Coronavirus News Coverage in Commercial TV of Afghanistan

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Herat University

Abstract

In Afghanistan, the first reports of the outbreak of coronavirus were in the headlines in February 2020. The rapid spread of the virus increased the speed of information and competition between different media in the country. In the meantime, the role of commercial TV channels seems to be more highlight due to their dominance of the media in the country. The momentary coverage of the virus geographically, outside China borders, and the growing number of victims and patients people in nearby and far countries, added to public concerns, especially due to the national conditions and facilities. The main issue in the approach of commercial channels to the news coverage of the crisis caused by the release of Corona is following the "Dresden Syndrome" method and ignoring the psychological consequences in their approach. Business channels focus on the "controversial" aspects of a news story, based on a policy of focusing on events containing "conflicts." This article, with a conventional approach in the method of qualitative content analysis, has studied the 6 o’clock news series of Tolo Private TV, as a pioneering commercial television in Afghanistan. Findings of this study show that the application of Dresden syndrome method in news coverage of the crisis caused by the spread of Corona virus in this media is in conflict with the social responsibility of the media which is to "calm down" and thus, the terms extracted from this research like: "Fear", "worry" and "frustration" can be studied.

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History

  • Receive Date: 13 December 2021
  • Accept Date: 13 December 2021

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