How the media can help fight the flu: Medical coverage should focus more on preventing common ailments and less on rare diseases, deaths and hysteria (Article)
Title: How the media can help fight the flu: Medical coverage should focus more on preventing common ailments and less on rare diseases, deaths and hysteria
Author: E. Thomas Ewing
Abstract: This fall, millions of people will get their flu shots, take appropriate sanitary measures and stay home when they are sick. Public health experts will declare, and most media reports will confirm, that these steps will help individuals avoid contracting influenza while also preventing the spread of disease to others. Yet while this coverage may seem relatively mundane, it is a significant achievement. So many other types of medical reporting dominate health headlines: sensationalist accounts of sudden outbreaks, unusual examples of individual deaths and exaggerated cases of celebrities who become ill, among them. And this sort of coverage is dangerous.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/19/how-media-can-help-fight-flu/
Access Model: Newspaper Subscription
Format: Newspaper
Periodical Title: Washington Post
Publisher: Washington Post

An Epidemiology of Information: A Digging into Data Challenge Project (Web Resource)
Title: An Epidemiology of Information: A Digging into Data Challenge Project
Author: E. Thomas Ewing
Abstract: This project seeks to understand how newspapers shaped public opinion during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Using data mining techniques combined with historical and rhetorical analysis, we explore hundreds of newspaper titles, including those from Chronicling America at the United States Library of Congress and the Peel’s Prairie Provinces collection at the University of Alberta Library, to understand the flow of information about the spread and impact of disease.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/19271

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