After COVID, audiences demand less panic, more practical information from Ebola coverage - Poynter

Fear-based communication techniques fail to improve understanding of infectious disease outbreaks. Minimizing concerns can also harm public education and trust, because worried audiences may stop listening when officials or reporters dismiss their worries. Later detection of cases in a community can further erode trust. Coverage that emphasizes dramatic imagery and death-focused stories can frighten audiences without providing practical steps for protection. Coverage that repeatedly tells people their risk is low may be perceived as dismissive rather than reassuring. Effective outbreak communication should balance attention-grabbing reporting with useful prevention information and respectful engagement with public concerns.

"“Over and over we have used fear techniques to drive our communication,” said Wamburi, a Ph.D. behavioral specialist working for the Johns Hopkins for Communications based in Kenya. “And it doesn't work.”"

"Equally harmful to public education and trust are stories that minimize concerns. Recent headlines about Ebola tend to focus on reassurance: Your risk is low, don't panic, nothing to see here. While these stories are meant to be reassuring, they could be turning the audience away. When people are worried and they hear officials or reporters dismissing their concerns, they tend to stop listening. And then if cases of an infectious disease do turn up in their community at a later date, trust is further eroded."

"“The journalists run with what will make people drawn into reading a message or listening to a story. They are catching attention,” he said. “So they will go to a place with many deaths and take pictures and write scary stories. When there's a pandemic, people don't want to die, and people don't want their people to die as well, and they tend to look at how best can they change that.”"

"Both approaches seem educational, but they're not, Wamburi told me. Coverage that focuses on the drama of deaths rather than prevention leaves audiences frightened without giving them practical ways to protect themselves. And coverage that tells people their risk is minimal can be perceived as dismissive."

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