Linking Psychometric Paradigm of Risk and Issue Attention Cycle: Risk Information in News Coverage of Avian and Swine Influenza Global Outbreaks

Abstract

To examine risk characteristics of health threats during global outbreaks, this study linked the psychometric paradigm of risk and issue attention cycle to content analyze 1,626 news articles during the avian and swine influenza epidemics. The results revealed that journalists used different types of risk information, across the issue attention cycle, to emphasize the risk characteristics of each influenza: Risk characteristics of dread, catastrophic potential, and familiarity were emphasized in the waxing rather than in the waning stage of Avian influenza; in the waxing and waning stages, swine influenza was conveyed as a dreadful disease, through different risk information.