ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the seven main challenges faced by media and communication researchers in the pandemic: methodological, time, thematic, ethical, organisational, publication as well as the purely human. Each challenge is analysed on the basis of concrete examples, taking into account both dilemmas and doubts, and including possible solutions and recommendations.
To identify the main challenges a review of scholarly publications in the field of media and communication studies on the relationship between the media and the COVID-19 pandemic was performed using Google Scholar search results of selected keywords from publications that appeared between March and August 2020.
Social science was characterised by a moderate pace of collective reaction, especially compared to health-related science. Media and communication scholars have not taken up the challenge of building a research agenda for the first global health crisis in the century.
