Abstract
This study has compared the news coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic between general-interest online newspapers and Black news sites. Compared with COVID-19 pandemic news coverage by general-interest news sites, news coverage by Black news sites included significantly higher number of stories with African American issues. This study also identifies similarities in pandemic news coverage of African American issues between local news sites and Black news sites publishing from Black-majority cities.
The African American community, the second-largest uninsured population in the United States (Artiga, Orgera, & Damino, 2019), is one community of color that is disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020; Soucheray, 2020). This pandemic has also exposed African Americans’ vulnerability because of the prevalence of pre-existing health conditions in the community that put them in a high-risk group for the coronavirus infection (Laurencin & Walker, 2020; Soucheray, 2020).
Since the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities of color has become a national concern, this study sought to examine the news coverage of African Americans’ issues during the pandemic in a comparative context of mainstream and Black newspapers. In particular, this study sought to understand how differently and similarly general-interest newspapers, including both national and regional/local newspapers, and Black newspapers framed the various aspects of this pandemic—consequences of the pandemic, the underlying causes that made the African American community more vulnerable to the pandemic, and the actions undertaken to address this problem. While comparing news coverage between mainstream/general-interest newspapers and Black newspapers, this study is particularly interested in online news (i.e., online versions of national, local and Black news outlets) because of news consumption patterns among Americans, in general, and African Americans, specifically. About 86% of American adults get news through portable digital devices, such as smartphones, laptops and tablets, and news websites and apps are the most preferred ways of getting news among Americans (Shearer, 2021). Black online news consumers, compared with Whites, are more likely to take a follow-up action after reading or watching news (Lu, 2017) and engage in discussion with others (Mitchell & Jurkowitz, 2020).
Findings of this research are important since news framing can affect public policy and perceptions about an issue. Therefore, journalists and news organizations should pay careful attention to the use of news frames and understand its impacts for the audience they serve.
Diversity in news media diversity can be an asset for U.S. multicultural society in the time of a crisis (Bhatia, 2020; Morgan, 2019). Mainstream and ethnic newspapers can play a significant role by informing and educating communities about the pandemic and informing the policymakers about the issues of underserved ethnic groups for developing an inclusive health care intervention program (Hubbell & Dearing, 2003; Yanovitzky & Weber, 2019). But it is argued that mainstream news media that have more audience reach and influence in a policymaking process often offer skewed and shallow news coverage of communities of color (Rasmussen, 2014; Rosentiel, 2010). Consequently, ethnic news outlets grew and emerged as alternative sources of information about and for ethnic minorities (Matsaganis et al., 2010). African American news media outlets are major U.S. ethnic media outlets, and they serve one of the largest ethnic minority groups. About 300 African American media outlets, including newspapers, that are largely owned and produced by African Americans, mainly serve the Black community (Center for Community Media, 2020). Historically, African American newspapers are also known as the Black Press (Ford et al., 2019; Wilson et al., 2012). African Americans trust Black newspapers, and one-third of African Americans also find their local news organizations trustworthy (Atskey et al., 2019).
Literature Review
African Americans and COVID-19 Pandemic
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in early 2020, virus infection among African Americans has been nearly three times the rate of COVID-19 cases among White Americans, while Black Americans are “twice as likely to die from the virus” (Soucheray, 2020, para 1). This pandemic disproportionately affected African Americans in contracting the virus and deaths from this virus (Gold et al., 2020). Based on data from 14 states in the earlier weeks of the pandemic, 30% of the COVID-19-infected people were Black Americans, whereas they comprised 13% of the U.S. population (Poteat et al., 2020). This trend is more acute in major U.S. cities and counties with larger African American populations (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020; Zarefsky, 2020). For example, in the earlier weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, African Americans, making up a third of the city’s population, accounted for three-quarters of Chicago’s coronavirus deaths. Likewise, 26% of Milwaukee County’s population in Wisconsin is African American, but they made up 70% of coronavirus deaths (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020, April 20).
With people of color disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, all U.S. states’ health departments added racial/ethnic breakdown of COVID-19 cases and deaths in their regular updates on the COVID-19 pandemic (Richman, 2020). In the earlier months of the pandemic, about half of U.S. states reported COVID-19 cases and deaths by race (Richman, 2020).
This disproportionate effect of the coronavirus among African Americans has once again exposed racial disparities in U.S. health care and systemic racism against Blacks in the economy, employment and education that indirectly affects their continuous access to health care (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020; Maina et al., 2018). Health experts identified five interrelated risk factors for people of color in the context of the COVID-19 infection: (a) crowded or multi-generational living/housing condition because of low average income and socioeconomic status among community members, (b) their overrepresentation in low-paid jobs in essential fields where they cannot always do physical distancing and work remotely, (c) inconsistent access to health care due to the economic situation as well as lack of access to health insurance, (d) chronic health conditions (i.e., diabetes, hypertension), an outcome of inconsistent access to health care, that aggravate the coronavirus infection further, and (e) lower level of immunity due to mental stresses caused by their experiences of social and economic injustices (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020; Soucheray, 2020).
Mainstream Media Versus African American Media
Mainstream news media serving general audiences have been criticized for not representing ethnic minority communities adequately, accurately and positively (Martindale & Dunlap, 1997; Ramasubramanian et al., 2017; Rosentiel, 2010). Mainstream news media coverage tends to leave out socioeconomic context such as educational level, employment and living conditions when they cover people of color, such as Black Americans (Stevens & Hornik, 2014). Mainstream news media coverage of HIV/AIDS discouraged Black Americans from adopting health behaviors such as HIV/AIDS testing since the community felt “stigmatized” in such news coverage (Stevens & Hornik, 2014). General-audience news outlets rarely bring up institutional racism charges in their coverage of racial disparities. For example, stories on racial disparity in health care would not frame the situation as discrimination (Gandy & Li, 2005). Furthermore, general-audience media often homogenize problems impacting different ethnic groups of a multicultural society in its news coverage (Azocar & Funabiki, 2008; Lehrman, 2009).
On the contrary, ethnic media, because of their community orientation, tend to offer more in-depth coverage of issues affecting their communities than their general-audience counterparts (Azocar & Funabiki, 2008; Rasmussen, 2014). African American journalists often write as community members while maintaining relationships with community members (Ford et al., 2019; Hatcher, 2017). African American media (“Black Press”) primarily serve the African American community; and, in most cases, African Americans produce and own these media outlets (Center for Community Media, 2020; Matsaganis et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2012). Historically, Black news media played an advocacy role for the Black community when Black citizens encountered injustices and racial discrimination (Ford et al., 2019; Washburn, 2006). In recent years, Black news media continue to be a voice for the African American community to highlight voting rights suppression, disparities in health care and police brutality against Black Americans (Ford et al., 2019).
Black newspapers’ coverage, compared with general-audience newspaper coverage, included more information about lack of access to quality health care for Black Americans and actions that African Americans can take to reduce health risks (Cohen et al., 2008). More than one-third of the Black newspaper coverage of health issues utilized a health disparity frame (Cohen et al., 2008). Black newspapers’ coverage reflected their editors’ and writers’ concerns about the burden of health disparities among their readership (Cohen et al., 2008). Though mainstream newspapers covered societal causes or responsibilities for health disparities, they were not as detailed as their African American newspaper counterparts (Rasmussen, 2014). Compared with mainstream newspapers’ coverage, African American newspapers’ coverage of health disparities is more concerned with solutions and impacts of a health care policy in their communities.
Newsroom diversity
A significant reason for the lack of depth and breadth in mainstream media’s coverage of the communities of color is the lack of diversity in those newsrooms (Bhatia, 2020). While racial and ethnic minorities comprise almost 40% of the U.S. population, they make up 22.6% of newsroom staff at print and online publications and only 19% of newspaper leadership (Arana, 2018; ASNE Staff, 2018). Despite being in majority-minority cities, the New York Times and the Washington Post’s newsrooms were 81% and 70% White, respectively (Arana, 2018).
Underrepresentation of journalists of color in reporting and editorial decisions can impact representative journalism and news standards. In the absence of diverse newsrooms, the “voice of whiteness” was long considered objective and neutral (Campion-Smith, 2020). Diversity is an essential news value and journalists of color have been calling for more prominent news gatekeeping positions (Johnston & Flamiano, 2007). When journalists make connections with communities of color on the issues that affect their day-to-day life, they can better narrate community situations and make reality-based editorial decisions (Johnston & Flamiano, 2007). Thus, in this research, it could be expected that Black news sites, compared with their general-interest counterparts, would cover more African American issues, such as various consequences and situations of the pandemic in the community, causal factors that disproportionally affected the community and actions geared toward the well-being of the community. Therefore:
How much of the news coverage on the COVID -19 pandemic did Black news sites and general-interest news sites focus on African Americans and their issues?
Black news sites will cover proportionately more stories about African Americans in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic compared with general-audience news sites.
News Coverage of Pandemic and Health Disparities
Hardly any media research has been conducted on the intersections of health pandemics and ethnic minorities. Past research on pandemic news coverage primarily focused on mainstream media’s coverage or international news coverage in a cross-cultural context (Choi & McKeever, 2019; Lee, 2014; Oh et al., 2012). Four mainstream U.S. newspapers primarily advanced attribution of responsibility and action frames in its H1N1 pandemic coverage in 2009 (Oh et al., 2012). Stories that used responsibility frames identified government agencies and officers as responsible actors for mitigating the effects of the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Simultaneously, newspaper coverage used action frames to inform the public about preventing, diagnosing and treating the H1N1 influenza (Oh et al., 2012).
Racial disparities in health care can be another news dimension during a pandemic because of a higher number of uninsured populations among communities of color. Social inequalities, not individual behaviors, are the leading causes of poorer health outcomes among U.S. racial and ethnic minorities (Rose, 2020). However, mainstream news coverage of racial and ethnic disparities in health care highlighted individual health behaviors over societal causes (A. E. Kim et al., 2010). Failing to prominently recognize the main social causes of health care disparities in news coverage can negatively affect public support for federal policies to end racial disparities in health care (A. E. Kim et al., 2010). Another longitudinal analysis of news coverage of racial inequalities in health care revealed that news media failed to call out actors of systemic problems such as federal-level policymakers responsible for creating health care disparities (Taylor-Clark et al., 2007).
News framing
Since how a crisis and disparities in health care are presented can shape public opinion and support for or against specific public policies, news frames have been analyzed to assess news coverage of a pandemic and health care disparities. Framing is an analytical framework concerned with how news media present a message about an issue with the capability to influence public opinions (Iyengar, 1991). A framing analysis allows researchers to examine how information and arguments are organized and what aspects of an event or issue are highlighted in news stories to advance an interpretation about the issue at stake (Entman, 1993; Scheufele, 1999; Weaver, 1997).
In pandemic news coverage, the use of information such as how a community is affected (i.e., consequence frame, situation frame) and why they are hard hit (i.e., responsibility frame) can be equally important, along with information about what can be done to address or mitigate the effects of a pandemic (i.e., action frame) (Anwar et al., 2020).
Major news frames identified in the past studies on the news coverage of pandemics and health care disparities were attribution of responsibility, consequences, action or solution and statistics (Choi & McKeever, 2019; S.-H. Kim et al., 2010; Oh et al., 2012; Rasmussen, 2014; Shih et al., 2008). Attribution of responsibility frame assigns the responsibility of an event, policy, or issue to individuals or social, political, or economic factors or institutions (S.-H. Kim et al., 2010). Since this frame identified the causes of a problem, it is also known as the causal or blame frame (Choi & McKeever, 2019; Stone, 1989). In addition, the responsibility frame also identifies who is responsible for solving a problem (Iyengar, 1991). Attribution of responsibility refers to responsibilities at the individual level such as an individual’s decision or responsibilities at the societal level such as systemic racism and social inequalities (Iyengar, 1991; S.-H. Kim et al., 2010; Rasmussen, 2014). Therefore, how responsibility is framed in relation to a problem can shape policy responses (Thomas et al., 2020).
In a pandemic, action or solution frames provide “practical information” such as self-protective measures and governmental strategies for combating a crisis and addressing health care disparities (Oh et al., 2012, p. 222; Rasmussen, 2014). Action frames were prevalent in U.S. newspapers’ coverage of the H1N1 influenza pandemic (Oh et al., 2012).
Consequence frame is defined as loss of human life, economic costs and negative social impacts during a pandemic (Shih et al., 2008). Such a frame refers to the adverse effects of a pandemic on society and the economy (Oh et al., 2012). The salience of consequence frames or negative outcomes in a news coverage can impact how seriously public evaluates a pandemic (Gerken & van der Meer, 2019; Kilgo et al., 2018).
Statistics frames focus only on the raw numbers to reflect the magnitude of a pandemic. This type of news frame uses statistics such as the number of virus cases and casualties during a pandemic (Lee & Paik, 2017; Oh et al., 2012). This frame can be used in conjunction with the consequence frame focused on the impacts of a pandemic.
News frames can serve the audience, including health experts and policymakers, by offering “the social understanding” of the issues at stake (Baresch et al., 2012). As discussed, these four frames, responsibility, action/solution, statistics and consequence, can highlight multiple aspects of a pandemic, including underlying causes of relatively higher number of deaths and COVID-19 cases among African Americans that can offer the public a better idea about systemic issues such as racial inequalities in health care access and offer insights for policy interventions to address this problem. Since the nature of a news organization (i.e., ethnic vs. mainstream media), journalists’ personal backgrounds (i.e., diversity in a newsroom) and news media market or the demographics of audience (i.e., news media operating in Black-majority cities) can shape how different news media outlets cover an issue (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), this study is expected to see a difference in the framing of African American issues in the news coverage between general-interest and Black news sites. Therefore:
How did general-interest or mainstream news sites frame COVID-19-related African American issues compared with Black news sites serving both local/regional and national audiences?
The African American community in Black-majority cities are also worst hit by the pandemic. Some states with higher-than-average African American populations had taken steps to reach out to this vulnerable community (Ollove & Vestal, 2020). Therefore:
How did general-interest local news sites publishing from Black-majority cities frame COVID-19-related African American issues compared with local Black news sites?
Mainstream news media coverage did not significantly highlight the association between systemic issues or societal factors and racial inequalities in health care (S.-H. Kim et al., 2010; Taylor-Clark et al., 2007). In addition, more ethnic newspapers, compared with mainstream newspapers, highlighted the solutions to health care access for uninsured ethnic minorities in its coverage of the Afford-able Care Act (Biswas, 2014). Therefore:
Black news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic will include more societal-level attribution of responsibility frames than the general-interest news sites’ coverage.
Black news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic will use more action (i.e., solution) frames than the general-interest news sites’ coverage.
Method
This study used a quantitative content analysis to examine the news coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis is an appropriate method for this study since it is used for systematically analyzing different characteristics of news media messages, such as which COVID-19 stories referred to African American issues and how those issues are presented (Krippendorff, 2004).
This study’s sample was gathered from eight news outlets’ websites—four general-interest newspapers’ websites and four Black news sites. Of the four general-interest newspapers, two were leading mainstream news outlets serving national and international readers—the New York Times and the Washington Post—known for shaping public opinions in the United States (Eyck & Williment, 2003). Two other general-interest news outlets are state-level local/regional newspapers—the Baltimore Sun and the Detroit Free Press. Gannett is the parent company of the Detroit Free Press while Tribune Publishing owns the Baltimore Sun (Dinsmore, 2021; Smith, 2019). In February 2021, a deal was announced to hand over the Baltimore Sun’s ownership to a Maryland-based nonprofit (Dinsmore, 2021).
Of the four Black online newspapers, two news sites are geared toward the African American community nationally—News One (NewsOne.com) and Atlanta Black Star (AtlantaBlackStar.com), while two other Black news sites—the Afro (Afro.com), also known as Afro American newspaper, and Michigan Chronicle (MichiganChronicle.com)—are geared toward the African American community in Baltimore and Detroit, respectively. The Afro, one of the country’s oldest family-owned African American media (The Afro, n.d.), serves African American communities in the greater Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area because of the proximity of these two majority-minority cities. African American–owned Michigan Chronicle’s parent company is Real Times Media (n.d.), also the parent company for four other African American–owned newspapers.
News One and Atlanta Black Star are web-only news outlets, two of several nationally. As of June 5, 2020, when data gathering began for this study, NewsOne.com and AtlantaBlackStar.com were two of the top three high-traffic Black news websites (African American Literature Book Club, 2020, based on SEMrush analytics software, SEMrush that gathers web traffic data on Black-owned websites). Atlanta Black Star is an independent Black-owned digital news publication with growing readership (Karen Hunter Show, 2017; Schmidt, 2019). News One is owned by Interactive One (iONE Digital), which also owns various digital content platforms for the Black community (iOne Digital, 2017). Interactive One’s website says its digital content platforms, including NewsOne.com, has had 20 million unique visitors per month and its web traffic was growing (iONE Digital, n.d.).
The New York Times and News One are published from New York City, where non-White populations are the majority, and African Americans or Blacks are the second-largest ethnic/racial group (U.S. Census, 2019). The Washington Post and the Atlanta Black Star are published from Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia, where African Americans are the largest racial/ethnic group (U.S. Census, 2019). The Baltimore Sun and the Detroit Free Press represent two Black-majority cities—Baltimore and Detroit (US Census, 2019). The two Black newspapers—Afro and Michigan Chronicle—publish from two Black-majority cities.
Data
This study identified 1,979 news stories and news analysis/commentaries on COVID-19 published in eight news outlets between March 1, 2020, and May 15, 2020, using two search terms, “COVID-19” and “coronavirus.” Of these, four general-interest newspapers’ websites published 1,545 news stories, and four Black news websites published 434 news stories (see Table 1). This sample did not include opinion editorials and essays on COVID-19. Online versions of news articles published in three general-interest newspapers—the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun—were gathered from the NexisU database. Other stories from the other five news sites were gathered from their searchable databases.
News Frames in the African American–Focused Stories by News Media Type
Note. The percent total in column 2 and column 3 is more than 100% because multiple frames were identified in almost all stories in the sample.
p < .01.
Stories were gathered from March through mid-May because that is when the COVID-19 situation began to worsen in U.S. states, and many states imposed statewide lockdowns then; also, toward the end of this period, some states began to ease COVID-19 restrictions (Hauck et al., 2020). COVID-19 deaths reached close to 100,000 by mid-May in the United States (Hauck et al., 2020).
Coding and Analysis
Because of the research questions, coding was in two phases. In the first phase of coding, for RQ1, African American–focused stories were identified in two independent samples—1,545 stories published in four general-interest online newspapers and 434 stories published in four Black news sites. The unit of analysis was a whole story.
Coding process
Given the nature of hypotheses and research questions of this study, the coding process involves two phases. First phase included coding all 1,979 news stories to identify the ones in which African American issues were included in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Search terms “Blacks,” “people of color,” or “African Americans” were used to identify stories that included COVID-19-related issues of the African American community. When search terms were found, the context of COVID-19 concerning the African American community was confirmed after reading the story’s related paragraphs since surrounding paragraphs and sentences are contextual units in content analysis. For African American issues, coders looked at whether the coverage included either of these—various consequences and situations of the pandemic in the Black community, causal factors that disproportionally affected the Black community and actions geared toward the well-being of the Black community. Through this process, 166 African American–focused stories were identified for framing analysis in the second phase of coding.
The second phase of coding involved 166 African American–focused stories identified in the first phase of coding. Seventy-four news stories were published in general-interest news sites, and 92 stories were published in Black news sites. These stories covered other issues in addition to African American issues. Therefore, during this coding phase, the unit of analysis was selected paragraphs of a COVID-19 story covering the African American community’s issues. Since RQ2, H2, and H3 focus on how the news sites frame African American issues in their news coverage, this study coded 166 African American–focused stories to identify individual-level responsibility, societal responsibility, negative consequence, actions and situational updates news frames. Briefly, individual-level responsibility frame referred to a story context when responsibility for a situation, policy outcome or an issue was assigned to individuals, such as the President, national or local politicians, public health administrators, religious leaders and citizens or community members. When a story established an association between a social, political or economic situation or an institutions’ actions with negative health outcomes and disparities in health care, that story was counted for a societal responsibility frame. Stories with consequence frame covered the negative health, economic, political and social effects of COVID-19. Story paragraphs that covered information about public safety and health behaviors, economic, social, legal, political initiatives and activities to contain or address the pandemic were counted for action frames. Situation updates frame, labeled as “statistics” frame in past studies, refers to statistics/numbers about confirmed or suspected cases, deaths and badly affected regions in the African American community.
Presence of any of these five frames in each of the 166 stories was coded as 1, and absence of a frame was coded as 0. While administering coding protocols on news stories, multiple frames were identified in the majority of the stories. For example, a story was coded for societal responsibility, actions and negative consequence frames if it covered societal and institutional factors causing disparities in health care, sufferings among African Americans during COVID-19 pandemic, and the actions geared toward tracking as well as addressing the disproportionate effects of the pandemic among African Americans. Moreover, if one type of message framing, such as the consequence frame, is used multiple times in a story, that frame was counted once for that story. For example, if a story highlighted two actions or proposals to address COVID-19 pandemic situations among African American community members, that story was counted for one action frame.
Reliability
In the first phase of coding 1,979 stories, 9.8% of these stories (194 stories) were considered for intercoder reliability calculation. Initially the sample size was 1,985 stories, and 200 stories from the sample were considered for intercoder reliability. During the coding process, six articles were identified as opinion-based editorials. Because those six articles were excluded from the sample, the intercoder reliability calculation was based on a little less than a 10% sample. Three coders were trained on coding protocol (available from authors) as well as the coding process. They independently coded the same 194 stories following the coding definition of African American–focused stories. As per both Krippendorff’s Alpha and Cohen’s Kappa calculations, the average pairwise agreement was .93.
In the second phase of coding 166 stories, a separate intercoder reliability was administered on 10.8% of this sub-sample (18 African American–focused stories) to validate five framing categories. The goal was to examine news frames in the stories that covered African American issues during the pandemic. The same three coders who were trained on the coding process and coding protocols independently coded the same 18 news stories. As per both Cohen’s Kappa and Krippendorf’s Alpha calculations, three coders achieved .95 agreement on average, ranging from 0.88 to 1 on four framing categories.
In both phases, about 10% of stories from the sample was considered for intercoder reliability calculations. It is recommended that the appropriate sample size for such reliability test should be 10% of the full sample (Lombard et al., 2002).
Findings
Descriptive statistics were used to answer three hypotheses and three research questions, including interpreting the presence of African American–focused stories and the news framing patterns in the news coverage by both mainstream and Black news sites. In relation to RQ1 and H1, a chi-square test was conducted to identify the percent difference in the use of African American–focused stories between two types of news sites—mainstream, general-interest news outlets (n = 1,545), and Black news outlets (n = 434) (Variable 1: types of media, Variable 2: yes/no for the presence of African American–focused stories). In addition, to analyze data for RQ2, RQ3, H2, and H3, a series of chi-square analyses were conducted to identify the percent difference in the use of news frames in African American–focused stories in two comparative media contexts—(a) between general-interest news sites (n = 74) and Black news sites (n = 92) (Variable 1: types of media, Variable 2: yes/no for each news frame) and (b) between general-interest news sites (n = 38) and Black news sites (n = 55) publishing from Black-majority cities (Variable 1: types of media, Variable 2: yes/no for each news frame).
Again, RQ1 asked how much of COVID-19 pandemic news coverage focused on African Americans’ issues. Only 4.8% of news coverage by general-interest news outlets included African American community issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, 21.2% of news coverage by Black news sites included African American issues during the pandemic. Black news sites published African American–focused stories significantly more than the general-interest news sites during the first few weeks of the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States (i.e., between March 1–May 15, 2021). African American–focused stories covered issues such as various impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic among African Americans, why Black Americans were disproportionately affected, and what actions could be taken to keep the community safe and make health care accessible. A Pearson’s chi-square test found a statistically significant difference in the inclusion of African American–focused stories between Black news sites and general-interest news sites, χ2(1, N = 1978) = 118.71, p < .01. This finding also supported the hypothesis (H1) that Black news sites covered proportionately more African American–focused stories than general-interest news sites.
RQ2 was posed to compare the news framing of African American issues between general-interest news sites and Black news sites serving both local/regional and national audiences during the initial weeks of the first wave coronavirus pandemic. Mainstream news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic included the consequence frame (86.49%), societal responsibility frame (54.05%), action frame (37.84%), situation frame (28.38%) and individual responsibility frame (8.11%). Black news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the pandemic included the consequence frame (84.78%), action frame (64.13%), societal responsibility frame (46.74%), situation frame (34.78%) and individual responsibility frame (16.30%). Pearson’s chi-square test found only one significant difference in the use of action (i.e., solution) frame in the African American–focused stories between Black news sites and mainstream news sites, χ2(1, N = 166) = 11.367, p < .01 (Table 1). Black news sites used a significantly higher number of action frames in their coverage of African American issues during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic than general-interest news sites. It signifies the fact that Black news sites covered significantly more stories with information about public safety and health behaviors and various efforts to contain or address the pandemic in the African American community. Otherwise, there was no significant difference in both types of media’s coverage of various impacts of the pandemic in the Black community (i.e., consequence frame), underlying causes that were culminated into disproportional effects of the pandemic for the Black community (i.e., individual and social responsibility frames), and overall pandemic situation in the community (i.e., situation updates frame).
News coverage of African American issues by two local general-interest news sites (i.e., the Baltimore Sun and Detroit Free Press) in two Black-majority cities—Detroit and Baltimore—used the consequence frame (97.37%), societal responsibility frame (68.42%), action frame (55.26%), situation frame (39.47%) and individual responsibility frame (5.26%). Two Black news sites (The Afro and Michigan Chronicle) publishing from these two cities covered African American issues through the use of the consequence frame (81.82%), action frame (80%), societal responsibility frame (40%), situation frame (30.91%) and individual responsibility frame (14.55%).
Two general-interest news sites publishing from two Black-majority cities used societal responsibility and consequence frames significantly more than two Black news sites publishing from the same cities in its news coverage of African American issues during the early phase of the pandemic. Pearson’s chi-square test found significant differences in the use of societal responsibility frame, χ2(1, n = 93) = 15.781, p < .01, and consequence frame, χ2(1, n = 93) = 11.971, p < .01, in the coverage of African American issues between two local general-interest news sites and two local Black news sites.
In contrast, two local Black news sites used a significantly higher number of action frames and individual responsibility frames than two local general-interest news outlets to cover the same issue (Table 2). Pearson’s chi-square test found significant differences in the use of the individual responsibility frame, χ2(1, n = 93) = 5.556, p < .05, and action frame, χ2(1, n = 93) = 14.245, p < .01, in the coverage of African American issues between two local general-interest news sites and two local Black news sites.
News Frames in the African American–focused Stories by News Media Type in Black-Majority Cities
Note. The percent total in column 2 and column 3 is more than 100% because multiple frames were identified in almost all stories in the sample.
p < .05. **p < .01.
The above findings supported the hypothesis (H3) that Black news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic included more action (i.e., solution) frames than the general-interest news sites’ coverage. But the findings did not support hypothesis (H2) that Black news sites’ coverage of African American issues during the COVID-19 pandemic included more societal-level attribution of responsibility frames than the general-interest news sites’ coverage. When the comparison is made between mainstream news sites and Black news sites, inclusive of both national and local news sites, there was no significant difference in how both types of media covered societal factors or causes that contributed to the pandemic’s disproportionate effects in the African American community. However, when the comparison is made between local general-interest news sites and local Black news sites, general-interest news sites published significantly more stories that highlighted systemic and societal causes behind the pandemic’s disproportionate effects on the African American community.
Discussion
The finding that Black news sites published a significantly higher number of stories with African American issues than mainstream news sites is not surprising if we consider the community orientation of Black newspapers. Four Black news sites collectively also used a significantly higher number of action frames than national and local general-interest newspapers in their coverage of African American issues during the first wave of the pandemic in the United States. This trend in the use of the action frame is common in another comparative media context, when Black-majority cities’ Black newspapers’ coverage was compared with local general-audience newspaper coverage. Stories that used action frames included those offering safety guidelines and testing options to protect the community from the spread of the virus, creating a task force on racial disparities as Michigan’s governor directed, and advocating support of Black restaurants. Black celebrities offering financial help for African Americans hit hard by the coronavirus; a group of Black doctors’ initiatives bringing COVID-19 tests to African American community; providing loans for small enterprises, including minority businesses; and developing a system to track coronavirus cases and deaths by race also exemplify the action frame. The proportionately higher number of coronavirus deaths and infection rates among African Americans might have influenced the Black newspapers’ decision to use more action frames to protect the community. These action frames included sharing public health guidelines and diagnosis and treatment information, informing readers about various financial assistance programs, and explaining initiatives to acknowledge and address racial disparities in health care.
An argument for Black news sites’ use of higher numbers of action frames is Black news sites as ethnic media play the roles of “mobilizing agents” toward a positive change for the African American community (Ford et al., 2019; Matsaganis et al., 2010) and therefore, these sites used significantly more action/solution frames in their coverage than their general-interest counterparts. In recent years, Black news media have been playing the role of mobilizing forces on the issues of voter suppression and racial injustice (Ford et al., 2019), and, in this case, on safety and racial disparity in health care.
Except for the use of the action news frame, the coverage by mainstream news outlets, particularly local general-interest news sites and Black news sites, was very similar. In terms of covering the social and individual causes of racial disparity in the pandemic’s outcome, this study did not find any significant difference in the news coverage of African American issues between general-interest news sites and Black news sites. Instead, local/regional general-interest news sites publishing from two Black-majority cities, compared with two local Black news sites, used significantly higher numbers of societal responsibility frames. This finding is important because it is in contrast with two studies (A. E. Kim et al., 2010; Taylor-Clark et al., 2007) that concluded mainstream news coverage of racial and ethnic disparities lacked societal causes and called out individual actors responsible for disparities in health care. Since the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected the African American community, it was expected that both general-interest news sites and Black news sites would highlight societal causes to identify potential areas for policy and community interventions.
The social responsibility frame included content such as Black patients being denied coronavirus testing, racial and ethnic disparities in health care and distrust between Black Americans and physicians. Other similarly framed content included many Black Americans’ inability to comply with social distancing as many are essential workers or first responders in major cities, higher rates of uninsured populations among African Americans, and states’ reopening plans failing to consider the pandemic’s grave impacts on the Black community. Consequence news frames included content such as higher numbers of deaths and infections among African Americans, the closing of Black businesses, loss of jobs/layoffs among Black Americans, racial profiling of Black people for wearing face masks and Black Americans being a high-risk group for the coronavirus infection with a higher number of people having pre-existing health conditions in the community.
Overall, again, this pandemic exposed the vulnerability of African Americans due to inconsistent and lack of access to health care and biases in health care (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2020; Rose, 2020). Results indicate that local news media in these markets responded and offer lessons for themselves and other news media in the future.
Limitations and Further Research
The timeframe represents news coverage during only 10 weeks early in the pandemic (through May 15, 2020). COVID-19 pandemic news and coverage of Summer 2020 protests against racial injustice might have shaped how news outlets covered African American issues after that. Therefore, this study’s findings are not generalizable to later periods, in addition to not being generalizable to other news media. This study also did not examine the relationship between cited news sources (including but not limited to source diversity Carpenter, 2010]) and news framing.
