JOUR90027 Chap.2 Press Systems and Pandemic Reporting
Press Systems and Pandemic Reporting
Week 2 uses the COVID-19 pandemic to show that news values are shaped by country as well as by audience. It introduces Four Theories of the Press and its thesis that the media mirror the society in which they work, then compares coverage in China, Australia and Kenya.
Korir and Nabushawo's study of the Daily Nation models a small content analysis that combines Hallin and Mancini's media systems with Christians and colleagues' normative roles. The chapter also covers audience fatigue and news avoidance, and Kim's evidence linking liberal democracy to fewer excess deaths, ending with essay prompt 2's question about watchdog journalism in a health emergency.
Along the way it introduces Nolan and colleagues' four kinds of pandemic story, a coding scheme you can reuse for any health crisis.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Four Theories of the Press and the four basic beliefs behind a press system
- 02
Pandemic coverage compared: China, Australia and Kenya in 2020
- 03
Nolan and colleagues' four kinds of pandemic story
- 04
Audience interest, fatigue and news avoidance in 2022
- 05
Korir and Nabushawo: sourcing hierarchy and normative roles
- 06
Kim on democracy, accountability and excess deaths
Worked example · free
Applying a normative role to pandemic coverage
- 1Name the role being performed: collaborative, relaying official guidance as a partner of government.
- 1Name the role being neglected: monitorial, informing citizens about how power is exercised.
- 2Support the assessment with a comparable finding from Korir and Nabushawo's study of the Daily Nation.
- 1Conclude with a qualified judgement about what a balanced performance would look like.
Key terms
- Libertarian theory
- The Libertarian theory treats people as rational and the press as a partner in seeking truth and a check on government, free of state control.
- Social responsibility theory
- Social responsibility theory is the twentieth-century modification of libertarianism that obliges concentrated media to present all sides fairly.
- Collaborative role
- The collaborative role is the normative position in which the press acts as a partner of government, built on mutual trust, for example relaying public health guidance.
- Monitorial role
- The monitorial role is the normative position in which the press serves the audience's need for information about events and power.
- Excess deaths
- Excess deaths are the difference between observed deaths in a period and the deaths expected from historical trends, used by Kim because official counts underreport.
Press Systems and Pandemic Reporting FAQ
What is Four Theories of the Press?
It is a framework by Siebert, Peterson and Schramm arguing that a press system reflects its society's beliefs about people, the state and truth. It describes Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility and Soviet Communist theories, two of which develop the other two.
Why did China's pandemic coverage look different?
The lecture describes Chinese media being told to provide constructive, solutions-oriented journalism, with stories of hope, heroism and self-sacrifice such as the People's Daily Battle Diaries column, rather than the bad-news values Harcup and O'Neill list.
What did Korir and Nabushawo find in Kenya?
In two July 2020 issues of the Daily Nation they found official sources foregrounded, health guidelines relayed, ordinary voices placed late in stories and sensational, fear-generating headlines, so the collaborative role dominated while monitorial and radical roles were weak.
Does democracy explain pandemic outcomes?
Kim's 2025 study associates liberal democracy and centripetal institutions with fewer excess deaths after accounting for underreporting and regional clustering, but it measures country-level institutions, so it cannot isolate the effect of any one newspaper.
What were the four kinds of pandemic news in Australia?
Nolan and colleagues classify 2020 coverage as informational stories on cases, deaths and rules; conflict stories on conspiracy theories, borders, hoarding and protests; impact stories on travel, sport and social life; and experience stories on mental health, home working and schooling.
Assessment move
Read the Four Theories introduction for its four basic beliefs and Korir and Nabushawo in full, as the reading page instructs, then read only the conclusion of Kim. Make a one-row table for each national example in the lecture: setting, emphasis, source.
If you are considering essay prompt 2, collect one example of a newspaper relaying guidance and one of it scrutinising policy, because the strongest answers argue for a division of roles rather than choosing one. A cross-national claim always needs a matching example from coverage, so note one story for each country you mention.
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