{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,12]],"date-time":"2026-09-12T02:17:33Z","timestamp":1789179453922,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]],"date-time":"2021-09-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1630454400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100001345","name":"Social Science Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["MOE2018-SSHR-004"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MOE2018-SSHR-004"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100001345","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100008885","name":"Lloyd's Register Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["IPUR-FY2019-RES-03-NG"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["IPUR-FY2019-RES-03-NG"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100008885","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Seldom in history does one get a \u2018front row seat\u2019\u2014with large-scale dynamic data\u2014on how online news media narratives shift with a global pandemic. News media narratives matter because they shape societal perceptions and influence the core tent poles of our society, from the economy to elections. Given its importance\u2014and with the benefit of hindsight\u2014we provide a systematic framework to analyze news narratives of Covid-19, laying the groundwork to evaluate policy and risk communications.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n                    <jats:title>Objectives<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We leverage a 10-billion-word-database of online news, taken from over 7,000 English newspapers and magazines across 20 countries, culminating in 28 million articles. First, we track the volume of Covid-19 conversations across 20 countries from before to during the pandemic (Oct\u201919 to May\u201920). Second, we distill the phases of global pandemic narratives, and elucidate regional differences.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>To track the volume of Covid-19 narratives, we identified 10 target terms\u2014Coronavirus, Covid-19, Covid, nCoV, SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan Virus, Virus, Disease, Epidemic, Pandemic\u2014and tracked their combined monthly prevalence across eight months from October 2019 through May 2020. Globally, across 20 countries, we identified 18,042,855 descriptors of the target terms. Further, these descriptors were analysed with natural language processing models to generate the top five topics of Covid-19 that were labelled by two independent researchers. This process was repeated across six continents to distil regional topics.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Our model found four phases of online news media narratives: Pre-pandemic, Early, Peak and Recovery. Pre-pandemic narratives (Oct\u201919\u2013Dec\u201919) were divergent across regions with Africa focused on monkeypox, Asia on dengue fever, and North America on Lyme disease and AIDS. Early (Jan\u2013Feb\u201920) and Peak Pandemic (Mar\u2013May\u201920) evidenced a global convergence, reflecting the omnipresence of Covid-19. The brief transition from early to peak pandemic narratives underscored the pandemic\u2019s rapid spread. Emerging from the embers of the pandemic\u2019s peak were nascent recovery words that are regionally divergent\u2014Oceania focused on hope and an uncertain future while North America centered on re-opening the economy and tackling discrimination.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec005\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Practically, we presented a media barometer of Covid-19, and provided a framework to analyse the pandemic\u2019s impact on societal perceptions\u2014laying the important groundwork for policy makers to evaluate policy communications, and design risk communication strategies.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0256358","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]],"date-time":"2021-09-01T13:37:39Z","timestamp":1630503459000},"page":"e0256358","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":68,"title":["News media narratives of Covid-19 across 20 countries: Early global convergence and later regional divergence"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1186-0570","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Reuben","family":"Ng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ting Yu Joanne","family":"Chow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wenshu","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0256358.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1016\/j.bbi.2020.03.028","article-title":"Impact on mental health and perceptions of psychological care among medical and nursing staff in Wuhan during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease outbreak: A cross-sectional study","volume":"87","author":"L Kang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Brain Behav Immun"},{"key":"pone.0256358.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e28318","DOI":"10.1002\/pbc.28318","article-title":"How young patients with cancer perceive the COVID-19 (coronavirus) epidemic in Milan, Italy: Is there room for other fears?","volume":"67","author":"M Casanova","year":"2020","journal-title":"Pediatr Blood Cancer"},{"key":"pone.0256358.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"249","DOI":"10.34172\/aim.2020.06","article-title":"COVID-19 and Iranian Medical Students; 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