IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/admini/v70y2022i3p7-32n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Irish audiences and news information from official sources during Covid-19

Author

Listed:
  • Wheatley Dawn

    (School of Communications, Dublin City University, Ireland)

Abstract

Audiences exist in highly personalised, high-choice media environments built on a hybrid of established traditional brands and informal digital networks. Officials trying to reach the public must navigate such spaces, but public reluctance to consume news coverage is a challenge for health and government officials when trying to communicate with and inform the public during a national health crisis like Covid-19. Based on a representative survey (N=2,031) from the 2021 Reuters Digital News Report, this article focuses on Irish audiences’ information sources during the pandemic; in particular, how government and political sources were used and perceived. The article is a secondary analysis of the data set and focuses on three questions from the survey related to (i) sources of information about Covid-19, (ii) concern about sources of false or misleading information about Covid-19, and (iii) sources of local information about politics and local updates on Covid-19. The article finds that official sources were relatively effective in being heard, and that health agencies like the Health Service Executive and the National Public Health Emergency Team were more salient than politicians, suggesting the pandemic was perhaps apolitical in the eyes of the public, which is often a key strategy for effective crisis communication. Politicians and government actors also succeeded in not being perceived as the main source of concern in terms of false or misleading information, as audiences were more worried about activists. The article also reiterates the importance of health officials reaching out beyond traditional news distribution channels to engage groups who may not access news through traditional channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Wheatley Dawn, 2022. "Irish audiences and news information from official sources during Covid-19," Administration, Sciendo, vol. 70(3), pages 7-32, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:admini:v:70:y:2022:i:3:p:7-32:n:6
    DOI: 10.2478/admin-2022-0017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2478/admin-2022-0017
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2478/admin-2022-0017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Lovari, 2020. "Spreading (Dis)Trust: Covid-19 Misinformation and Government Intervention in Italy," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 458-461.
    2. Cliodhna O’Connor & Nicola O’Connell & Emma Burke & Ann Nolan & Martin Dempster & Christopher D. Graham & Gail Nicolson & Joseph Barry & Gabriel Scally & Philip Crowley & Lina Zgaga & Luke Mather & Ca, 2021. "Media Representations of Science during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis of News and Social Media on the Island of Ireland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-23, September.
    3. Bernadette Hyland-Wood & John Gardner & Julie Leask & Ullrich K. H. Ecker, 2021. "Toward effective government communication strategies in the era of COVID-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peer Henri Kieweg & Stefanie Schöberl & Gabriele Palozzi, 2021. "The Role of Communication In COVID-19 Crisis Management: Findings about Information Behavior of German and Italian Young People," International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM), Computer Science Journals (CSC Journals), vol. 12(5), pages 263-288, October.
    2. Loiacono, Luisa & Puglisi, Riccardo & Rizzo, Leonzio & Secomandi, Riccardo, 2022. "Pandemic knowledge and regulation effectiveness: Evidence from COVID-19," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 768-783.
    3. Tassisius Muzivi, 2022. "An Effective and Prompt Assessment of Good Corporate Governance on Public Sector Entities- Evaluation of Ideal Best Practices," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(1), pages 690-698, January.
    4. Shin-Ae Hong, 2023. "COVID-19 vaccine communication and advocacy strategy: a social marketing campaign for increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake in South Korea," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Ding, Hongxiang & Zhang, Junyi, 2021. "Dynamic associations between temporal behavior changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and subjective assessments of policymaking: A case study in Japan," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 58-70.
    6. Daniela Azevedo & Ana Isabel Plácido & Maria Teresa Herdeiro & Fátima Roque & Vítor Roque, 2022. "How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-13, September.
    7. Alicia M. Paul & Clarice Lee & Berhaun Fesshaye & Rachel Gur-Arie & Eleonor Zavala & Prachi Singh & Ruth A. Karron & Rupali J. Limaye, 2022. "Conceptualizing the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives of Pregnant and Lactating Women, Male Community Members, and Health Workers in Kenya," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-14, August.
    8. Shalini Upadhyay & Nitin Upadhyay, 2023. "Mapping crisis communication in the communication research: what we know and what we don’t know," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Uma Shankar Yadav & Ravindra Tripathi & Mano Ashish Tripathi & Ashish Kumar & Mitu Mandal, 2023. "Evaluation of factors affecting entrepreneurship: a case of Indian women in the handicraft industry," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Vicente Javier Clemente-Suárez & Eduardo Navarro-Jiménez & Juan Antonio Simón-Sanjurjo & Ana Isabel Beltran-Velasco & Carmen Cecilia Laborde-Cárdenas & Juan Camilo Benitez-Agudelo & Álvaro Bustamante-, 2022. "Mis–Dis Information in COVID-19 Health Crisis: A Narrative Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-24, April.
    11. Boqiang Lin & Huanyu Jia, 2023. "The role of peers in promoting energy conservation among Chinese university students," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Eleanor Redwood & Karice Hyun & John French & Derek Chew & Leonard Kritharides & David Brieger, 2022. "Impact of the “Warning Signs Campaign” on Characteristics of Patients Presenting with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) to Hospitals," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-7, August.
    13. An Nguyen & Daniel Catalan-Matamoros, 2020. "Digital Mis/Disinformation and Public Engagement with Health and Science Controversies: Fresh Perspectives from Covid-19," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 323-328.
    14. Max Ismailov & Michail Tsikerdekis & Sherali Zeadally, 2020. "Vulnerabilities to Online Social Network Identity Deception Detection Research and Recommendations for Mitigation," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-12, August.
    15. Melody M. Terras & Dominic Jarrett & Sharon A. McGregor, 2021. "The Importance of Accessible Information in Promoting the Inclusion of People with an Intellectual Disability," Disabilities, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Bin Yang & Naipeng Chao & Cheng-Jun Wang, 2023. "A solid camp with flowing soldiers: heterogeneous public engagement with science communication on Twitter," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Van Thanh Vu, 2021. "Public Trust in Government and Compliance with Policy during COVID-19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 779-796, December.
    18. Andrey A. Zaytsev & Roman S. Blizkyi & Irina I. Rakhmeeva & Nikolay D. Dmitriev, 2021. "Building a Model for Financial Management of Digital Technologies in the Areas of Combinatorial Effects," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, April.
    19. , Aisdl, 2020. "Let’s Do Better: Public Representations of COVID-19 Science," OSF Preprints 3cpvs, Center for Open Science.
    20. Tobia Spampatti & Ulf J. J. Hahnel & Evelina Trutnevyte & Tobias Brosch, 2024. "Psychological inoculation strategies to fight climate disinformation across 12 countries," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(2), pages 380-398, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:admini:v:70:y:2022:i:3:p:7-32:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.