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Framing of Covid-19 vaccine mandate by liberal and conservative media in the U.S.
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT.
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT.
2022 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This thesis aims to describe how two different media outlets MSNBC and Fox News, frame the controversy on mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 with opinion articles. This study will further examine if their description of the debate corresponds with their two different ideological beliefs. MSNBC lean more towards the liberal ideology, with an emphasis on equality, although Fox News corresponds more to the conservative ideology, and focus more on freedom. The theoretical approaches in this thesis derives from social constructivism and framing theory. Further, with the use of the “what is the problem represented to be” (WPR) approach, we addressed two frames from previous literature. These themes, public health as an equality issue and public health as a freedom issue, combined with the three selected WPR question created our analytical framework. We constructed a small-N case study that was analysed through a qualitative content analysis. The findings of this study demonstrate how MSNBC frames vaccine mandates as a good solution for saving lives and adopts the equality aspect and the common good to not harm other individuals. Fox News, on the other hand, frames the vaccine mandate as not the solution to end the pandemic since freedom to choose is their main standpoint. While we found that the two media’s arguments roughly correspond with their ideological focus on the concepts of freedom and equality, the data also demonstrates that the politicisation of these medias are apparent, and they stretch ideological concepts and even science to make it fit their ideological positions. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022. , p. 45
Keywords [en]
Covid-19 vaccine mandate, freedom, equality, conservatism, liberalism, media framing, politicization
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-18957Local ID: EIS501OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-18957DiVA, id: diva2:1682784
Subject / course
Political science
Educational program
International Programme in Politics and Economics
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2022-08-24 Created: 2022-07-12 Last updated: 2022-08-24Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf