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Article ID: 696

Communicating COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the media: Insight from Nigerian newspapers

by Joshua Aghogho Erubami, Kasiari Jessica Egbon, Vera Chinyere Olu

Insight - News Media, Vol.8, No.1, 2025; 31 Views

Many people rely on newspapers for their health information needs, making this mass medium a critical tool for disseminating and receiving information during public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates how COVID-19 vaccination programs were reported by leading Nigerian newspapers to ascertain the prominence and sources of COVID-19 vaccination newspaper articles and the principal discursive resources deployed in the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria. The study adopted the purposive sampling technique to select 168 newspaper editions drawn from a population of 4380 issues published by four leading Nigerian dailies ( Vanguard, The Guardian, The Punch and Nigerian Tribune ) from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2023. The study utilizes quantitative content analysis to ascertain the contributions of the four national tabloids towards the management of COVID-19 health emergencies. Findings show that COVID-19 vaccines-related discourse were prominently covered by the newspapers and the domestic sourcing pattern was utilized in curating information contained in newspaper articles on COVI-19 vaccination. Furthermore, vaccine acceptance/uptake, public perception, and vaccine hesitancy were the dominant discursive resources deployed by the newspapers in the coverage of the issue. Hence, the study recommends the continuous engagement of national newspapers in the management of future public health emergencies.