INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL PANDEMIC ON MEDIA CONSUMPTION.
Media are communication outlets used to deliver information to its users. There can be many sources for delivery of information. The source which would be discussed in the scope of this paper is electronic media. Electronic media incudes news channels, broadcasting, social websites, advertisements and cinema. The intention of electronic media is to raise awareness among their consumers. During the current pandemic media had a very important role to play. It had to raise awareness of the situation. It was responsible for educating people about virus and how can one protect himself against it. Target audience of media re people who are not well educated about the current developing scenarios. During the pandemic target audience for media were people who were not related to the medical fields. People who could not understand the technical language used in different scientific research papers.
During the first quarter Governments all over the world started imposing lockdowns, companies sent their employees to home and ordered them to work from home. As people had more time to stay at home the usage of media escalated. Coronavirus hastened the usage of live streaming and video chats (Samet, 2020). The pandemic changed lifestyle of people in such a way the media became an essential part of life. Even kids were forced to interact with media in a manner which they were not used to of. Shutting down of the schools compelled the authorities to introduce new ways of learning. Educational activities of students were transferred to media. Zoom, google meet and other educational channels were introduced to ensure healthy learning activities of children.
Before the pandemic such teaching style was only limited to some high-end schools of developed countries only. Schools of developing countries relied on old and conventional methods of teaching, which did not include usage of media. The lockdown made students use media as a mean for their education. Although university and college students were already using different forms of media for educational purposes but it was rarely used by primary and lower secondary school students. Educational institutes found positive results of this usage of media, it proved to parents that media can be used by children for something positive.
Usage of media was not only increasing among children; the media consumption habits of adults also changed. Most of the adults were curious about the developing situations and hence more frequently switched on to different news channels to get the latest updates. People were becoming more and more curious about the developing stories. As the demand from media outlets was increasing, they were pushed into a race for ratings. Human psychology says human minds are always attracted to somethings which are flashy ad catching to the eye. This provoked the media teams to come up with absurd headline titles. All of the news outlets were indulged in a race to keep their viewers updated. Target group of news channels were people who were eagerly waiting for their life to return to normal and economic activates to resume.
The current scenario made media to publish news without proper investigation about their authenticity. According to a research 20–26% of YouTube videos released during the pandemic were misleading (H.O.Y. Li, 2020). Indian government had to ask social media sites to stop publishing false news as they created panic (Arzaz Ramzan Ahmed, 2020). According to European Union Russian media had portrayed significant disinformation campaign about COVID-19 to create panic in Europe (Emmott, 2020). People are attracted towards negativity and media was using this factor to play with the human brains. Media tried to over sensualize the situation for their rating which created panic among the people. This gave rise to negative aspects of consumption behavior; people were falling for a trap which effected their mental health.
Misinformation was not only related to over sensualized news. The fake treatments and cures were also being aired on media without proper verification from health departments. This misinformation led to people buying and taking drugs without medical consultant’s prescription (J.Y. Cuan-Baltazar, 2020). People were eager to get their life back to normal. People were believing everything that was thrown at them. Media plays with the human psyche; they make people believe in everything they present in crisis situation. Target audience for these types of news were small Businessmen and entrepreneurs who were eager to get back to work. Among these people unhealthy media consumption habits had developed. People started believing in news without verifying them. The media person also became irresponsible, in a race of getting TRPs they lost their path and sense of responsibility.
Media channels and sources also created polarity among different groups of people. Media outlets of one country were trying to blame other countries for the spread of the coronavirus. It became a cyber-warfare, with different countries blaming each other for bioweapon attacks. Many of the western countries were blaming China for the Outbreak. Even President Trump accused World Health Organization (WHO) of being responsible for the outbreak (Dawn kopecki, 2020). US government accused WHO to have sided with china to hide essential information from rest of the world. As the vires continued to spread political leader in many countries seized on a different question, who to blame? (Wang, 2020). The media and governments did not act responsibly. Political differences greatly affect some of people. Such news and articles were published to cater such people. Negative media consumption behavior was promoted among such group of people. They were made to hate other countries and races on the basis of allegations which had no prove. Although media was used to spread hatred and racism for many years, but the pandemic and blame game just aggravated it more. According to researchers such articles and news sources intensified racism, fear, stigma, unconstructive and threatening behavior (G. Ippolito, 2020).
Irresponsible behavior of media made another group of people to become prominent on media. Conspiracy theorist took on media to promote different anti-vaccine and anti-masks campaign. According to Facebook 90 million pieces of content were given warning for spreading misinformation regarding false cures, anti-vaccines and conspiracy theories (BBC, 2020). During the pandemic social media and electronic media sites were trying to catch everyone. Target audience for such media outlets were people who could be easily exploited politically and socially. However, the pandemic did not bring any change to media consumption of such group of people. Even before the pandemic such group of people had unhealthy media consumption habits and they did not change during the pandemic, they only changed form. However, these outlets were also affecting people who were not the part of conspiracy theorist groups. Media was creating confusion among the people regarding who to believe and who not to believe. Conspiracy beliefs about covid-19 had a negative impact on individual responses (ZapanBarua, 2020).
Media also attacked the religious sentiments of people during the pandemic. Many religious scholars spread misinformation on media that their faith can save them from COVID-19. Scholars used media to spread misinformation regarding the spread of virus by attacking the sentiments of people. Some of the scholars claimed that they can cure the virus through the power of their faith while the others claimed that mass prayers should continue despite the surge in coronavirus cases. Religion has been providing people with sense of security throughout history, they can play both productive and counterproductive roles during the pandemic (R. Djalante, 2020). However due to the unhealthy media consumption habits which had developed during the pandemic, people had started to use religion as a misguiding tool. Religious scholars who present their ideas using different media means have dual sense of responsibility but crisis situation can get real test of people. Crisis situation is a test for media to reflect that what is more important to them their responsibility or their ratings.
Overall, it can be concluded that the pandemic had a negative influence on the consumption habits of the people. According to some researcher’s media coverage has highlighted COVID-19 as a threat rather, which has added to panic stress (Depoux A, 2020). Media consumption habits of people have made them skeptic of the reality. These habits have portrayed to have negative influence on human behavior and psyche. Consumption behavior made the people to leave the middle ground and start supporting either of the two polarities. Some group of people started to panic and feared the virus unnecessary while the other started supporting the conspiracy theories. The global pandemic influenced media consumption behavior negatively. Although the consumption escalated but with that the responsibility in consuming the media avalanched even more steeply.
Society uses media to bridge the communication gaps (Sharma, 2016). Media protects public interest and creates awareness (Murtaza, 2019). When it comes to consumption of media both presenters and viewers share equal responsibility. Presenters have responsibility to be authentic and viewers also have a responsibility to search about authenticity of the news they hear. Improvements can be made by online streaming sites. Demand for streaming sights has greatly increased during pandemic as people have more free time. This can be used for positive results. Infect TV shows and movies are increasing in popularity on Netflix (Jones, 2020). It can be concluded that online streaming sights have indulged positive consumption behavior
