, or not confident at all?” The fourth and final

question from this survey reads, “Which comes closest to your view about the Ebola virus —

[ROTATED: it will not strike the United States at all, there will be a minor outbreak in the

United States, there will be a major outbreak in the United States, but it will not create a crisis,

(or) it will strike the United States and create a crisis]?”

The second Gallup survey conducted telephone interviews (cellular and landline) from

November 6-9, 2014 to a random sample of 828 adult residents (18 years and older) across all 50

U.S. States and the District of Columbia. The sample included 430 men and 398 women. The

random sample was selected using random digit dialing programs. Gallup weighed the samples

to correct for non-response bias, unequal selection probability, and double coverage of telephone

users in the two sampling frames (men and women). This survey asked one open-ended question:

“What would you say is the most urgent health problem facing this country at the present time?"

The third Gallup survey is based on telephone interviews conducted on October 12-15,

2014 with a random sample of 1,01 adults (18 years or older) from all 50 states in the U.S. and

the District of Columbia. This Gallup survey does not disclose the survey question(s) to the

public, but it asked about which issues Americans find most problematic. Together, these 3

Gallup surveys provide insight into the American public’s perceived threat of Ebola and

connects to H2.

Findings


The average score of all 44 articles for episodic framing was 0.86, which is just under the

threshold for “significant episodic framing”; the average score for dramatization was exactly 1,

landing right on the mark for “significant dramatization” (the reference line in Table 1). Overall,

24 of the coded articles were found to have some episodic framing (coded as 1 or 2), with 20

showing no episodic framing (coded as 0). 29 of the coded articles were found to have some

degree of dramatization (coded as 1 or 2), with the other 15 articles showing no dramatization

(coded as 0).

This data supports our first hypothesis, H1, that American news articles about Ebola will

be dramatized and use episodic framing in that the majority of articles demonstrated some degree

of episodic framing and dramatization. The average scores for dramatization (1) supports our

hypothesis as well. The average score for episodic framing (0.86) also supports our hypothesis,

though not as strongly.

Table 1

The Washington Post produced the highest number of articles that were coded as “0” for

both episodic framing (8/15) and dramatization (6/15), as can be seen in Table 2 and Table 3.

The Washington Post also had the lowest average score for episodic framing (0.67). However,

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

EPF DRA

Va

lue

Variables

Episodic Framing & Dramatization: Overall Averages

EPF

DRA


the lowest average score for dramatization belonged to The Los Angeles Times (0.86). This

means that while The Los Angeles Times had more articles containing dramatization, the

dramatized articles in The Washington Post were dramatized to a greater degree. The highest

average score for episodic framing was found in The New York Times (1), as was the highest

average score for dramatization (1.13). This means that The New York Times contributed most in

supporting our first hypothesis.

Table 2.

Table 3

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0 1 2

Nu

mb

er

of

Art

icle

s

Value

Episodic Framing by News Organization

WP

NYT

LAT


The data gathered also supports our second hypothesis, H2, that the perceived threat of

Ebola will be higher than the actual threat to individuals in the U.S. The Gallup survey data (seen

in Table 4) shows that in November of 2014, 17% of those surveyed indicated that the Ebola

virus was the “most urgent health problem facing this country.” Gallup data from October

indicates 5% of respondents listed the Ebola virus as the “most important problem facing this

country.” Separate Gallup data from October indicates 22% of those surveyed indicated that they

were worried about contracting the Ebola virus. This percentage closely resembles the level of

public concern of the H1N1 swine flu from spring of 2009, the notable difference in these two

examples being the number of people infected — the CDC’s low-end estimate for H1N1 was 14

million people, whereas there were only 6 known cases of Ebola in the U.S. Data from The

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention places the odds of contracting the Ebola virus in the

U.S. at 1 in 13.3 million (Doucleff, 2014).

Table 4

Gallup Prompt % of Respondents who Agree

Ebola as "most urgent health problem in the U.S." 17%

Ebola is most important U.S. Problem 5%

Worry about Contracting Ebola Virus 22%

0

2

4

6

8

0 1 2

Nu

mb

er

of

Art

icle

s

Value

Dramatization by News Article

WP

NYT

LAT


Our third hypothesis (H3), that the Ebola crisis in Africa did not receive sufficient

coverage in U.S. news until a U.S. resident had been infected, was shown by the variable

geographical bias (GEO). Data gathered does support this hypothesis. The average score of all

the articles for geographical bias was 1.52, right in the middle of our 0-3 scale between lack of

geographical bias (0) and complete geographical bias (3). In total, 37 of the 44 articles were

found to have some degree of geographical bias, with 20 of these 37 showing “significant” or

“complete” geographical bias (as seen in Table 5). The highest average score for geographical

bias was found in The Los Angeles Times (1.79), the lowest in The Washington Post (1.33). 6

articles from The Los Angeles Times were found to have complete geographical bias, compared

to 1 and 3 such articles for The Washington Post and The New York Times, respectively. Table 6

shows the overall final averages for each coded variable.

Table 5

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to analyze coverage of the Ebola virus by American news

media during the latter half of 2014. To accomplish this, the researchers randomly sampled 44

articles from three major newspapers: The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los

0

2

4

6

8

0 1 2 3

Nu

mb

er

of

Art

icle

s

Value

Geographical Bias by News Article

WP

NYT

LAT


Angeles Times. Each article was then coded for its degree of episodic framing, dramatization,

and geographical bias. Gallup polling data was also used for the purpose of assessing public

perception of the Ebola virus.

The researchers hypothesized that the analyzed coverage would be dramatized and

episodically framed, that Americans would perceive the threat of Ebola as greater than it really

was, and that the African Ebola crisis only received sufficient coverage in American news media

after the virus began infecting U.S. residents. Data gathered from coding supported the

hypothesis that coverage was dramatized and episodically framed. Gallup polling data supported

the hypothesis that Americans perceived the threat of the Ebola virus as greater than it was.

Coding data also supported the notion that geographical bias was present in the coverage.

While this study provides some meaningful data, there is still much to be desired to gain

a thorough understanding of this phenomenon. It’s impossible to know the type of news

consumed by Gallup respondents; that information would give insight regarding whether any

specific outlet for news (cable TV, radio, newspapers) tended to correlate with greater fear of the

virus. Admittedly, the codebook for this study could have been written more clearly in order to

produce more precise results, though the authors of this study believe it to be serviceable and

useful if not ideal.

The broad implications of this study include the news media’s general tendency to rely on

dramatization and episodic framing (for all issues, not just Ebola). American news outlets often

use affective language to produce greater emotional responses from consumers and often frame

their coverage of large issues within small specific instances rather than the big picture. Another

implication of this study is the lack of international awareness in the American public


conscience. News coverage in the U.S. rarely covers international issues, focusing on domestic

stories instead.

Future research on this topic should incorporate television into the equation. There was

no time for such research for this study, as the authors of this study are full-time students with

limited experience. However, delving into how this phenomenon played out across different

media would be prudent. Further research would also be useful as it pertains to politicians’

standing in this phenomenon. Political leaders were looked to for comment quite a bit during this

time; how they spoke about Ebola and what actions they took are certainly worth in-depth

examination. The authors of this study believe that episodic framing, dramatization, and

geographical bias are important elements of our news media with potentially major

consequences. Therefore, other researchers would do well to examine these variables, not only as

they pertain to diseases and crises, but their roles in news media as a whole.


References

Doucleff, M. (2014, October 23). What's My Risk Of Catching Ebola? Retrieved March 29,

2015.

Dugan, A. (2014). One-Fifth of Americans Worry About Getting Ebola. Gallup Poll. Retrieved

March 29, 2015.

Gans, H.J. (1979). Deciding what’s news: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News,

Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon Books.

Joffe, H. (2002). Representations of far-flung illnesses: the case of Ebola in britain. Social

Science & Medicine , 54(6), 955-969.

McCarthy, J. (2014). Ebola Debuts on Americans' List of Top U.S. Problems. Gallup Poll.

Retrieved March 29, 2015.

McRobbie, A. (1995). Rethinking 'moral panic' for multi-mediated social worlds. The British

Journal of Sociology, 46(4), 559-574.

Romer, D., Jamieson, K. H., & Aday, S. (2003). Television news and the cultivation of fear of

crime. Journal of communication, 53(1), 88-104.

Saad, L. (2014). Ebola Ranks Among Americans' Top Three Healthcare Concerns. Gallup Poll.


Retrieved March 29, 2015.

Ungar, S. (1998). Hot crises and media reassurance: A comparison of emerging diseases and

Ebola zaire. The British Journal of Sociology, 49(1), 35-56.

Ungar, S. (2008). Global bird flu communication. Science Communication, 29(4), 472-497.

Villar, M. (2011). Comparing frequency of online news coverage, worldwide mortality and

perceived risk of leading diseases and injuries: Challenging paradigms in the new media

landscape . Journal of Health & Mass Communication, 3(3), 191-205.

Washer, P. (2005). Representations of mad cow disease.Social Science & Medicine , 62(2), 457-

466.


Codebook

Variable Name Description Value

EPF Issue presented as an event-

oriented report; focus on

individual instances instead of

the broader impact (H1)

0. No episodic framing

The article focuses on

the Ebola issue at the

macro level, considering

context and broad

implications rather than

individual cases

1. Significant episodic framing

A portion of the article is

about a specific episode

of Ebola, but that

particular episode is not

the entire focus of the

article

2. Extreme episodic framing

The large majority of the

article focuses on a

particular case within the

Ebola problem, and

mentions only briefly or

doesn’t mention at all the

larger issue

DRA The severity of the issue in the

U.S. is exaggerated, emphasizing

emotional impact or burden on

those involved. (H1)

0. No dramatization

The article accurately

portrays the severity of

the issue and relies on

facts rather than emotion

1. Significant dramatization

A portion of the article

focuses on the emotional

impact of Ebola. It

exaggerates the severity

of Ebola through its

language, quoting, and

presentation of

information, though

some of the article


accurately portrays the

severity of the issue

2. Extreme dramatization

The entire article focuses on the

emotional impact of Ebola. May

propose extreme prevention

efforts or restrictions. It

exaggerates the severity of the

issue through its language, use of

quotes, and presentation of

information, making ebola in the

U.S. appear to be a much larger

problem than it actually is.

GEO The African Ebola crisis is

omitted from the article or

presented in a geographically

biased way, by presenting the

issue through how it affects the

United States. (H3)

0. Discussion of African Ebola

crisis

Article communicates

the severity of Africa’s

Ebola crisis without

mentioning the United

States

1. Mention of African crisis

Africa’s Ebola crisis is

the main focus of the

article, but it discusses

Ebola in the United

States. There may be a

focus on the United

States Government

intervening in the Ebola

crisis, but the primary

focus is Ebola in Africa.

2. Significant

Majority of the article is

about the United States

and mentions of Africa’s

Ebola crisis briefly--only

in a few sentences--

potentially minimizing

its conveyed prevalence.

There may be a focus on

the United States

Government intervening

in the Ebola crisis, but

the primary focus is

Ebola in the United

States.

3. Complete

Article fails to mention

the African Ebola crisis,


focusing on the U.S.

incidences.

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