Are All the Media Saying the Same Thing About COVID-19? Agenda Setting in the Cuban Provincial Printed Press

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted journalistic practices at the international level, showing the need to bring contents closer to the audiences without causing information fatigue. In the Cuban case, the treatment of the pandemic and the general behavior of media agendas are unknown. For this purpose, a longitudinal study was carried out in which the media agendas of six Cuban provincial newspapers and the presence of 28 objects during the month of April 2020 and 2021 were analyzed. The study reveals elements that may indicate the cyclical nature of the topics in the agendas, as well as the lack of creativity expressed through the use of standardized news values and the performance of unoriginal works; reiteration in topics and subtopics, scarce variety of information sources and journalistic genres.