Threat and Efficacy in Television News: Reporting on an Emerging Infectious Disease

During an emerging infectious disease outbreak, television news becomes an important channel for communicating threat and efficacy information. In this study, we conduct a content analysis to assess the degree to which television news contained threat and efficacy information during the 2016 Zika virus outbreak. The results show significantly more threat information than efficacy information in broadcast news reports. Individual efficacy and collective efficacy information were communicated at approximately the same rate. These findings indicate a continued need for public health communicators to emphasize collective and individual efficacy information when communicating with the media.