The global pandemic that spread in spring 2020 constituted an unprecedented global challenge. It required a quick adjustment of our lifestyle putting a strain not only on the health systems and public decision-makers but also on the media systems. Assuming the crucial role of information systems in orienting societies, this is even more true in times of crisis: it is therefore necessary to investigate the role the media played reporting on the Covid-19 crisis and the related social control policies.
Many researches in journalism studies have analyzed the social and political roles journalists fulfill in different societies (Mellado and Van Dalen, 2013): accordingly, journalists might perform a “service role” when dealing with every day-life issues, providing guidance about the management of individual problems and risks (Eide and Knight, 1999). This approach could be strongly functional in times of emergency, but it is not usually practiced in the Italian media system, characterized by polarization and partisanship (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). Moreover, the ongoing pandemic represents a hybrid risk, whose nature could be located between Beck’s “natural hazards” and “manufactured risks” (emerging as ‘side effects’ of economic, technological, and scientific development) (2009): consequently, the novelty and uncertain nature of the risk renders the related governance potentially fragmentary and contestable.
Considering this framework, we assume that the ongoing emergency incentivized “service role” journalistic practices, also in countries like Italy where this is not usually the case; however, the polarized nature of the Italian media system combined with the hybrid nature of the Covid-19 risk might have led to the reproduction of old journalistic features.
In this regard, our research questions are: does the journalistic service role emerge from the analysis of the Italian press in the first phase of the Covid-19 emergency? Or, coherently with its typical features, the press reported on the pandemic and the related social control policies polarizing the public debate?
To answer these questions, we made a computerized content analysis of six Italian newspapers (Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Il Giornale in the print version; Il Messaggero and Il Fatto Quotidiano in the digital version; the online-only news Huffinghton Post Italy). In total, 23,720 articles were collected, using the keywords covid and coronavirus, over 7 weeks (February 21-April 5, 2020). The articles were then analyzed with the QDA Miner software, a software for the qualitative analysis of the texts, and with its quantitative component WordStat, a text mining tool capable of identifying the recurring themes within the text.
Results suggest that despite a greater attention towards the practice of journalistic "service role", the coverage of the Covid-19 emergency was variegated among the different news outlets, not allowing the performance of a necessary “service role” of the press in times of emergency, due to the typical partisanship and polarization of the Italian press combined with the new hybrid nature of the Covid-related risk.
