Abstract
This study focuses on the changing meanings of COVID-19 in three prominent Dutch newspapers: De Telegraaf, De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad. We focus on the volatility of meanings, and how certain meanings stabilize and create a path dependence in how our society understands COVID-19. We combine a topic-model analysis of about 19,000 newspaper articles published from December 2019 to August 2020 with a qualitative content analysis. The results show how COVID-19 changes from an external threat to an internal risk, how COVID- 19’s meanings and categories-at-risk are dynamic, and how certain perspectives dominate the public debate at the expense of others. For example, the suffering of COVID-19 patients became secondary to the suffering of nonpatients and a probabilistic, administrative perspective on the virus. Such dominant definitions of the problem are directed by the government’s policy. There is also critique. We see that newspapers’ attention for Viruswaanzin, Viruswaarheid, and Red Team rises in the summer of 2020, although their coverage is then still quite marginal. We expect that these organizations are part of new social movements which can increasingly gain importance and form an interesting area for new research.
How to Cite
Wilderom, R., Bröer, C. & van Rijsewijk, M., (2021) “Van geheimzinnig buitenlands virus naar binnenlands systemisch risico: een studie naar de veranderende frames over COVID-19”, Tijdschrift Sociologie 2, 12–42. doi: https://doi.org/10.38139/TS.2021.03
