Question of the Week – Impact of the Media in Times of Crisis
Today we’re launching the “Question of the Week” series to get your thoughts on a variety of different topics. If you’re interested in what others think about a specific topic, let us know and we’ll include it.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared swine flu a “pandemic”. Both traditional and social media venues have been abuzz about the swine flu story for weeks, and have been accused of blowing it out of proportion and causing panic. Do you think all of the media attention is helpful during times of crisis? Or does it make problems worse?
Tags: Question of the Week, swine flu
June 12th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
i think that if news of this sort would be delivered from a person that is totally neutral and known world wide as a peaceful human being we would concur a lot of fears, someone that has earned their credibility.
but also a person like this would calmly deliver a message to the world that would prepare for the worst in a manageable way.
the trouble with alot of this sort of thing is that somewhere someone will be profiting in a mammoth way.
germ masks, medicine, lectures media fiends etc.
and all of that is sad too.
a mass meditation would be awesome.
allthebest,
Olivia
toronto
June 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Not to negate the seriousness of the disease or possibility of a pandemic, but: the media has made too much of this too early. Strange, 5 million people die worldwide from tobacco related disease EVERY YEAR, but nobody gets excited. A few dozen or few hundreds die from the flu and there’s a media blitz about it.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Pandemics may very well, in fact are, unavoidable realities. The severity should not be a bone of contention. The methods of prevention, containment, cures, and treatment should be whatever the best known state of the art is. Education, communication, and genuine concern for each others welfare should be the modus operandi (Motive of Operation) of all involved. Profit making should never enter the picture. The one thing that would help is if the media where to put away there spinnerets and not seek to turn straw into gold. The public needs to know the facts. The media needs to know the facts before they give them to the public. The facts need to be known before the media gets involved. However I would rather stomp a small bug into the ground than shoot spit wads at a very large bug. All that said, when the real big one hits I am sure plenty of people will point out that not enough was said or done soon enough nor well enough. Lets just do best we can and hope that destiny makes up the difference.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
The media did get carried away with the pandemic buzz. I hope they have learned from this experience. I was pleased with the public handling it, as they did. We all know how it could have been if people had reacted more than what they did. I do believe that the public needs to know about any disease that is of concern. Education never hurts anyone, and panic comes from fear of what is not known.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Declaring swine flu as pandemic just means that it has spread more geographically- it does not necessarily mean that there there are more victims.
So the WHO declaration was almost unneeded.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:52 am
The problem is how this news are being handled, if the media just announce the new number of infected and dead people every day, without teaching how to prevent the illness or what are the differences with other tipes of flu, then it could cause paranoia, but thats because of the lack of information, thats also a responsability of the governments, but informing about this is the right thing to do.
June 13th, 2009 at 6:05 am
sir,
There is a very big hype &publicity on swine flu ” in INDIA people do suffer from one or other contagious infection, and be happy with someremedy–Plague in all parts commencing from Surat (gujarat), ChikunGUNIYA Karnataka/TN.Once you are scared you go haywire.In 1994 aug -sep, my daughter refused pursuing her UNIV .Post graduate studies after the media scare and lost time in career in Baroda Gujarat. Psychological Scar is devastating.
This has been happening in some cyclical fashion across the world, make judicious decision on personal/family/ community care with in means and pray.
May God Bless All
June 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Since according to the media no one has any idea how to respond to a pandemic and the American hospitals would be completely overwhelmed, the only results are either panic and fear for your live or feelings of resignation that there is so much to do that one person does not matter. Instead of declaring a pandemic the WHO should advise health care facilities on what needs to be done in case of any major infectious disease outbreak. All that hype is not accomplishing anything.
June 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
What if the media get the facts wrong?
June 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
The helpfulness or unhelpfulness of the media depends on:
- Who is doing the reporting
- Their level of credibility as domain experts or alternatively, their ability to do realistic research and put forth various opinions from SME’s in the field.
I like Dr. Sanjay Gupta because he’s got domain credibility in medicine and he seems to balance facts with indication of threat level in his reportage.
The stakeholders in sensationalism are actually the CDC, Pharma and politicians. Every health related scare seems to benefit those stakeholders the most.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I think people will only move is there is some “panick” to spark them.
Look at the garbage problem, after all these years of educational ads and programs people is far far from action home and concern.
Better panicked than death spread.
No?
July 1st, 2009 at 11:06 pm
The truth should be exposed so that awareness is created among the general public.Here the issue is not the hype but the awareness that is created when such epidemics happen.People then understand the role of hygiene, government takes action and the preventive measures are thought about and diagnostics and therapeutics are improved.
Hence it should be revealed so that right action is taken and future outbreaks are avoided
July 27th, 2009 at 9:51 am
A democratic country , When goverment is on crisis due to internal or outernal disturbances or a situation
like an emergency the goverment often tight liped.soch asituation the media ,print or visual is the only
way to know what is cooking in side the goverment loby.
July 28th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Media is the mouth piece of a goverment and its people.either aprint or visual.media has big role to playon keeping of stability and progress.Acountry there have freedom to press and fundamental rights to its citizens nobody could ignore the media.But when there have acrisis in the state from internal,outernal aggression or an emergency like situation arises goverments puts handcuffs to those medias working against the goverment.it is a normal practice because media should play a nutrel role to the society and to the goverment.
September 12th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Today’s media seems to put a bias on their reporting. Years ago journalists did not let their own opinion show through their reporting (all reporters should be required to report all types of news in an unbiased manner – that is called “professionalism in journalism”
As far as swine flu is concerned – yes it does need to have news coverage and termed an “pandemic.” My son (30 y/o) had swine flu and was “happy to survive.” He said his temperature was so high he was hallucinating and toward the end of it – he was coughing up dark green phlegm. – You either live or you die with Swine Flu – it’s like no other flu we have ever experienced.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:15 am
Los medios de comunicacion son amarillistas y publican lo que les conviene, porque eralmente, la gripe siempre a existido, solo que ahora se ha modificado por los tratamiento de medicamentos antivirales y retrovirales, y considero que la industria farmaceutica, puede estar involucrada en esta cuestion ya que les conviene que se publicite la enfermedad para ofertar sus medicamentos.
Los gobernantes son unos ignorantes, ya que del tema no saben nada y se dejan influenciar por los medios, de comunicacion, generando panico en lugar d dar medias adecuadas a la comunidad.
March 31st, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Hi,
Anything in public domain can have a huge impact on psychology of the end user be it a common man or a scientist or a philanthropist. Creating/seeking media attention and delivering it to common man is in itself a PANDEMIC. What should be released to teh people/general public is what they can control and not what they cant control. hence it is the responsibility of the agency like WHO as well as the media to hold on to information and release only what is informative, preventive to the community. As for eg in swine flu pandemic it was told not to shake hands so as to avoid transmission, avoid kkissing etc. All these things were already there in the domain of a ocmmon Indian man s they traditionally will not shake hands nor will they hug or kiss as a mark of respect /love. Encourage such practices as a routine and not when an epidemic strikes and becomes a pandemic.
Regards
Dr Rajeev jain
Chandigarh India