Abstract:
Community structure analysis compared city characteristics and newspaper coverage of state/local government responses to COVID-19 in 25 major U.S. cities, sampling all 250+ word articles from 4/4/20 to 7/6/20. The resulting 588 articles were coded for \"prominence\" and \"direction\" (favorable/unfavorable/balanced-neutral coverage), then combined into each newspaper\'s composite \"Media Vector\" (range=0.3552 to -0.5197, or 0.8749). Twenty-one of 25 newspapers (84%) displayed unfavorable coverage of local COVID-19 responses. Pearson correlations and regression analysis confirmed a muscular \"violated way of life\" pattern, when a community perceives itself as threatened by a \"biological threat or a threat to a cherished way of life.\" Political and belief system polarization (in particular percent Evangelical and percent voting Republican) were strongly associated with unfavorable coverage of local pandemic responses, compared to more favorable responses linked to percent voting Democratic or percent Catholic. Vulnerability (percent uninsured) was also linked to negative coverage. Conversely, two different measures of access to healthcare (percent municipal spending on health and welfare, and physicians/100,000) were significantly linked to favorable coverage of the same local government efforts. Community structure theory\'s grass roots \"bottom up\" expectations linking community demographics to variations in reporting on critical issues were robustly confirmed.
摘要:
社区结构分析比较了美国25个主要城市的州/地方政府对COVID-19的反应的城市特征和报纸报道,从4/4/20到7/6/20采样所有250多字的文章。由此产生的588篇文章被编码为“突出”和“方向”(有利/不利/平衡-中立覆盖),然后组合成每份报纸的复合“媒体矢量”(范围=0.3552至-0.5197或0.8749)。25份报纸中有21份(84%)对当地COVID-19的反应报道不佳。皮尔逊相关性和回归分析证实了一种肌肉性的“违反生活方式”模式,当一个社区认为自己受到“生物威胁”或对珍爱的生活方式的威胁时。“政治和信仰体系的两极分化(特别是福音派和共和党投票的百分比)与当地大流行应对措施的不利报道密切相关,与更有利的回应相比,民主党或天主教徒的投票率更高。脆弱性(未投保百分比)也与负面保险有关。相反,获得医疗保健的两种不同衡量标准(市政医疗和福利支出百分比,和医师/100,000)与同一地方政府努力的有利覆盖范围密切相关。社区结构理论的草根“自下而上”的期望,将社区人口统计数据与关键问题报告的变化联系起来,得到了有力的证实。