Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Feb 14;20(4):3347.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph20043347.

Stigmatizing Monkeypox and COVID-19: A Comparative Framing Study of The Washington Post's Online News

Weilun Ju  1 , Shahrul Nazmi Sannusi  1 , Emma Mohamad  1   2
Affiliations

Stigmatizing Monkeypox and COVID-19: A Comparative Framing Study of The Washington Post's Online News

Weilun Ju et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Stigma relating to health can result in a broad range of vulnerabilities and risks for patients and healthcare providers. The media play a role in people's understanding of health, and stigma is socially constructed through many communication channels, including media framing. Recent health issues affected by stigma include monkeypox and COVID-19.

Objectives: This research aimed to examine how The Washington Post (WP) framed the stigma around monkeypox and COVID-19. Guided by framing theory and stigma theory, online news coverage of monkeypox and COVID-19 was analyzed to understand the construction of social stigma through media frames.

Methods: This research used qualitative content analysis to compare news framings in The Washington Post's online news coverage of monkeypox and COVID-19.

Results: Using endemic, reassurance, and sexual-transmission frames, The Washington Post predominantly defined Africa as the source of monkeypox outbreaks, indirectly labeled gays as a specific group more likely to be infected with monkeypox, and emphasized that there was no need to worry about the spread of the monkeypox virus. In its COVID-19 coverage, The Washington Post adopted endemic and panic frames to describe China as the source of the coronavirus and to construct an image of panic regarding the spread of the virus.

Conclusions: These stigma discourses are essentially manifestations of racism, xenophobia, and sexism in public health issues. This research confirms that the media reinforces the stigma phenomenon in relation to health through framing and provides suggestions for the media to mitigate this issue from a framing perspective.

Keywords: COVID-19; The Washington Post; monkeypox; news frame; online news; stigma.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Croucher S.M., Nguyen T., Pearson E., Murray N., Feekery A., Spencer A., Gomez O., Girardelli D., Kelly S. A Comparative Analysis of Covid-19-Related Prejudice: The United States, Spain, Italy, and New Zealand. Commun. Res. Rep. 2021;38:79–89. doi: 10.1080/08824096.2021.1885371. - DOI
    1. Meltzer G.Y., Chang V.W., Lieff S.A., Grivel M.M., Yang L.H., Jarlais D.C.D. Behavioral Correlates of COVID-19 Worry: Stigma, Knowledge, and News Source. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2021;18:11436. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182111436. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sakti A.M.T., Ajis S.Z.M., Azlan A.A., Kim H.J., Wong E., Mohamad E. Impact of COVID-19 on School Populations and Associated Factors: A Systematic Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2022;19:4024. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19074024. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gomez-Lucia E. Monkeypox: Some Keys to Understand This Emerging Disease. Animals. 2022;12:2190. doi: 10.3390/ani12172190. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kumar N., Acharya A., Gendelman H.E., Byrareddy S.N. The 2022 Outbreak and the Pathobiology of the Monkeypox Virus. J. Autoimmun. 2022;131:102855. doi: 10.1016/j.jaut.2022.102855. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types