Osasun-krisiei buruzko gizarte-irudikapenaka gripearen kasua Mexiko eta Espainiako hedabideetan

Résumé

The 2009 swine flu was a pandemic influenza involving H1N1 virus. This paper studies how the mass media have treated this issue by analyzing the largest circulation newspapers in Mexico and Spain. According to the Collective Symbolic Coping (CSC), and based on the Social Representation Theory, when an object enters the public sphere grabbing the attention of the media, the public adopts it and share a common understanding. First, a positive correlation between the coverage of the outbreak and influenza-infected and the representation of health as a problem was found. Secondly, the ALCESTE software identifies the steps of the CSC model. Thirdly, patterns of social representations about health epidemics were repeated. Implications for research on social representations and media coverage and to cope with threatening health crisis are discussed.