Construction of death in H1N1 news in The Times of India

Abstract

Construction and meaning-making are central to the process of communication. Studying the way media frame a public health issue gives insight into how people are likely to perceive the information on that issue. Death is considered as the most significant contributory factor of fear in any public health crisis. In this article we analyze the H1N1 death coverage in The Times of India, the largest circulated English daily published from India. We describe and analyze the framing of H1N1 by reviewing 62 death-reporting news stories that appeared in the daily in 2009. Our analysis yielded four dominant frames: fear-panic, attribution of responsibility, action and human interest. We conclude that the newspaper framed H1N1 as a deadly disease and its coverage presented death in such a manner as to produce fear and panic.