Media Narratives and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Shubhda Arora is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India. She is a media sociologist with research interests in Gender, Environmental and Disaster Communication. She has authored research papers and book chapters exploring ideas of Vulnerability and Social Inequality. Keval J. Kumar is an Adjunct Professor at MICA, India. Earlier, he was a Reader at Pune University and Director of SIMC. He is the author of Mass Communication in India (5th Edition), Media Education, Communication and Public Policy, and has contributed to the International Encyclopaedia of Media Literacy and The Handbook of Media Education Research.

List of Illustrations

Contributors

Introduction

Shubhda Arora and Keval J. Kumar

Part I

Missing and Marginalized Narratives

1 Unrest in the Comments: Voicing the Discontent of Japan’s Foreign Residents in the Comments Sections of Japan Today

Christopher J. Hayes

2 Gender, Media and the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Investigation into Missing Gendered Narratives in Indian News Media

Shipra Raj

3 The Mask Dilemma: Hierarchy between Two Know-Hows in Chinese-Language Media of Canada

Grace Cheng-Ying Lin

4 Missing Media Narratives: Covid’s Impact on Transgender Population in India

Shubhda Chaudhary

Part II

Media Memory and Narratives

5 Masked Presence: Covid-19 and Remembering SARS in Taiwan

Jacob F. Tischer

6 Familial Halcyon: Narratives of Nostalgia in the Lockdown

Azania Imtiaz Patel

Part III

Media Bias and Propaganda

7 Taiwan Can Help: Covid-19, the Model Minority State, and the Limits of Taiwan-as-Beacon Rhetoric

Jamin D. Shih

8 The Myths of Hate: Digital Deception in the (Communal) Times of Covid-19

Saesha Kini and G. Gyanesh

9 Risk Communication versus Risks in Communication: Efforts of Vietnam Government in Controlling Messages during Covid-19 Pandemic

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen and Nguyen Thanh Mai

10 Modern Hua Mulans in Global Chinese-Speaking Media: Female Frontline Workers as Tools of Propaganda during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Ashley Liu and Shuyue Yang

Part IV

Mainstream and Alternative Narratives

11 Confronting Anti-Asian Bias in the Classroom: Reflections on the Importance of Asian and Asian American Studies in the Wake of Covid-19

Meghan Cai and Kimberly D. McKee

12 From a Story of Disaster to a Story of Victory: Chinese Media Reports in the Covid-19 Crisis

Runya Qiaoan and Beatrice Gallelli

13 The Covid-19 Pandemic: News Reporting in Malaysia

Normahfuzah Ahmad, Awan Ismail and Norsiah Abdul Hamid

Part V

Narratives of Othering

14 Viral Vilification

Gita V. Pai

15 Pandemics, Politics and Religious ‘Others’: Exploring Media Narratives during Covid-19 in India and Pakistan

Laraib Niaz

Part VI

Social Media Narratives

16 Social Media and Vietnamese Undocumented Workers in Thailand during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Anthony Le Duc

17 Representations of Covid-19 in West Asia: A Case Study of Islamic Republic News Agency’s (IRNA) Instagram Account

Hamideh Molaei and Maziar Mozaffari Falarti

18 Don’t Panic! Reach Us: Indian Tech Unions’ Social Media Narratives during the Pandemic

Rianka Roy