Assistant Professor of Communication, Christian Vukasovich has a paper that has been accepted in the Canadian Journal of Communication.
Vukasovich and co-authors Cristina Negoita (Oregon Tech), Abou El-Makarim Aboueissa (USM), Marko N. Kostic (Durham College), and Tamara Dejanovic-Vukasovich (independent scholar) have studied the impact of Health Canada news releases on print media coverage during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout utilizing a constructionist frame analysis to identify key messages. The analysis focuses on seven frames related to the vaccination rollout: safety and efficacy, global accessibility, domestic accessibility, distribution logistics, distribution timeline, continued preventative measures, and vaccine mistrust.
The authors found missed opportunities for public health behavior frames in Health Canada press releases, significant differences in the framing of the vaccine between communiques and news reports, and a lack of agenda setting effect based upon the proportion of frames carried over.