Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Infodemiology
Date Submitted: Nov 2, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 17, 2021
The role of the Canadian media during initial response to COVID-19 pandemic: a topic modelling approach on Canadian Broadcasting Company media articles
ABSTRACT
Background:
Starting as a local epidemic, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has evolved into a pandemic in a very short span of time. As countries around the world battle this outbreak, the mass media has played an active role in disseminating public health information.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of the role that the Canadian media played during the pandemic and to inquire into the patterns of topics covered by media news reporting.
Methods:
We used a dataset consisting of news articles published on the CBC Canada website between December 2019 and May 2020. We then used Python software to analyze the data using Latent Dirichlet Allocation Topic Modelling. We then used the pyLDAvis tool to plot these topics on a 2D plane through multidimensional scaling and divided these topics into different themes.
Results:
After removing articles that were published before the year 2019, we identified 6771 relevant news articles. According to Cv Coherence value, we divided these articles into 15 topics which were categorized into 6 themes. The three most popular themes were Case Reporting and Testing (N = 1738), Canadian Response to Pandemic (N = 1259) and Changes to Social Life (N = 1171) which accounted for 25.67%, 18.59% and 17.29% if the total articles respectively.
Conclusions:
Understanding the Canadian media’s reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic shows that Canadian pandemic response is a product of consistent government communication, and public’s understanding adherence to protocol. Clinical Trial: Not Applicable
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