A Health Communication Research On American People’s Response To COVID-19 Regulations In Local Mainstream Media Reports

According to data from Johns Hopkins University,as of September 30,2022,the United States had the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world;however,its epidemic prevention measures have been repeatedly hampered:American citizens have frequently displayed negative emotions when facing issues such as "whether to wear masks"and "whether to get vaccinated," and have even developed polarized attitudes and widespread protests.There is a "cooperative" relationship between media coverage and public demands in public health emergencies:as a platform for the expression and aggregation of various interests in the policy system,mass media undertakes the responsibility of contributing debate and optimizing public policy,and is an significant variable affecting public policy.This paper analyzed the responses of American citizens towards epidemic prevention measures and their characteristics based on local mainstream media reports,and tried to uncover the relationship between cultural,political and other factors and health communication by exploring American citizens’ epidemic prevention cognition.The U.S.media is clearly divided in terms of political stance,with liberal(left)and conservative(right)parties,only few media have a neutral stance.The liberals are politically supportive of the Democratic Party,while the conservatives support the Republican Party.To ensure the comprehensiveness of the study,this paper selected media outlets with different political stances and scales of influence,including Cable News Network(CNN),The New York Times,Fox News,and The Associated Press(AP).Then,the thesis took coverages of the four media regarding American people’s reactions to government-issued COVID-19 prevention measures since January 21.2020 to September 18,2022.This thesis coded and analyzed the above media reports based on the health belief models as a way to study the US public’s response toward the epidemic prevention and control and the influencing factors behind them;in addition,the thesis analyzed the focus of the public behavior by figuring out the word frequencies of the reported articles,headlines as well as the co-word matrix table mapping the keyword social network relationships.The results showed that American people had been protesting against the government measures since the outbreak of COVID-19.The protesters recognized the pathogenicity and infectiousness of the virus,but their perceptions of its severity were controversial;the perceptions of the severity and infectiousness of the epidemic affected the public’s trust in and compliance with the effectiveness of official measures.Most of the protests occurred in blue states(i.e.,states that supported the Democratic Party in the presidential election)rather than in red states.The American citizens protests were mainly against measures such as the governmentissued stay-at-home order,mask order,and vaccine order.Protest themes had changed over time.At the beginning of the pandemic,nearly a month after Donald Trump declared a national emergency on March 13,2020 and states enacted stay-at-home orders,people began protesting such regulations,arguing that the quarantine blockade compromised their personal freedom and economic interests;the second wave of protests took place on the fall semester of 2020,when some students and parents argued that the mandatory requirement to wear masks at school violated individual choice;thirdly,protests took place against inoculation of COVID-19 vaccines;and the fourth protest happened when the vaccination rate increased and specific industries required that workers must get inoculated or they would face dismissal.The reasons for the American people’s negative feedback on pandemic resolutions were that,on the one hand,their health perceptions questioned the effectiveness and safety of government measures,and on the other hand,factors like political polarization,antiintellectualism and social division influenced people’s health cognition.The government’s management of COVID-19 was linked to political,economic,and social influences,thus the public responded to official regulations not only with weakened judgments based on medical and scientific belief,but also with the influence of political status and social position,generating negative attitudes and expressing dissatisfaction through protests.This thesis provides analytical ideas for interpreting the health behavior of people in different national news coverages.When exploring the relevance and influence of different factors on the health belief of people,this thesis presents references for understanding and improving of phenomena such as "vaccine hesitation",and proposes targeted ideas for publicizing stories of China’s response to COVID-19 to the world and eliminating stigmatization.It is suggested that Chinese media can focus on the following elements in the post-epidemic era:illustrating the benefits of government initiatives that protect personal interests and the quality of health;popularizing knowledge about infectious disease control in the form of easy-to-understand cartoons and short videos against the influence of antiintellectualism;avoiding politicization and introducing narratives about international cooperation,activities of social organizations and cross-border cooperation in the fight against the pandemic with an inclusive and open narrative style.This may help to dispel the misconceptions and fears of domestic and international audiences about vaccines and prevention and control methods,narrow the differences in understanding of news events among audiences with different ideologies,gain and strengthen their trust,and tell the Chinese story well.