HEALTH COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY THE MEDIA DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS: CASE OF ZIMBABWE BROADCASTING CORPORATION TELEVISION (ZBC –TV)

Kimberley Sarah Muchetwa, Ephraim Maruta, Hilda Jaka, Joyman Ruvado, Evans Chazireni

Abstract


The paper reports findings from a study that explored health communication strategies employed by the media on the state of preparedness by the Zimbabwean government during the COVID 19 crisis by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television (ZBC-TV). The study adopted secondary data analysis. Data were collected using secondary sources. The study was influenced by the framing theory. The study found out that ZBC-TV used songs, road shows, commercial ads, dramas, musical shows on reporting the pandemic. The archival documents also revealed that ZBC-TV have used periodical updates as health communication strategies to educate the public about COVID 19. ZBC-TV also used Facebook showing staff from the Office of the President and Cabinet receiving the Covid 19 vaccine at the same time applauding positive response from Harare Metropolitan Province as front line workers surpassed the target under the first phase of Covid-19 vaccine roll out plan. The study concluded that the health communication strategies employed by ZBC-TV have been effective in increasing the societal awareness about health issues. ZBC-TV managed to reach out to the masses using both the television and by making use of the new media communication technologies. However, press censorship has been a challenge in publishing information concerning COVID 19 as the media house is not allowed to publish anything that tarnishes the image of the government. It is based on such evidence that the study concludes that ZBC-TV at some point distorted information to paint the picture that the government is doing all it can to contain the spread of COVID 19 and ensuring the safety of the public. The study recommends that the ministry should ensure freedom of information publicity, in which media houses, including ZBC-TV is not controlled by any political party of government. The government should also privatise ZBC-TV so that it will be answerable to the public and not few government officials.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


health communication strategies, Covid-19 crisis, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation

Full Text:

PDF

References


Achalu EI (2008). Communication skills in Health Education and Methods & Resources. Port Harcourt. Pam Unique.

Akhtar. I. (2016). Research Design. Research in Social Science: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Edition: 1st, Chapter: Research Design, pp.17

Arowolo, Sunday. (2017). Understanding Framing Theory. 10.13140/RG.2.2.25800.52482.

Beato J., Richrdo R., Jana T. (2013). Communication as an important component of Environmental Health Services. Journal of Environmental Health 73: 24-25.

Boyle, M. H. (2016). The use of waitlists as control conditions in anxiety disorders research. Journal of psychiatric research, 83, 112-120.

Brown, T. J., & Suter, T. A. (2014). Basic marketing research : Learning basic marketing research customer insights and managerial action (8th ed). London, Sage publishers.

Cacciattolo, M. (2015). Ethical Considerations in Research. In: Vicars M., Steinberg S., McKenna T., Cacciattolo M. (eds) The Praxis of English Language Teaching and Learning (PELT). Critical New Literacies (The Praxis of English Language Teaching and Learning (Pelt)). Sense Publishers, Rotterdam

Capello, Fabio & Baraldini, Laura & Battino, & Bertolotti, Marco & Bonomini, Mauro & Bovo, Daniele & Britti, Domenico& Caruso, Lorenzo & Castiglione, Gaetano & Casu, Gavino & Cevenini, Matteo & Arrigo, F & Cicero, Arrigo & Cipolla, Maurizio & Cipriani, Gabriele & Dentali, Francesco & Dimilta, Michela & Fagioli, Clara & Soledad, Maria & Gaddi, Antonio (2020). Risk communication at the time of Coronavirus: are we washing our hand of COVID-19. 10.13140/RG.2.2.36000.53766.

Car J. (2017). E-Health in the future of medications management: personalization, monitoring and adherence. BMC Medicine; 15(2), 73-89.

Catalán-Matamoros D. (2011). The role of mass media communication in public health. Health Management Different Approaches and Solutions, 2(1), 140-165

Cohen, B. (2015). Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(1), 29-49.

Creswell, J. W. (2015). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches (3rded), California, Sage Publications.

Cuneo, C., Sollom, R., & Beyrer, C. (2017). The Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe, 2008–2009: A Review and Critique of the Evidence. Health and Human Rights, 19(2), 249-264. Retrieved June 17, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/90016130

Etikan, I., Musa, S. A. and Alkassim, R. S. (2016).Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), 1-4.

Fiske J. (1990). Introduction to Communication Studies, Routledge, London

Ford, N., Williams, R., Renshaw, M. & Nkum, J. (2005). Communication strategy for implementing community IMCI. Journal of Health Communication 10(5), 379-401.

Free C. (2010). The effectiveness of M-health technologies for improving health and health services: a systematic review protocol. BMC Research Notes 2010; 3(2), 243- 250.

Gill, Paul & Stewart, Kate & Treasure, Elizabeth & Chadwick, Barbara (2008). Methods of data collection in qualitative research: Interviews and focus groups. British dental journal. 204. 291-5. 10.1038/bdj.2008.192.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York, NY et al.: Harper & Row.

Gorny, M. (2009). From the old-fashioned library to the public library: Changes in the cultural functions of Polish academic libraries. In Advances in Library Administration and Organization. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Grilli R, Craig R, Silvia M (2002). Mass media interventions: effects on health services utilization. The Cochrane Library, 2002.

Homa, T. (2020). Joy and Sadness in Spiritual Life According to St. Ignatius of Loyola. A Hermeneutic Study (Part I). Perspektywykultury, 47, 87.

Khandpur R., S. (2017). Telemedicine technology and applications (M-Health, Telehealth and E-Health). PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.

Lunga, C. M., & Musvipwa, R. (2021). Analysing How Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC-TV) and Eswatini TV (ESTV) Are Adapting to the Digital Era. Television in Africa in the Digital Age, 189-210.

Makurumidze R., Coronavirus-19 Disease (COVID-19): A case series of early suspects reported and the implications towards the response to the pandemic in Zimbabwe, Journal of Microbiology, Immunology and Infection, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmii.2020.04.002.

Mass Communication Theory (Online). (2017, January 31). Framing Theory. Retrieved from Mass Communication Theory: https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/framing-theory/

Mhiripiri N., M. & Ureke, O. (2018) Theoretical Paradoxes of Representation and the Problems of Media Representations of Zimbabwe in Crisis, Critical Arts, 32:5-6, 87-103, DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2018.1548026

Mhiripiri, N. A., & Midzi, R. (2020). Fighting for survival: persons with disabilities’ activism for the mediatisation of COVID-19 information. Media International Australia.

Naderifar, Mahin & Goli, Hamideh & Ghaljaei, Fereshteh (2017). Snowball Sampling: A Purposeful Method of Sampling in Qualitative Research. Strides in Development of Medical Education. In Press. 10.5812/sdme.67670.

O’Connell. J., Carlton. J., Grundy. A., and Buck. E. T. (2018). The Importance of Content and Face Validity in Instrument Development: Lessons Learnt from Service Users when Developing the Recovering Quality of Life Measure (Reqol)

Pe Aguirre, L. (2018). The psychology of entertainment media: Blurring the lines between entertainment and persuasion. Taylor & Francis.

Saraf R., A., and Balamurugan J. (2018). The Role of Mass Media in Health Care Development: A Review Article. Journal of Advance Research in Journalism and Mass Communication 2018; 5(1&2): 39-43.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill, A. (2019). Research methods for business students- fifth edition. Pearson Education Limited

Schwarzkopf, S. (2008). Discovering the consumer: Market research, product innovation, and the creation of brand loyalty in Britain and the United States in the inter-war years, Journal of Business Research, London: University of London, 35(3), 337-350.

Singh, Gaurav & Pandey, Nity (2017). Role And Impact of Media on Society: A Sociological Approach with Respect to Demonetisation. 10.13140/RG.2.2.36312.39685.

Theofanidis, Dimitrios, & Fountouki, Antigoni (2019). Limitations and Delimitations in the Research Process. Perioperative nursing (GORNA), E-ISSN: 2241-3634, 7(3), 155–162. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2552022

Watkins, J. (2015). The effects of an extensive reading programme. Cambridge English Language Assessment, London: Cambridge, 3(2), 61-70.

Zohrabi, M. (2013). Mixed method research: Instruments, validity, reliability and reporting findings, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Finland, Academy Publisher, 3(2), 254-262.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v6i6.1132

Copyright (c) 2021 Kimberley Sarah Muchetwa, Ephraim Maruta, Hilda Jaka, Joyman Ruvado, Evans Chazireni

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2016 - 2023. European Journal Of Social Sciences Studies (ISSN 2501-8590) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.