"This edited collection provides an in-depth, interdisciplinary critique of the acts of public communication disseminated during a major global crisis. Encompassing the work of international scholars, journalists and activists, the book offers an original insight into the relationship between the various social forces that contributed to the 'Covid narrative', analysing the performance of the media, the machinations of the private sector, the behaviour of the security state, the quality of public rhetoric, the dilemmas faced by workers thrust into the front line, the reappearance of racist and sexist discourses, and the response of those subjected to the much vaunted strictures of 'lockdown'. Power, Media, and the Covid-19 Pandemic is one of the first global comparative studies of public reaction to the virus, delving beneath established political tropes and state rhetoric, to identify the power relations that were exposed by an event that was described as unprecedented and unique, but was in fact comparable to other major global disruptions. As governments insisted on distinguishing their own propaganda from unregulated disinformation, their increasingly sceptical 'publics' pursued their own idiosyncratic solutions to the crisis, while the apparent sacrifice of a host of citizens - from the most dedicated to the most vulnerable - suggested that inequality and exploitation remained at the heart of the social order. Essential reading for both students and researchers of media, communication and journalism studies, cultural studies, discourse analysis, and sociology of health"-- Provided by publisher.
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