THE DISINFECTANT DIVERSION: FRAMING STRATEGIES OF PARTISAN MEDIA IN INTERPRETING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Following the rise of Donald Trump leading up to 2016 US presidential election, political communication scholars have turned a critical eye towards role conservative media outlets in construction an overarching meta-narrative, largely referred existing literature as “deep story” (Hochschild, 2016). The aim present study extend this seminal work analyze how mainstream, conservative, and liberal rely on meta-narratives construct meaning their coverage COVID-19 pandemic. Employing qualitative methods, we that six American news afforded April 23rd 2020 Coronavirus Task Force briefing, where President insinuated injections disinfectant could be useful way fight COVID-19. Our analysis includes 115 articles, 41 Facebook posts 87 television clips from these outlets. results reveal both left right wing systems employed narratives coverage. left-wing heavily emphasized tendency deny or argue scientific fact among conservatives. In contrast, observed right-wing constantly used similar framing strategies attempt vilify liberals. Considering (Kreiss, 2018: Poletta & Callahan, 2019), many instances pundits journalists relied previously established heuristics, cuing audiences perceive elitist out discredit Trump. findings provide in-depth partisan relies convey audiences.