Padrões de consumo de notícias em Portugal durante a pandemia de COVID-19

Abstract

The year 2019 was marked in human history by the spread of a public health crisis with the Covid-19 outbreak. On March 2nd, 2020, the first infection case appeared in Portugal. Like all over the world, the country, frightened, was confined to its homes. Present in the citizens' routine, and as the infectious disease evolved, journalistic action gained even more strength. The media assumed itself as a means to fight the virus, in an attempt to guide the population to the danger associated with SARS-CoV-2. Its impacts and limitations have awakened some needs in society, which, in sudden and acute events such as this, revealed a greater dependence on the news media system. In this dissertation, we sought to identify the news consumption patterns in Portugal during Covid-19, as well as to find out about the audiences’ news diets; ascertain the public’s perception of journalism's role in times of crisis; and, finally, determine the relationship of misinformation to individuals during this troubled period accompanied by an infodemic. The theoretical framework includes an overview of the pandemic effects in the media repertoires and the media landscape, with an emphasis on news media consumption; the role of journalism and the importance of health communication; and the challenges and measures to combat misinformation during this complex mega event. To answer the research question – “What were the news consumption patterns in Portugal during Covid-19?” - a quantitative methodology is used, based on a questionnaire survey. Our analysis corpus is composed of 416 individuals, aged from 16 years and residents in Portugal. Conclusions suggest that the current pandemic context contributed to the general increase in news consumption, with the digital press assuming itself as the dominant medium, contrary to television news which appears in second place. At the same time, journalistic performance is negatively evaluated by respondents at a time when they were more often confronted with misinformation.

Date of Award	30 Nov 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Catarina Duff Burnay (Supervisor)