Abstract

LOPES, Felisbela et al. The Visibility of Specialised Sources in Journalism: The Example of COVID-19. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2023, vol.43, e023011.  Epub July 30, 2023. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.43(2023).4270.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese news media assumed a crucial role in informing the population, striving to develop knowledge about the disease, and promoting preventive behaviours to reduce transmission. To do so, they relied mainly on experts. While official interlocutors were still present in journalistic texts, scholars and physicians gained significant visibility. This article analyses how specialised sources contribute to news content in the Portuguese press. It presents findings from a study on the coverage of COVID-19. This study examines editions of the Portuguese newspapers Público and Jornal de Notícias during the state of emergency periods from March to May 2020, November to December 2020, and January to February 2021. The corpus of analysis includes 2,933 news texts and 6,350 sources: during the first phase of the national emergency, 1,850 texts were published, citing 4,048 sources; in the second phase, 457 texts were published, citing 857 sources; finally, during the third phase, 626 texts were published, citing 1,445 sources. The content analysis findings highlight the strength of professionals as reliable sources of information, particularly health professionals and scholars from the medical and social sciences. Regardless of their position, experts are more prominent in the media than official sources.

Keywords : COVID-19; journalism; information sources; experts.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in English | Portuguese     · English ( pdf ) | Portuguese ( pdf )