Politics and Media: The Covid-19 Pandemic and its Discursive Public
Authors: Mwale Pascal Newbourne , Tamani Boniface , Chisi-Kasunda Tawina 
Published: October 2023

Public communication about the Covid-19 pandemic occurred at the intersection between the media and politics. The two realms, politics and media, have been critical in what the public has been given as ‘information’ about the pandemic in its evolution globally. This barrage of conflicting information ranges from the cause/s of the pandemic, its signs and symptoms, its side effects, its prevention and control measures, its purported cure/s, its vaccines, and its variants. As a result, a great deal of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and propaganda has been put across to the unwitting public. Media have been the channel of this problematic barrage of the public’s information about the pandemic. In a democracy, media constitute an arena for public deliberation and debate called the public sphere. However, we argue that in the case of the pandemic, mediatised communication has potentially been susceptible and vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. The overabundance of information about the pandemic in the media is termed infodemic. As vehicles of the infodemic, media have become a conduit for advancing a monological or one-sided view of the pandemic. Consequently, alternative interpretations (or unorthodox views) of the pandemic have been elided, summarily dismissed, or silenced, leading to the monological view about the pandemic, thereby generating what we characterise as ‘pandemic epistemicide.’ This epistemicide, we argue further, has exacerbated what we coin as ‘manufactured mass ignorance’ about the pandemic, leading to global vaccine hesitancyPublic communication about the Covid-19 pandemic occurred at the intersection between the media and politics. The two realms, politics and media, have been critical in what the public has been given as ‘information’ about the pandemic in its evolution globally. This barrage of conflicting information ranges from the cause/s of the pandemic, its signs and symptoms, its side effects, its prevention and control measures, its purported cure/s, its vaccines, and its variants. As a result, a great deal of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and propaganda has been put across to the unwitting public. Media have been the channel of this problematic barrage of the public’s information about the pandemic. In a democracy, media constitute an arena for public deliberation and debate called the public sphere. However, we argue that in the case of the pandemic, mediatised communication has potentially been susceptible and vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. The overabundance of information about the pandemic in the media is termed infodemic. As vehicles of the infodemic, media have become a conduit for advancing a monological or one-sided view of the pandemic. Consequently, alternative interpretations (or unorthodox views) of the pandemic have been elided, summarily dismissed, or silenced, leading to the monological view about the pandemic, thereby generating what we characterise as ‘pandemic epistemicide.’ This epistemicide, we argue further, has exacerbated what we coin as ‘manufactured mass ignorance’ about the pandemic, leading to global vaccine hesitancy.