The COVID-19 pandemic is dominating news cycles and has appeared to replace the coverage of the 2020 presidential race in the news. Only a couple of months ago, Americans were focused on the results of the Democratic primaries and President Trump’s reactions to the Democratic field narrowing. Without criticizing the heavy coverage of the pandemic, it’s worth questioning how, if at all, this dramatic shift is affecting Americans’ political knowledge going into the November elections.
COVID-19’s Media Domination
Researchers have been studying the large share of reporting drawn by COVID-19. The organization Cision compared mentions of coronavirus and other common media topics between two periods of time. In the period of January 1 to March 3, 2020, mentions of coronavirus comprised 17% of the media topics analyzed, while mentions of the democratic candidates totaled 13%. Within that period, between February 25 and March 3, coronavirus mentions were 30% and candidate mentions were 15%. Mentions of “Trump” also fell from 41% to 28% in those periods.
While those statistics clearly show there rise of COVID-19 in the media, the period of data ends before the virus was even declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Since March 3, COVID-19 has become a much larger crisis in America than we could have ever expected. Once Cision releases another report, it will be fascinating to see the latest figures. I expect that coronavirus mentions have only grown more frequent. News sources are feeding off of content from developments such as states introducing broad restrictions on citizens' lives, leaders arguing over the best paths forward, and politicians frequently providing updates to the public.
Past Spring Coverage of Presidential Candidates
So, how is the pandemic altering the American media's coverage of the U.S. presidential race? The answer is unclear, as it's challenging to understand how much the media would be focusing on the candidates if not for the coronavirus. For comparison, four years ago, the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, did discuss the states of the Republican and Democratic primaries. However, at the time, three Republican candidates and two Democrats were still running, while today each party only has one candidate. The lack of an incumbent president in 2016 likely created additional content as both parties were searching for their nominee. More research is needed to find out previous election cycles’ spring coverage.
Moving Forward
I'm very interested to see how the news coverage of COVID-19 and the American presidential candidates develops over the next few months. If COVID-19 had not risen to dominate the news, it’s possible that we would still be seeing a natural lull in election news coverage. However, as the election and presidential debates come closer, the news will need to cover the race and keep Americans well- informed. We don't know how the COVID-19 pandemic will progress in America, and we may not see its political impact until Election Day arrives.
COVID-19’s Media Domination
Researchers have been studying the large share of reporting drawn by COVID-19. The organization Cision compared mentions of coronavirus and other common media topics between two periods of time. In the period of January 1 to March 3, 2020, mentions of coronavirus comprised 17% of the media topics analyzed, while mentions of the democratic candidates totaled 13%. Within that period, between February 25 and March 3, coronavirus mentions were 30% and candidate mentions were 15%. Mentions of “Trump” also fell from 41% to 28% in those periods.
While those statistics clearly show there rise of COVID-19 in the media, the period of data ends before the virus was even declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Since March 3, COVID-19 has become a much larger crisis in America than we could have ever expected. Once Cision releases another report, it will be fascinating to see the latest figures. I expect that coronavirus mentions have only grown more frequent. News sources are feeding off of content from developments such as states introducing broad restrictions on citizens' lives, leaders arguing over the best paths forward, and politicians frequently providing updates to the public.
Past Spring Coverage of Presidential Candidates
So, how is the pandemic altering the American media's coverage of the U.S. presidential race? The answer is unclear, as it's challenging to understand how much the media would be focusing on the candidates if not for the coronavirus. For comparison, four years ago, the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, did discuss the states of the Republican and Democratic primaries. However, at the time, three Republican candidates and two Democrats were still running, while today each party only has one candidate. The lack of an incumbent president in 2016 likely created additional content as both parties were searching for their nominee. More research is needed to find out previous election cycles’ spring coverage.
Moving Forward
I'm very interested to see how the news coverage of COVID-19 and the American presidential candidates develops over the next few months. If COVID-19 had not risen to dominate the news, it’s possible that we would still be seeing a natural lull in election news coverage. However, as the election and presidential debates come closer, the news will need to cover the race and keep Americans well- informed. We don't know how the COVID-19 pandemic will progress in America, and we may not see its political impact until Election Day arrives.
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