Atoosa Rotambeik Tafreshi
Abstract
Abstract
Since the emergence of Covid-19, the globe has faced various challenges concerning health, financial, social, and even political problems. These issues have been noticed and ...
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Abstract
Since the emergence of Covid-19, the globe has faced various challenges concerning health, financial, social, and even political problems. These issues have been noticed and reflected in news media, which holds the potential to sway public opinion in myriad ways. This interdisciplinary research aims to analyze the Covid-19 news coverage presented by Iranian news media throughout three distinct stages (March through November 2020). To achieve this goal, a corpus-based discourse analysis approach, after Baker (2006), has been implemented. The data for this study consists of a corpus of Persian news compiled by crawling the websites of six main Iranian news media outlets, which are believed to represent the three main political factions in Iran: Fundamentalists, Reformists, and Moderates. The data was collected from the month of March to the month of November of 2020. The results of the study indicate that “war” and specifically, “Imposed War” or “holy defense” became the focal point of the discourse of “war with Corona” in Iran. Words like "Sepah (corps), Basij, Jihad, front line, Health defenders, martyr, enemy, defeat, etc." featured prominently in this discourse. Coronovirus was portrayed as a treacherous disease in the discourse of "war with Corona" in Iran. The virus was represented as a tool of the enemy which could be utilized against Iran, and Iran was tasked with conquering the enemy conspiracy. In this discourse, the term "Trump" was frequently employed as the adversary, particularly in the Fundamentalist media. This depiction of "war with corona" as a "holy defense" was emphasized more in the media aligned with the Fundamentalists during the earliest stages of the crisis.
Introduction
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the globe has experienced a variety of challenges on multiple fronts including health, economic, social, and political matters. This crisis has been reported by the news media extensively, with varying interpretations and responses by governments all around the world. The Covid-19 pandemic has been the subject of widespread scrutiny and analysis across countless fields. People have actively sought the latest updates, following the news not every day, but almost every hour. Following the onset of lockdowns, it was the news media, especially, which provided the outlet for people to stay informed and perceive what was happening around them. Therefore, examining the news content from multiple perspectives is of great significance, especially given the potential impact the media can have on public opinion. This study examines the Covid-19 news coverage presented by online news media through the lens of corpus-based discourse analysis.
Materials and Methods
The goal of this interdisciplinary study is to analyze the news coverage of the Covid-19 crisis in Iranian news media via a descriptive- analytical approach. By utilizing a corpus- based discourse analysis approach, based on Baker's (2006) work, this study endeavors to discover variations in how different news media in Iran covered and reported the news of the Covid-19 crisis during the three phases ranging from March to November 2020. For the corpus analysis, Wordsmith 6.0 will be used, and both qualitative, and quantitative methods will be included. Data for this study consists of a corpus of Persian news collected by crawling the websites of six established news outlets in Iran, which are aligned with the three major political factions of the country which include Fundamentalists (Javan and Kayhan), Reformists (Shargh and Etemad), and Moderates (Jomhouri-e Eslami and Asr-e Iran). Thus, the main corpus was divided into three subcorporas based on the political factions. The selection of the news media outlets was based on convenience and purposive sampling. On the first step, Iran's popular online news outlets were categorized in terms of the specific political faction whose views they represented. In the second phase, the accessibility of the online archives of the selected newsmedia outlets was verified, and ultimately the six outlets were chosen. The time frame of this study covers 9 months, namely March through November of 2020. Due to the existence of two distinct peaks of the epidemic in Iran during this interval, combined with the occurrence of important political and social events in Iran and worldwide such as the parliamentary election in Iran and the US presidential election, each subcorpus was additionally segmented into three-month time periods. In this study, the corpora are labeled as the first, second and third periods. The significance of the observed differences between the corpora was measured using the statistical software package, SPSS v21.
Discussion and Results
During the first stage of analysis on the primary corpora, it was observed that the frequency of the word "corona" (66135 tokens) far eclipsed the frequency of the term "covid" (2505). As a result, "corona" was selected as the primary focus of further analysis. In the second phase, each of the sub-corpora was analyzed based on the 100 most prevalent words in the respective corpora, concordance lists, and keywords. In this way, three overarching themes were established in the corpora: 1- "War with Corona" 2- "Crisis Management. The focal point of this article is the "war with Corona." This narrative includes news pertaining to the rapid proliferation of Covid-19 across the globe and in Iran. In this context, speculations about the possible sources of the disease and global initiatives aimed at handling the crisis also fall within the purview of this discussion.
By conducting a thorough analysis of the frequent words and their concordances, it was evident that 41 terms fell into the "war with corona" category. These terms were subsequently investigated across the various corpora in order to discover patterns in their usage. The discourse around "war with corona" includes a plethora of frequently utilized words and phrases, including "confrontation," "battle," and "headquarters." Other prevalent terms include "Basij," "Jihad," and "army." Some words have been utilized to define the coronavirus, most often in derogatory terms. Common words used for this purpose include "sinister," "horrible," "contemptible," and "damn." Additionally, some phrases describe the virus in terms of nationality, like "Chinese" or "American," or use qualitative adjectives, such as "smart," "agressive," and "ungodly."
Conclusions
The results indicate that "war" and in particular, the terms the "Imposed War" or "holy defense" constitute the central point in the discourse of "War with Corona" in Iran. Terms related to the military, including "Sepah (corps)" "Basij" "Jihad" "frontline" "health defenders" "health Martyrs" "enemy" and "defeat" were abundant in this discourse. The coronavirus was depicted as an inauspicious disease which, according to the discourse, could be wielded by Iran's enemies, and Iran's citizens had to triumph over the enemy machinations. In the discourse surrounding "war with Corona" the term "Trump" features prominently in the media aligned with the Fundamentalists. This depiction of fighting against the virus as a "holy defense" was accentuated more so by the Fundamentalists media during the initial period. Additionally, words such as "confrontation" "threat" "victims" and "dangerous" appeared more frequently in the articles published by the moderate media. According to the analysis performed on the reformist media corpus, words such as "victory" "confrontation" and "killed" appeared with higher frequency. The third period of the corpus intersected with the presidential elections in USA, and their effect was evident in the corpus by the commentary regarding the U.S.A. and the ineffective handling of the virus by the Trump administration. The Coronavirus mortality rate in the U.S.A. was also on the rise during this time.
