COVID-19 News: Who Consumes What?
What we read and hear about COVID-19, and how we likely aren’t coming away with the same message
By Joshua Jordan
Stay six feet away. Avoid physical contact with others. Wash your hands. Only go out for essentials.
By now, we’ve all been repeatedly admonished by the CDC and the White House Coronavirus Task Force to take the necessary preventative measures to stave off infection by COVID-19. Perhaps you’ve scarcely seen anything but COVID-19-related news: beachgoers flock to Florida beaches; doomsday shoppers fight over toiler paper; Tom Hanks tests positive for COVID-19—as well as Idris Elba, Boris Johnson, and many others.
This is reality—at least for some of us. For those who don't have this reality, what COVID-19 news are they receiving? That COVID-19 is in some way made up, or that it’s not as serious as we’re being told?
COVID-19 news divide
A recent Pew headline reads, “Americans who primarily get news through social media are least likely to follow COVID-19 coverage, most likely to report seeing made-up news.” A stark—and, frankly, shocking—difference emerges regarding the extent to which each of us follows COVID-19 news coverage. It depends on whether we get our news primarily from cable television or social media: cable news consumers follow COVID-19 “very closely,” nearly twice as much as social media news consumers. And who’s on social media? Well, a lot of us, but mainly younger adults—yes, including Facebook.
When will a vaccine be available? The answer also depends on who you ask. Of people who primarily consume their news through cable television, 59% say in a year or more, while 19% say in the next few months. For social media users, 37% say in a year or more, while 23% say in a few months. Interestingly, when looking at these two groups, there appears to be more uncertainty among social media users: about twice as many of them were “unsure” when a vaccine would be available—33% versus 16%).
Battling misinformation
It’s not every day that professors ruthlessly dispute COVID-19 misinformation on social media. But that’s exactly what Professor Bergstrom is doing on Twitter, by dissecting an article point by point to highlight misleading epidemiological explanations and conclusions about COVID-19. But what about the Twitter users who don’t follow Professor Bergstrom—@CT_Bergstrom—or haven’t seen the thread?
What about all the Twitter—and Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and WhatsApp—users who are exposed to misinformation but don’t know it? Those who aren’t privy to the insight offered by the community of scholars who debunk bogus claims?
Or what about people who consume their news primarily through cable television? Here—our preconceived notions of Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC aside—there is at least some coordinated effort to vet information prior to it showing up in our living rooms (although Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are starting to step up their battles against COVID-19 misinformation).
Town hall-style podcasts and live streams help, too. For example, CNN’s COVID-19 podcast and social media “lives” with medical experts offer a glimmer of hope in the way of distributing information to large audiences from credible sources.
In our silos
News about COVID-19 is not a niche topic. But that's what makes it important. Looking to settle the debate about the origin of the universe? Sure, you’ll find proponents of the Big Bang; of the many-worlds theory; of a cyclical universe. Wondering whether the universe is expanding due to dark energy, or if a singularity exists within the depths of a black hole? You’ll get varied and unsure answers there, too. But COVID-19 isn’t in the outer reaches of our universe. It’s a pandemic here on Earth and in our communities—affecting all of us.
There should be no “camps” when it comes to COVID-19. There should be no erroneous competing theories. We’re all in this together—whether we want to be or not. Therefore, it wouldn’t be couth to dismiss the possibility that all of us aren’t on the same page.
Discussions, though helpful and needed, about the political divide and its effects on how we view the world have become a little perfunctory. And cable news networks who pander to party politics rather than the merits of a discussion are solipsistic—not something we want during a pandemic. But when it comes to COVID-19, we should be acutely aware of the information disparities both within a medium like cable news and across social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and WhatsApp.
This is not an ephemeral matter
COVID-19 is here to stay, despite the comfort felt by thinking otherwise. To battle this pandemic we need the medical community—which has been outstanding and includes not only doctors and researchers but also the other staff on the front lines. We also need the people who keep our economy at least somewhat functioning during this time, who make it possible to buy food and other essentials.
But, importantly, we also need journalists—and diligent news consumers.
Despite the increasing mass communication efforts—on television and social media, and in newspapers and mail—to disperse COVID-19 information, it’s frightening to think that each of us can come away with a different message. With more and more ways to follow COVID-19 news, the uncomfortable truth suggests that, to a degree, we all have a different conception of this pandemic—and that misinformation fissures risk becoming valleys or canyons.