Media Framing of COVID-19 Racial Disparities: Lessons from Memphis,Tennessee

Conceptual Framework: News Framing and CRT

Our research is grounded in both framing theory and CRT. Framing theory elucidates how media framing helps us understand the world. and CRT informs the larger social, political, and cultural context in which those frames are created. Goffman (1974) posits that frames are necessary to make sense of our social world. For example, we use frames to connect new information to existing knowledge. Gitlin (1980:7) expands this idea and describes frames as “persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse.” Frames structure individuals’ meaning making and provide a shared understanding of culture that persists over time (Reese 2001). Furthermore, Van Gorp (2007) argues that frames should be situated within the political, social, and cultural context in which they are created and maintained. We use CRT to situate local media framing of racial disparities in COVID-19 cases in these larger contexts.

We use CRT to situate local media framing of racial disparities in COVID-19 cases in these larger contexts. CRT, borne out of legal studies in the 1970s and 1980s, works to elucidate how long-standing social, political, and economic racial inequities shape experiences and outcomes for people of color in the United States (Delgado and Stefancic 2017). Specifically, the following tenets were used to guide our analysis of the local media and news print included in our data: (1) Race is socially constructed and evolves based on the social and political climates; (2) because racism advances the interests of dominant groups, there is little incentive to eradicate it; (3) racism is ordinary, common, and the usual way our society operates; and (4) people of color have a unique understanding of racism, and their experiences and perspectives are critical for understanding and addressing racism (Delgado and Stefancic 2017:8–11).

Journalism plays a significant role in the development of frames, the social construction of race, and the conservation of racism (Rhodes 2005). Framing is not just reporting a set of facts; instead, it structures the discourse about those facts by “activating the schemas that encourage target audiences to think, feel, and decide in a particular way” (Entman 2007:164). News media manipulate framing by highlighting certain details of the news story, while downplaying others (Rhodes 2005; Tyree and Hill 2016). Furthermore, the language that is used is crucial in how the story and the facts that are presented are interpreted (Lee, McLeod, and Shah 2008). D’Angelo (2017) notes that the more evocative the terms are that are used, the more salient the framing will be. Compounded by the fact that people consume more news during times of crises, the framing that individuals consume while watching the news becomes particularly salient (Aelst et al. 2021; Kahle, Yu, and Whiteside 2007).

When crisis hits, people turn to typical news sources to understand what is happening. For example, SarahAnn M. McFadden et al. (2020) report that over 90 percent of their survey participants across the country ¹ used typical news sources to gather information about the pandemic. Furthermore, Shearer (2020) finds that local news sources, in particular, have been an important source of COVID-19 information over the emerging 18 months of the pandemic. As media is both influenced by the social and political climate of the time and influences the collective understanding of social experiences (Brooks and Herbert 2006; Tewksbury and Scheufele 2001), the way journalists and news broadcasters generate narratives about racial differences of COVID-19 cases will impact individuals’ understanding of and response to it (Bonilla-Silva 2020). Therefore, accurately framing explanations for racial differences in health outcomes during the pandemic is important to ensure an appropriate response by community stakeholders and local leaders.

Individualist explanations are a popular framing method used by journalists (An and Gower 2009; Kim and Willis 2007). This type of framing focuses on biological and behavioral explanations, using patient attributes to explain health inequities (Entman 1990; Taylor-Clark et al. 2007). The consequence of highlighting individual responsibility and downplaying the structural role in health outcomes helps justify the lack of policy response and support to alleviate health inequity (Vaughan and Seifert 1992).

This individualistic framing of health is especially detrimental to communities of color (Cunningham and Scarlato 2018; Neville et al. 2013). There is a long history of racial framing and stereotyping in news media (Entman 1990). Broadcasts are riddled with depictions of Black people as criminals, threatening, and socially deviant (Johnson, Bushman, and Dovidio 2008). Framing of communities of color usually “victim blames” and is focused on individual-level explanations for their problems, not on the upstream solutions or the historical and present-day racism in the United States (Dreier 2005). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2020) finds that the predominate explanation for racial differences in coronavirus outcomes in early news reports overwhelmingly focused on individualist explanations (i.e., comorbidities and health behaviors).

Structural Racism as the Root Cause of Racial Inequities

In addition to racist framing in media, racism is also embedded in the public health literature that often and incorrectly treats race as a biological factor ignoring the historical and social meaning of race in the United States (Ford 2016; King and Redwood 2016; Sen and Wasow 2016). Structural racism, not biology or individual behaviors, is the root cause of racial health inequities. It is “the totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice” (Bailey et al. 2017:1455). Structural racism is embedded in policies, systems, and institutions, and creates differential access to resources and opportunities between white people and people of color (Bailey, Feldman, and Bassett 2021). For example, prior research finds racial disparities in health throughout the life span that remain even after adjusting for differences in socioeconomic status (Assari 2018; Smedley and Smedley 2005; Williams 1999). Furthermore, Black individuals have disproportionately less access to health care, receive lower quality of care, and experience higher rates of morbidity and mortality when compared with white people (King and Redwood 2016).

Media framing of COVID-19 racial disparities has the potential to perpetuate public perception that Black individuals are unhealthy because of natural causes or due to personal decisions related to health, instead of due to racist policies and practices within our social systems (Bonilla-Silva 2020). Disparities in morbidity and mortality, then, are likely seen as natural, individual-level problems that do not require public policy solutions. For example, despite prior historical infectious disease crises where Black individuals were disproportionately burdened (i.e., Yellow Fever), race data were not included in COVID-19 surveillance efforts at the national, state, or local level until months into the pandemic and at the calling for better data by Dr. Aletha Mayback (Givens et al. 2021). Ignoring racial disparities downplays the impact of structural racism in the United States (Bonilla-Silva 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another example of this relationship; in Memphis, there was a delayed response in providing additional resources, such as testing and educational information, to communities comprised primarily of people of color (Farmer 2020; Young 2020).

To our knowledge, only one other study (Bonilla-Silva 2020) explored the framing used by news media in their reporting on COVID-19. Bonilla-Silva (2020:2) uses what he calls the “racial ideology paradigm” to explore how news media discussed the COVID-19 pandemic. He concludes that news media framed major outcomes from the pandemic using “color-blind racism” (Bonilla-Silva 2020:7), explicitly omitting information for how and why marginalized communities were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. We expand this research using a thematic analysis to explore how news outlets include and frame COVID-19 morbidity and mortality data by race in Memphis.

The goal of the current study is to describe the most popular frames used by local news outlets to discuss higher rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths for Black individuals during the pandemic. We focus on local news because most people rely on their local news sources during moments of crisis, such as the pandemic (Shearer 2020). Unlike most other framing research that quantifies the types of themes news media use, we employ a thematic analysis to identify major themes that emerge organically across our news stories (Glaser and Strauss 1967). These representations play a crucial role in how the general public comes to understand the experiences of health crises in Black communities and the policy responses needed.

Individual Explanation/Structural Problem

This frame is guided by the idea that racial disparities in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality are a result of social processes and norms above and beyond health behaviors of Black individuals. The way in which media discuss these disparities, as they engage in social processes, is creating/reinforcing cultural norms that racial disparities are due to individual behavior (dominant frame) and not structural inequities (counter frame). Our results find that reporters most often (50.0 percent) relied on individualistic explanations, stating that doctors find that a large proportion of individuals who end up with COVID-19 and/or die from it have preexisting conditions. These comorbidities often include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and asthma, all of which Black individuals experience at much higher rates compared with white individuals (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion 2020). One local news station explicitly focused on this individualistic frame by airing parts of an interview with the West Memphis Medical Examiner who acknowledged that Black individuals are at a higher risk for COVID-19 and “blames diabetes, hypertension, and obesity—health problems present in African American communities” (Riley 2020).

Slightly modifying the individualist framing, others reported the impact of economic inequality (28.8 percent), specifically poverty and employment, as explanations for racial disparities in coronavirus cases and deaths. One report led with an interview with a community activist who stated, “unresolved poverty in the minority community is helping the pandemic claim black lives” (Coy 2020). While this type of framing acknowledged that there are inequities in the level of access to resources that help protect individuals from getting COVID-19, it still ignored the significance of structural racism in our country. For example, one local news station reported that those who live in poverty are more likely to contract and have serious side effects from COVID-19. Then, the broadcast included an argument made by a local physician who stated that the racial disparity data are misleading: “I personally find a hard time understanding how race matters anywhere near as much as poverty matters” (Blank 2020a). The doctor noted that economic questions are not asked at testing for COVID-19, but then acknowledged that poverty impacts Black Memphians at a much higher rate. Two additional news stories highlighted the fact that those with a lower socioeconomic status are working “frontline” or “essential” jobs, which cannot be done from home, often do not have benefits such as paid sick leave and increased the risk of exposure. The news anchors did note that Black individuals are more likely to be working in those types of jobs but failed to recognize that it is a result of occupational segregation via direct racist systems and policies. It is implied that the decision to work in essential and frontline jobs is an individual choice rather than a necessity to earn an income.

Finally, only 21.2 percent of both print and television stories used a critical race framework that connected racial COVID-19 disparities to larger systems of oppression. Reporters cited deep-rooted structural racism in Black communities as the primary driver of COVID-19 racial disparities. For example, one interview with a local political analyst clearly connected racial disparities in COVID-19 cases and deaths to history, but argued that people do not want to talk about it in that way because “it leads down a road to politics, race, and racism” (Blank 2020b). Other news stations and journalists highlighted historical mistrust between the Black community and health care, pinpointing to the “Tuskegee effect” and Henrietta Lacks (Morrison and Reeves 2020). Because of this understandable mistrust, Black individuals must “decide minute by minute whether to put their faith in government and the medical community during the coronavirus pandemic” (Morrison and Reeves 2020). As prior research finds, when news organizations focus on individual biology or health behavior, people conclude that health outcomes are due to individual circumstance (i.e., underlying health conditions, employment) and not a consequence of long-standing structural inequities (Kim Kumanyika, Shive et al. 2010). CRT would posit that ignoring the role of structural racism and relying on individualistic explanations and behavior for racialized outcomes is a social process that actually aids in the production of those racialized health outcomes. In the context of COVID-19, Memphians may attribute COVID-19 racial disparities to individual-level attributes and behaviors, not systemic issues.

Indiscriminate/Racial Disparity Paradox

The dominant and counter frame is best understood through the lens that racism is a societal norm that advances the interest of dominant groups and there is little interest or incentive to address racism. As evidence increased that COVID-19 was disproportionately harming Black communities, television news broadcasters elevated the dominant frame by airing news conference sound bites of health officials stating the idea that the virus “does not know race,” while discussing data that showed a clear difference by race (62.5 percent). These opposing statements were often right next to each other stating, “The virus knows no color, no class, and no gender,” and then presenting evidence that more Black individuals were contracting and dying from COVID-19 (Coy 2020). To highlight this disconnect, one local news reporter said, “A disease that quote ‘does not discriminate’ is reportedly affecting one group more than others—African Americans” (Payoute 2020). This type of contradictory framing confuses readers and viewers.

The counter frame, led by Black community leaders, accounted for roughly 30 percent of the news stories. It separated the biological infections of the disease and individual susceptibility to it by focusing on structural disparities as an explanation. One story reported, “the coronavirus doesn’t discriminate . . . social factors might make some more susceptible than others” (Herrington 2020). A local Black pastor tried to clarify this understanding by stating, “It is an equal opportunity enemy but the way we will be affected by the virus is not at all equal—not in health care, not in policing. This is what our communities need to know” (Dries and Waters 2020). A local news anchor further supported the counter frame stating that as “COVID-19 data showed a greater impact on African Americans [it] also highlights the disparities many of them face with both testing and employment” (Broders 2020, n.p.). Indeed, early evidence showed that less support for and fewer resources available went to Black communities most in need (Farmer 2020, n.p.), reinforcing the usual lines of inequity felt in Memphis. This lack of support is expected given that racism is a societal norm and there is little incentive to eradicate it. Local officials made decisions regarding COVID-19 protocols and programs without considering the unique impact it was having on the Black community.

Eventually the framing for how the virus was impacting Black communities changed, and health officials began to address the issue directly. For example, almost four months in to the local pandemic, a Shelby County health official said during a daily news briefing, “The myth that this virus is a primarily [a] white person’s problem has been shattered so hear me . . . African Americans appear to suffer consequences at a greater extent . . .” (Hardiman 2020). Another news broadcasts echoed this by stating, “The goal is to spread information and resources to dispel dangerous rumors that Black people are immune to the virus” (Payoute 2020).

The paradox is one of many social processes that evolved as news organizations attempted to explain how COVID-19 impacted Black Memphians differently from white Memphians. As Paul M. Sniderman and Sean M. Theriault (2004) discuss, when individuals receive competing messages (i.e., COVID is indiscriminate/affects more Black individuals), viewers default to the message best aligned with their worldview. The individualistic explanations of outcomes become the default that individuals revert to, potentially reinforcing the idea that racial health disparities are due to personal failure not structural issues. CRT suggests that these explanations perpetuate racism and result in inadequate resources and a lack of structural interventions to address the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 in Black communities. While few reports were framing Black experiences of COVID-19 as a consequence of continued racial inequality, a move away from the “indiscriminate/racial disparity” framing meant that Memphians were exposed to a clearer message—Black individuals were bearing the burden of the pandemic, locally and across the nation.

Race Is Irrelevant/Race Is Irrelevant Unless You’re Black

CRT highlights the fact that structural racism maintains inequities and listening to the lived experiences of those who are being impacted is key to dissecting racism and its consequences. Theme 3 focuses on framing that suggests race is irrelevant (dominant frame) unless you are Black and knew the disparate impact of the pandemic was inevitable (counter frame).

Early in the pandemic, race data on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality were not a part of data collection efforts (as reported in 54.5 percent of the news reports in this theme). News reporters took the CDC and local health official at their word when they stated that collecting COVID-19 data by race was not a necessity. This meant that local news stories framed race as irrelevant when discussing health disparities. The framing did not shift until news reporters started listening to local Black community leaders and policy makers who immediately urged local health officials to collect the data because they knew it was important (counter frame). One reporter, in early April, noted that he conducted an interview with a local Black pastor “who pushed for the data to include race weeks ago” (Coy 2020).

Local television and print news stations framed the delay of collecting race data as driven by data collection practices of the CDC. Numerous articles noted that the CDC does not routinely collect racial data during epidemics or pandemics, and this was specifically highlighted by Shelby County health officials. The SCHD Director stated, “It is not included on the CDC report form because it is not viewed as a critical factor for COVID-19” (Dries and Waters 2020). The precedent set by the CDC meant that race data would not be collected unless Shelby County officials determined that race was important. The SCHD Director defended this practice stating,

. . . providers have to fill out information about every COVID-19 patient on a form from the CDC. But the federal agency is not collecting race . . . it’s up to states and municipalities to do it themselves. (Jacobson 2020)

Consequently, the broader local community was not informed about the COVID-19 disparities among Black Memphians.

Memphis news broadcasters and journalists were less likely to focus on public requests from Memphis’ Black leaders to collect COVID-19 data by race, even when cases and deaths for Black Memphians continued to outpace those of their white counterparts. Roughly, 46 percent of the stories reported that local Black leaders drew from the COVID-19 racial disparities in other cities and urged Shelby County health officials to collect and report race data for the area. These stakeholders noted existing racial health disparities and were concerned that not collecting these data meant that Black people and people with lower incomes would not have access to testing, treatment, and preventive measures. A pastor in the community said,

It’s at the very least peculiar or interesting to hear people just aggregate gender, just aggregate in terms of state and age but not do race . . . I don’t want to just see the rich and affluent communities with testing, ventilators, and the masks . . . If we are not careful, we will see responses to this pandemic be doled out disproportionally and inequitably. (Pierre 2020)

The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators sent a letter to the Governor to urge Tennessee to start collecting and sharing COVID-19 data by race. They collectively noted that “it’s more important than ever for racial health disparities to be promptly identified, thoroughly investigated, and properly addressed” (Stockard 2020). Central to CRT, listening to and understanding the experiences of minoritized people are needed to mitigate the effects of structural racism. The awareness of racial disparities and the push from Black community members and policy makers to collect that type of data were fundamental to the collection and reporting of race data in Shelby County. As Black Memphians knew from the beginning the need for data broken out by race, one news story reported:

If this is killing Latin X [sic] and black people, we have a right to know that and prepare our families and our communities with the appropriate information. We need to be armed with data. (Hayes 2020, n.p.)

Information regarding racial disparities did not “break” in the news cycle until early April, nearly three months into the spread of the virus in the United States. One media source noted, “. . . health officials and political leaders didn’t think early on that it was important to keep track of the spread and mortality rate based on race” (Sanford 2020). The delay in collecting and reporting on COVID-19 racial data can affect whether readers and viewers understand the unequal burden of COVID-19 among the Black population. The lack of data and information influenced the way local municipalities and health experts developed strategies to combat the disease in communities of color—testing sites, material, and educational information about the disease (Young 2020). The initial lack and delay of data collection and reporting meant that the general public was unaware of the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 in Black communities.

Colorblind Response/Race Conscious Response

Race is socially constructed and governs “the distribution of risk and opportunities in our race conscious society” (Lantz 2021, n.p.). Consequently, colorblind approaches are inappropriate and ineffective to address racial health disparities, especially during a global pandemic. Weeks after the media started reporting coronavirus disparities by race, another significant frame emerged, where journalists and news reporters started questioning our local leaders’ response to the coronavirus.

Roughly 35 percent of our news sources criticized local government and their lack of data collection based on race or an appropriate response to COVID-19 for vulnerable people and communities, highlighting the colorblind approach (dominant frame). For example, one television station aired an interview that was conducted with a Memphis community activist who accused the Memphis mayor and others of turning a blind eye and neglecting the necessary assistance to Black communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. He stated, “So for me governmental response to disproportionate impact has to be something more than simply increasing the burden of personal responsibility” (Coy 2020). Early in the pandemic, Memphis leaders relied on individualist explanations for illness and for safety, and thus local news reported the responsibility to stay safe as an individualistic choice. However, as it became more evident that Black Memphians were being hit the hardest, more news sources started to question and highlight the role of community and institutional inequality as a source for the racial differences. One reporter stated,

We were talking earlier this morning about how working from home is a privilege and there’s certainly some disparities there, but who gets to work at home and who doesn’t, a lot of folks in those essential jobs right now are fighting for their lives and their as well. Good to see Dr. Fauci shed some light on those disparities. (WLMT 2020, n.p.)

A local newspaper ran an opinion piece written by a Memphis pastor and community activist that explicitly called out the “color-blind approach” of local government to the pandemic. He wrote, “Memphis and Shelby County can’t afford to impose old paradigms of problem solving onto this modern infection that exposes the neglect and disinvestment that keeps ravishing [sic] Black communities” (Fisher 2020). This type of framing directly contradicts the other framing methods discussed previously; by contrast, it shines a light on the structural racism that has, in Memphis, reified health inequities for generations. Similar to the backlash after Hurricane Katrina (Tyree and Hill 2016), public outcry of failed leadership has come from local community advocates and social justice experts or elected officials who are members of the Black community. News reports aired interviews of Black activists pinpointing this failure and acknowledging that protection from the virus will have to come from within their community:

We are right to be paranoid and to ask tough questions . . . History has shown us, when we do not ask questions . . . the consequences are grave, and in fact life and death. (Morrison and Reeves 2020)

Finally, as news reporters and journalists spoke with public health leaders and elected officials, the majority of stories (64.7 percent) reported a new focus on increased testing and community outreach in the most affected communities, better and increased education about COVID-19 symptoms and impacts, and more financial support for those same communities. For example, one television news station interviewed the Memphis Mayor, who stated,

. . . outreach is being done to inform and educate communities affected . . . using radio and television ads to expand their reach. We’re proactively reaching out to the 27,000 MHA residents, who may not have access to enough [testing] information. (Nexstar Media Wire 2020)

That same station also reported that it was crucial for response to include “more testing, more concentrated focused testing, [and] contact tracing” for those communities (Fisher 2020). Other news stations reported on vague response plans, such as “increases to certain resources” and “to ensure funds are allocated to assist communities being most negatively impacted by COVID-19” (Fisher 2020), but did not directly reference communities of color or explain why those communities needed additional or more targeted resources. The local public health response to the coronavirus pandemic should have been race conscious given that we live in a racialized society and Memphis has long-standing and well-known racial inequities.