ABSTRACT
Media of all types shape our reaction to disasters and influences our knowledge, perceptions, and understanding of fears of risks in our world. It is important to note the discourse of fear, as the messages spread through the media lead to concrete actions based on the decisions made by government officials, pressured at the same time by the citizens. This chapter illustrates how people use media in an attempt to “make sense” and gather meaning of both the Ebola Crises (2013–2016) and the COVID-19 Crisis (2020) as emergent knowledge during a public health crisis to meet their information needs. Recognizing that pandemics occur in a real-time disaster landscape, against this backdrop, the chapter analyzes media narratives via risk society theory to understand how media coverage of health risks related to Ebola and COVID-19 shapes information used by individuals and institutions. Furthermore, this chapter examines how messages relate to risk-perception to support individual risk assessment and decision-making when faced with ambiguity during public health crises in a world of uncertainty.
