COVID-19 telephone contact tracing in Flanders as a “contested” new genre of conversation: Discrepancies between interactional practice and media image

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium, most COVID-19-related information was communicated to public through mainstream media such as newspaper outlets, television, and radio. These had substantial influence over which (widely) distributed how this framed, subsequently shaping citizens' interpretations of matters concerning pandemic. This chapter considers one government's endeavors contain pandemic: telephone contact tracing. Specifically, we compare image tracing generated by with de facto interactional practice. We report on analyses made part a 1 year applied conversation analytic pragmatic study conducted at Ghent University Antwerp collaboration Flemish Agency Health Care. Methodologically, use thematic content analysis examine portrayal widespread newspapers its evolution throughout then our corpus 170 recorded, transcribed, interactionally analyzed calls. Our results demonstrate media's does not align various (interactional) functions calls identified study. argue that one-sided, distorted produced may have considerable consequences for efficacy tracing, especially because call new genre conversation. It introduced almost exclusively and, same time, success relied voluntary participation, trust, willingness share private information.