Since early 2020 the coronavirus pandemic has been creating huge health policy, economic and social challenges for the international community. In this setting, international solidarity and cooperation are imperative. Whether and to what extent people support development cooperation measures depends amongst other things on media reporting. As most people do not come into contact with development-policy issues in their daily lives, the media play an important role in forming their opinions.
Since the beginning of 2020 the coronavirus pandemic has been dominating media reporting, and displacing numerous other issues in the process. At the same time, the pandemic is a global challenge that offers opportunities to link it with reporting on aspects of development cooperation. Against this backdrop, in its Opinion Monitor for Development Policy 2021 (Schneider et al., 2021) DEval pursued the following questions: What role did
development-related content play in media reporting during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic? Did the issues in connection with which reporting on development took place change during the pandemic? And what are the implications of this for development actors?
The analyses are based on TV news produced by public service broadcasters, national and regional daily and weekly newspapers, and the short messaging service Twitter. They focus on the period from January to June 2020.
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Source: Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (DEval), 22 November 2021