Czy media oswajają lęk przed koronawirusem? Empiryczne badania relacji z pandemii i lęku odbiorców medialnych przekazów wiosną 2020 i 2021 roku. Analiza porównawcza
Is the Media Taming the Fear of Coronavirus? Empirical Studies of Media Coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Anxiety of the Media Messages Recipients in the Spring of 2020 and 2021. Comparative Analysis

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the research, the results of which are presented in the article, was to deter-mine whether the media coverage tames the fear of coronavirus. Interdisciplinary research by a team of psychologists and media scholars made it possible in 2020 to determine which elements of media messages about the COVID-19 pandemic cause the most anxiety. A survey (N=510) conducted in Spring 2020, repeated on the same group of respondents in 2021 (N=296), enabled us to determine how the level of anxiety associated with information on the pandemic changed over time. The surveys were accompanied by the content analyses of media messages published on the news portals such as rzeczpospolita.pl, onet.pl and gazeta.pl in the first two weeks of March, April and May 2020 and in the same weeks of March, April and May 2021. In 2020, the research sample included 1350 publications, while in 2021, 1076 articles were analysed through qualitative and quantitative analysis. The article presents the results of comparative content analyses and surveys conducted during the first and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies carried out in 2020 and 2021 show that despite the passage of time and fewer publications on the pandemic, all media messages about COVID-19 were a source of high anxiety for the respondents, and the media messages from the first year of the pandemic did not contribute to reducing this anxiety.

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