Politics and Media: The Covid-19 Pandemic and its Discursive Public

Abstract

Public communication about the Covid-19 pandemic occurred at the intersection between the media and politics. The two realms, politics  and media, have been critical in what the public has been given as ‘information’ about the pandemic in its evolution globally. This  barrage of conflicting information ranges from the cause/s of the pandemic, its signs and symptoms, its side effects, its prevention and  control measures, its purported cure/s, its vaccines, and its variants. As a result, a great deal of misinformation, disinformation,  conspiracy theories, and propaganda has been put across to the unwitting public. Media have been the channel of this problematic barrage of the public’s information about the pandemic. In a democracy, media constitute an arena for public deliberation and debate  called the public sphere. However, we argue that in the case of the pandemic, mediatised communication has potentially been  susceptible and vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. The overabundance of information about the  pandemic in the media is termed infodemic. As vehicles of the infodemic, media have become a conduit for advancing a monological or  one-sided view of the pandemic. Consequently, alternative interpretations (or unorthodox views) of the pandemic have been elided,  summarily dismissed, or silenced, leading to the monological view about the pandemic, thereby generating what we characterise as  ‘pandemic epistemicide.’ This epistemicide, we argue further, has exacerbated what we coin as ‘manufactured mass ignorance’ about  the pandemic, leading to global vaccine hesitancyPublic communication about the Covid-19 pandemic occurred at the intersection  between the media and politics. The two realms, politics and media, have been critical in what the public has been given as ‘information’ about the pandemic in its evolution globally. This barrage of conflicting information ranges from the cause/s of the pandemic, its signs  and symptoms, its side effects, its prevention and control measures, its purported cure/s, its vaccines, and its variants. As a result, a great  deal of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and propaganda has been put across to the unwitting public. Media have  been the channel of this problematic barrage of the public’s information about the pandemic. In a democracy, media constitute an arena  for public deliberation and debate called the public sphere. However, we argue that in the case of the pandemic, mediatised communication has potentially been susceptible and  vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. The  overabundance of information about the pandemic in the media is termed infodemic. As vehicles of the infodemic, media have become a conduit for advancing a monological or one-sided view of the pandemic. Consequently, alternative interpretations (or unorthodox views)  of the pandemic have been elided, summarily dismissed, or silenced, leading to the monological view about the pandemic, thereby  generating what we characterise as ‘pandemic epistemicide.’ This epistemicide, we argue further, has exacerbated what we coin as  ‘manufactured mass ignorance’ about the pandemic, leading to global vaccine hesitancy.