Correspondence is of foremost significance in reacting to public health emergencies. The media coverage is the primary source for so many Americans and citizens around the world, looking to find out the next big thing. The media is of the most influential when it comes to this because it is most people’s only source of education of current topics. Media is one of the biggest influencers to culture, and in Gramsci’s work in "Socialism and Culture," (1916) Gramsci critiqued “the habit of thinking that culture is encyclopedic knowledge. . . . This form of culture serves to create that pale and broken-winded intellectual- ism . . . which has produced a whole crowd of boasters and daydreamers more harmful to a healthy social life.” (Sontag, 1997:75) This way of thinking is problematic in the sense of not having a lot of critical thinking when listening to content in the media can have a lot a negative consequences. They are a scope into what is occurring in different parts of the world, offering a window, and often, a certain perspective while informing about a current multinational event.
In the news and society as a whole, metaphors are used as comparisons to better understand the subject at hand. Metaphor, as such, isn't only a usually utilized logical gadget; it additionally impacts people's basic decisions on their view points. This result eventually welcomes bigger discussions and dialogue. Metaphors are commonly used in the media to put a certain frame on news but is also present in the medical world as well. It is important to identify such metaphors and to recognize bias in order to develop unbiased opinions. Furthermore, Sontag iterates how disease imagery is utilized to vocalize worry for social order, and health is something everybody is believed to have some arbitrary knowledge in. Some metaphors don't portray the contemporary thought of a particular sickness, in which what is at issue is wellbeing itself. (Sontag, 1977:72)
Contemporary metaphors in the medical world will often suggest a loss of stability or equilibrium between a person and society, with society conceived as the individual’s adversary. (Sontag, 1977:73) Additionally concerning the patient’s viewpoint, as Susan Sontag states “… the modern disease metaphors are all cheap shots. The people who have the real disease are also hardly helped by hearing their disease's name constantly being dropped as the epitome of evil.” (Sontag, 1977: 85) This can seem to be very damaging to ill patient’s psyche, if one is thought to have such an evil illness they can feel such disdain from their society, developing the feeling of alienation and isolation. Even if being treated, the patient may feel unwanted from their own society; an outcast.
One could argue that the use of metaphors to describe the 2014-2016 outbreak of ebola almost mirror the effect Meira Weiss elaborated in her article, “Signifying the Pandemics: Metaphors of AIDS, Cancer, and Heart Disease” that the use of cultural metaphors are as Weiss stated are “”beyond culture” in that they represent as universal, crossing national/regional borders and symbolic demarcations of “risk groups,” and transforming and polluting images of the human body.” (Weiss, 1997: 457)
News articles from 2014 describe the incident as “unprecedented” (Nairobi 2014: n/a). This implies the idea that the country was unprepared for such an epidemic, and being unprepared for something indicates a case of insecurity and unknowing of the outcome. The audience reading this article may feel a sense of helplessness if they internalize the statement of an “unprecedented” illness because if the medical community of which they depend on for disease eradication, is unprepared for such an illness they may feel like the responsibility of protecting themselves is on their shoulders.
In an online article by The Wall Street Journal, the world was described as “dangerously ill-unprepared” and describes the infected areas with the ebola virus as “stricken” (Gottlieb, 2014: n/a). In a CNN article titled, “Ebola virus: Can nations stop deadliest ever outbreak from spreading?” it is stated that, “the World Health Organization has warned that “drastic action” is needed …” (Smith-Spark, 2014: n/a)The descriptive language used in these articles by popular new outlets insinuate more severity to the situation as a whole, making the news articles invoke more of a panic feeling that what is factually supported.
Another problematic metaphor portrayed by news databases is describing the disease Ebola as a deity or a person itself. Language explaining how to prevent the spread of Ebola was stated as “stopping the killer in its tracks”, or that the disease itself is a “violent killer” (Smith-Spark, 2014:n/a) over exaggerating the potential effect and the disease’s strength itself describing it as some kind of murderer entity as opposed to a viral disease. The humanization of such a disease gives the reader a more relation to the disease as opposed to thinking of it more as just a infectious disease. The humanization of a disease puts a more dangerous killer image into the reader’s minds, implying it to be more dangerous and uncontrollable like the characteristics of a cereal killer. The effect of the humanization of the ebola virus may cause certain anxieties in individuals similar to protecting themselves against a murderer rather than an illness when such language is used.
Evidence of the media impact of civilians’ perception toward the ebola virus outbreak had come to attention when a Poll conducted by the U.S Gallop in October 2014 uncovered that just about one in four of Americans said they stressed in regards to getting the Ebola infection, while a less rate said they stressed in regards to getting H1N1 (swine influenza infection) amid the greater part of its flare-up (Dugan, 2014: n/a) Furthermore, nearly 66% of respondents in this survey said they thought there would be a minor flare-up of Ebola in the United States (Dugan, 2014: n/a).
When headlines and news stories about a disease are over exaggerated, there’s no parameters on how the public will take it. The ebola virus outbreak made its way to every classroom and news station and subsequently to social media. The dangerous cycle of news media to social network feeds off the attention from the public. If social media blows up about a topic, the news networks continue to follow for the purpose of more attention of the public, in order to attain higher ratings of course. The excess of information about the epidemic of ebola caused a false reality perceived by consumers of news outlets and the general public to think they have bigger problems on their hands than reality which creates panic and chaos. In other words, the process distorts the public’s perception of it’s uncertainty . The social and political settings of infectious ailment plagues are caught in the casing media communications utilize to announce stories about developing maladies. In the event that the media influenced these respondents' dispositions toward Ebola, they unmitigatedly neglected to precisely represent the risk.
It is always important to be a critical thinker of any content that is presented and to question the credibility. It is critical for the public to practice questioning news sources and recognizing hidden bias within the headlines. If civilians can be successful in thinking more critically and analysing news media for what they are, society would move towards a more objective nature.