COVID-19 media coverage on Spanish public TV

Abstract

The respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2 has affected over 100 countries during the last weeks. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic and since 31 December 2019, 201,315 deaths have been reported. The media has played a key role in providing information and making people aware of the situation during this emergency situation. This research seeks to examine the coronavirus media coverage on the Spanish public TV (TVE1). In order to achieve this goal, a content analysis based on the five stages of grief, an audience survey, and focus group interviews were conducted. The results have shown that coverage has undergone different phases. Accordingly, each of these stages has been perceived by the audience. Although both the audience and the experts appreciate the work of Spanish public television, the majority opinion is negative. In this regard, they state that it has not been impartial and there has been an excess of information. For researchers, these results provide important guidelines to increase the number of literature reviews by considering not only the news but also the audience and experts' perceptions.