Framing economic crisis: Newspaper coverage during COVID-19 in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study examines how Bangladeshi media frame the economic uncertainty of coronavirus (COVID-19) to understand the absolute scenario of an economic crisis or a disaster through the dominant frames. When keeping people constantly informed through the message of the media, the most important matter is not what is portrayed, but how it is portrayed. Using the content analysis approach, the author intends to analyze a total of 296 editorials and op-ed items in The Prothom Alo, The Daily Star, and The Financial Express from March 26 to August 3, 2020. Using the ‘Media framing theory’, six major frames are used to analyze the data. This article finds out that ‘crisis’ and ‘fear’ frames dominated the media coverage of the pandemic. Based on the linguistic analysis, this paper also finds that the economic issues of COVID-19 have been over-focused, in some cases the newspapers sidelined the focus from ‘health crisis’ to ‘national economic crisis’. The language of the coverage of economic contents combines hope, human issues, frustration, and social responsibility at varied proportions. The article suggests that the media could mitigate the crisis by not politicizing the economic issues; rather the journalists should focus on highlighting the solution to surpass the economic crisis and help the authority to implement proper policies for keeping the country’s economic conditions safe.