Visual content published by the press during a health crisis: The case of ebola, spain, 2014

Abstract

Considering the scarce number of studies in this sphere, the objective is to analyze the visual content published by the press during the health crisis of Ebola in Spain, which caused great alarm in that society in 2014. In a sample of Spanish newspapers, visual content was identified in 92% (n=160) of the articles about Ebola and in 87.5% (n=14) of front pages. Photography was the most used resource (69.2%), followed by graphs (9.2%) and infographics (8.8%), while ‘conflict’ was the most frequent framing (42%). A rapid increase in the use of visual content was detected in the first two days of the crisis, followed by a gradual decrease from the fifth day onwards (p <0.001). This study can open new research paths for further investigation of visual content, especially during a health crisis, due to the great importance communication acquires in this situation.