Inflation of crisis coverage? Tracking and explaining the changes in crisis labeling and crisis news wave salience 1785–2020

Abstract

Has there been an inflation in crisis coverage in newspapers over the last centuries, and if so, what structural factors drive this change? We utilize computational text analyses along with our own signal detection algorithm to measure the presence of crisis keywords and the emergence of crisis news waves. An analysis of crisis coverage in The Times (U.K., 1785–2020, 183,239 news stories) shows that the share of coverage that uses crisis keywords has increased, though not steadily. The number and salience of crisis news waves tied to discernible events has increased at a slower pace. The hypothesized driving forces—government expansion, mediatization of politics, and the activity of crisis frame sponsors—explain the development well and allow accurate predictions even when ignoring time in the forecasting model. Crisis coverage seems to reflect not so much the problems society faces, but society’s identity, priorities, and outlook on the world.