Christian Vukasovich, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies presented at the National Communication Association’s 108th Annual Convention: Honoring PLACE: People, Liberation, Advocacy, Community, and Environment in New Orleans in November 2022. His paper, co-authored with AbouEl-Makarim Aboueissa, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at USM, Marko Kostic, Cristina Negoita, and Tamara Dejanovic-Vukasovich received a top paper award in the Public Relations Division.
The paper, entitled “How effectively did Health Canada frame their communication during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout?” investigated the impact of Health Canada news releases on print media coverage during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The team utilized a constructionist frame analysis to identify key messages. The analysis focused 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.
Vukasovich won top paper in 2020 in the Peace and Conflict Studies Division and in 2021 in the Critical and Cultural Studies Division.